About
Test Plot builds experimental restoration gardens that are responsive to site, community, and resources. Our mission is to build a land ethic based on cultural care and ecological stewardship.
We begin by partnering with land managers, design professionals, and community members to grow “Test Plots” on degraded land. Through these plots, we establish longer term, care-based relationships between communities and public lands.
Please Join Us!
Community Members: Help us tend our plots. Join one of our volunteer groups or inquire about starting your own. Get to know your neighbors, learn landcare skills, and play an active role in solving the climate and biodiversity crises.
Community Scientists: All our plots are iNaturalist projects which you can view under Test Plot Umbrella. Please join our projects and add to the observations so that we can continue document the diversity of flora and fauna.
Land Managers: Hire us to design and care for a restoration plot. Invest in testing maintenance and stewardship practices.
Designers & Professionals: All projects should start with a Test Plot.
Bring us onto your team to test ideas that can be later deployed at a larger scale. Our innovative approach combines community stewardship, experimental restoration design and land-based research.
University of Southern California Students: Take our Test Plot fall elective Arch546, taught by Alex Robinson, which is open to all students across the university.
Our Process
Test Plot seeks to repair urban parks and landscapes that are ecologically degraded, under-funded and in need of care and attention. As experienced professionals in community engagement, landscape design, maintenance, and monitoring, we help local residents become active, ongoing stewards and build knowledge by testing planting strategies, maintenance practices, and models of stewardship.
Through a Test Plot project we develop an agreement with the land manager, engage community, and develop a multi-year planting strategy based around a series of “tests.” After the initial installation, we establish ongoing stewardship programs like monthly workdays, successional planting, regenerative practices, and educational programs. To support continued monitoring, we’ve developed a curriculum of observational metrics that can be used to evaluate and understand the function of the plot.
Why Test Plot
We believe in the incredible power of forming community around and with plants. We believe that our ecological and climate crises require a repairing of our kinship with our lands, a return to the commons, and to care.
Our Story
The first plot was started in 2019 by the landscape firm Terremoto and the gardening group Saturate in Elysian Park, Los Angeles, and given the moniker “test plot.” The test? How to establish a robust native ecology and create a patch of beauty with minimal inputs. After this proof of concept, the plotters asked: what would this look like in other sites with other communities? How could the model adapt and be responsive in different neighborhoods across LA? From that simple idea, the test plot network was born. The group began building a coalition of designers, scientists, gardeners, and community members and developed an academic partnership with the USC Department of Landscape and Urbanism within the Landscape Justice Initiative. Test Plot has since become a nonprofit led by Jen Toy, Jenny Jones, Max Kanter, and Alex Robinson. Today the network of test plots - both physical and social - continues to grow across the state of California and beyond.
Test Plot is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. See our growing list of partners below.
Our Vision
Let’s imagine a future together where our parks and open spaces are biodiverse, welcoming, functioning ecosystems; where neighbors come together to care for the land and each other.
Where We Work
While the disciplines of conservation and restoration have typically focused on areas outside our cities heralded for their pristine wilderness, most people now live in cities in urban nature. Ecologists call these landscapes “novel ecosystems:” human built landscapes characterized by non-native species, altered processes, new interactions and human influence. There is little scientific consensus on how to manage these lands and many ecological, economic and social questions are still to be answered. Test Plot thus acts as a living laboratory, embracing this gray area and seeking to creatively connect communities – both plants and humans – on the margins.
Indigenous land
We acknowledge that the land on which we live and work is the traditional and unceded territory of Indigenous peoples, including the Tongva, Gabrieleño, Chumash, Ohlone, and many others across California. We honor their enduring connection to this land and commit to respecting their culture and ongoing stewardship of these lands and waters. Here are a few resources to learn more about some amazing native-led work:
Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy
Redbud Resource Group
mak-’amham/Cafe Ohlone
Sogorea Te’ Land Trust
Native Land Digital
Laboratory for Indigenous Knowledge Systems
Our partners
FIRMS
Terremoto
Saturate
Studio-MLA
FUNDERS
Mountains Recreation Conservation Authority
LA County Parks and Recreation
California State Parks Foundation
Practice Grant
PANDO
Xerces Society
Rose Foundation
The Water Foundation
LAND MANAGERS
Los Angeles Recreation and Parks
California State Parks
Park Champions
Mountains and Recreation Conservation Authority
Baldwin Hills Land Conservancy
San Mateo County Parks
Starr King Open Space
LA County Parks and Recreation
University of California Berkeley
University of Southern California
Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust
ACADEMIC PROGRAMS
University of Southern California School of Architecture
Landscape Justice Initiative
USC Environmental Studies Program
USC Facilities and Maintenance
Wrigley Institute for Environment and Sustainability
WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
LA Nature for All - Environmental Careers Pathways
YAW (Youth at Work) - LA County
NON PROFITS / CBOs
Abuelas del Rio
Alta Sea
Audubon Center at Debs Park
Community Nature Connection
Coyotl+Macehualli
Friends of Elysian Park
Lawrence Hall of Science
LA Works
mak'-amham
Mujeres de la tierra
Nature Nexus Institute
San Bruno Mountain Watch
Save Elephant Hill
TreePeople
Ulap
GROWERS / NURSERIES
North East Trees
Theodore Payne Foundation
Los Nogales Nursery
Mission Blue Nursery
Catalina Conservancy
Xerces Society
Community Nature Connection
Chaminade College Prepatory Student Native Plant Nursery
Tree of Life
El Nativo Growers