Meet Ashley Hammonds Hernandez: From Grandma’s Backyard to Master Gardener
Ashley Hammonds Hernandez didn’t start as an expert. She started with an empty yard and a lot of questions. If that sounds like you, you’re already halfway there.
It’s monarch season here in D.C., which means orange wings are (hopefully) passing through on their long journey south — a journey that’s gotten a lot harder over the last 30 years. Eastern migratory monarch populations have dropped sharply, from roughly 384 million butterflies wintering across 45 acres of forest three decades ago, to just under 62 million this past winter. That’s a real recovery from the previous year’s low, but the long-term trend is still headed the wrong way. It’s exactly the kind of story that made Ashley fall for pollinators in the first place — and DC Natives loves nothing more than seeing that curiosity catch.
Ashley grew up an outside kid in Pittsburgh, the kind who spent summers barefoot in the grass, climbing trees, and putting lightning bugs on her finger like rings. Then came the teenage years, and somehow all that turned into a fear of bugs.
She never forgot her grandmother’s backyard, though, which was walking distance from home, always full of flowers, grapevines heavy enough to pick from. Growing up in a Pittsburgh row house, there wasn’t much land of her own to work with. That changed when she moved to D.C. in 2016 and eventually bought a house – with a yard – in Marshall Heights, in southeast D.C. Suddenly, she had space, and no idea what to do with it. “I just wanted to learn more about plants and things like that,” she said.
The RiverSmart Homes program answered that. A bayscape went into her front yard right before COVID hit, and then came the real question she asked herself: “Ok, it’s installed — what do I do now?” That question turned into a crash course on pollinators and what they need to survive. That’s the kind of hands-on learning DC Natives hopes to spark in every yard we plant.
From there, Ashley became a RiverSmart Ambassador. At a Rooting DC tabling event, one table stood out: DC Natives. She had a backyard she wanted to transform, and something about this group stuck. And we’re ecstatic about it! We love meeting new people and spreading our love for pollinators.
“I like the flowers, but it was through DC Natives that I really learned all the kinds of struggles they had,” said Ashley, pointing to milkweed scarcity, since it’s essentially the only plant monarch caterpillars can eat. That fact alone changed how she saw her own yard.
Her thirst for learning didn’t stop there. Ashley recently completed the Master Gardener program at the University of the District of Columbia.
“Butterflies, bees, and how the numbers are declining — learning about nature in general and how all these little things can have so much of an impact on everything,” she said. This is what DC Natives means when we say we want people empowered, not just informed. Ashley started with questions. Now she’s someone others ask.
If you have a before-and-after DC Natives story you’d like to share, tag us or send us a message on Instagram