Theodore Payne Foundation
10459 Tuxford St
Sun Valley, CA 91352
Established:
1966
Size:
22 acres
Designed by:
The Theodore Payne Foundation
Features:
Retail Nursery
Awesome book selection
demonstration gardens
classes
tons of information
public programing
Native Plant Garden Tour
Notable Plants:
Santa Cruz Ironwood (Lyonothamnus floribundus ssp. aspleniifolius)
Humbolt’s Lilly (Lilium humboldtii)
Baja spurge (Euphorbia xanti)
Showy Penstemon (Penstemon spectabilis)
Island Oak (Quercus tomentella)
Shaw’s agave (Agave shawii)
Indian Ricegrass (Stipa hymenoides)
Canyon Sunflower (Venegasia carpesioides)
Manzanita (Arctostaphylos)– there are too many cool ones to pick
Hooker’s Evening Primrose (Oenothera elata)
Seep monkeyflower (Erythranthe guttata)
Best time to visit:
All year
Spring and early summer are always the most spectacular seasons, with wildflowers, penstemons, ceanothus and the sages in bloom. Summer brings on the buckwheats and mallows. Fall is arguably the best time to visit as this is the planting season and also has the Fall Plant Sale.
The knowledge, care, and, over all, their love for our vibrant ecosystem is visible in the grounds of the Theodore Payne Foundation. The number of species found here is truly exciting, it sometimes feels like a mini botanical garden. Here you can find more rare plants, like the Island Oak or the Catalina Island Ironwood.
The gardens have a wild, enthusiastic feel to them. The nursery site is surrounded by beautiful mature oak trees, including a valley oak, enormous white sages, and large manzanitas. The grounds have so many cool manzanitas, many of them mature and large. Because these plants are so slow growing, seeing them at this size in gardens is a real treat.. Seasonal wildflowers, telegraph plants (a personal favorite), a gorgeous (and large) chaparral mallow grow on the sides of the nursery yards. To the east of the nursery site is a wildflower walk with a fire prevention garden. The trail winds its way up the hill to a lovely view of the nursery site and the surrounding hills.
To the west of the parking lot is a newer demonstration garden that surrounds the classroom and shaded picnic area. Little trails meander through the gardens around two ponds that are filled with really cool plants like seep monkey flower. Around the area of the pond are the Catalina ironwood trees, palo verde and red shanks.
This mixing of plants from different habitats really highlights how varied the ecosystem is. Buckwheats, showy penstemons and sages grow underneath the trees. Bordering the concrete walkway down to the admin building, there is a delightful selection of grasses, along with other plants that would thrive in tricky, hot full sun areas like parking strips or the side of driveways.
Tucked behind the admin building is a spectacular Humboldt’s Lilly. These amazing plants are complicated to propagate and it can take up to five years before they will bloom. The results of all this care and patience is a very tall very strange plant covered in stunning orange flowers. These are rare to find and is not be missed.
“The gardens have a wild, enthusiastic feel to them. The nursery site is surrounded by beautiful mature oak trees, including a valley oak, enormous white sages, and large manzanitas.”
These beautiful gardens give an insight into the proper care and planning. The maintenance of native plants often comes with a learning curve. When and how much to prune, and of course the age-old question of “is it dead or is it dormant” are not always easily answered. A visit to the TPF grounds at various times of the year gives some insight into the life cycle of the plants.
For so many the Theodore Payne Foundation has played an important role in our love of native plants. Their advocacy reaches beyond the propagation to address the root of the problem; that because we have lost so much, we do not know what our ecosystem looks like.
Amy Greenwood, the executive director of the TPF writes, “My vision is simple and hopeful: I want us all to put more native plants into the ground so we can heal the ecology of LA. The first step is to learn to recognize native plants, because if you can’t identify them, you don’t know they’re missing.” One of the TPF’s top goals is to normalize the use of native plants and to reach a larger and more diverse audience. They are active in the community, often popping up in unexpected places, like farmers markets or the LA Festival of Books. Many of the sites featured here, like the California Native Gateway Garden at the Los Angeles Zoo and the Elysian Gateway Park, were created with the TPF’s involvement.
It is hard to overstate the importance of the Theodore Payne Foundation in Southern California. The foundation is a huge voice for native plant advocacy and education. In 2009 TPF launched a Native Plant Library of more than 1,000 entries of native plants with guides and horticultural information. In 2011 they received a $930,000 grant from the State of California for the construction of educational facilities.
2017 saw the completion of the La Fetra Nature Education Center, with two new classrooms, an amphitheater, interpretive signage and replanted demonstration gardens.
They offer a comprehensive variety of classes, like garden design, maintenance and botany. Aside from the classes they also offer volunteer days, where you are able to work in the gardens, and learn useful care and maintenance skills (and the TPF gets free labor, so win win).
“My vision is simple and hopeful: I want us all to put more native plants into the ground so we can heal the ecology of LA. The first step is to learn to recognize native plants, because if you can’t identify them, you don’t know they’re missing.” -Amy Greenwood
In the spring the hosts the Native Plant Garden tour. This two day self guided tour opens up many privately owned native gardens. Every spring the Wildflower hotline is revived to keep the public up to date on what is blooming and where. 2018 saw the creation of the Long Live LA seed bank, which stores locally collected native plant seeds for preservation of locally adapted native plants. In light of the recent devastating fires in Los Angeles, this type of preservation becomes more and more vital.
Theodore Payne was born in Church Brampton, Northamptonshire, England in 1872. His parents worked on the Manor Farm in the Althorp Estates. There, on the estate, is a California Sequoia that was brought to England in seed form. The tree still stands to this day.
By age twelve Theodore’s mother and father had passed away and he was sent to Ackworth Academy, a Quaker boarding school, where he studied natural history and botany. Payne was apprenticed to J Cheal & Sons, where he learned the nursery and seed business and assisted in the horticultural installations for the Crystal Palace. On June 10, 1893 Payne arrived in New York and traveled west to California where he worked as an estate manager and then as a seed salesman for the Germain Fruit and Seed Company from 1893 to 1903. At the end of 1903 he was able to purchase his own nursery at 440 S. Broadway in Los Angeles and then a few years later the nursery moved to 345 S. Main Street.
It was then that he began to specialize in native California plants. As his business and influence grew, Payne seemed to touch every important native plant space that existed at the time. He helped to create gardens for Pomona College, Occidental College, Washington Park in Pasadena and installed a five acre California Wild Garden at the corner of Figueroa and Martin Luther King Blvd. It contained 262 species of native plants.
He provided insight and plant materials for the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, assisted in the original design of the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and then later, in 1951, helped with the relocation of the garden to Claremont. Payne worked with the Descanso Gardens to install a wildflower meadow and native plant area, both before and after it was sold to the Los Angeles Estate.
“There, on the estate, is a California Sequoia that was brought to England in seed form. The tree still stands to this day.”
During the 1930’s a large portion of his land was taken by the city to make stormwater improvements and, in 1941, the bank foreclosed on the land. He was, however, able to lease a small portion of what was the nursery and focused only on California native plants and seeds. The Theodore Payne Foundation (TPF) was created in 1960 and Payne and the Foundation started looking for a new site for the nursery. The Foundation was almost moved to the Whittier Narrows but, upon learning that they intended to sell plants, the Army Corps withdrew permission. Three years later Theodore Payne passed away at the age of 91. Not long after- ward, in 1966, Eddie Merrill, a fellow nurseryman and friend of Theodore Payne, donated twenty acres in Sun Valley to the Foundation, where it has remained to this day.
Native Plant Garden Tour
The Native Garden Tour is one of the best events of the year. Spanning two days and covering the greater Los Angeles area, the self guided tour opens up between thirty and forty gardens. The sites range from small, privately owned gardens, urban farms, schools, to large scale restoration projects. Many of these spaces are not generally open to the public and the tour is one of the few opportunities to visit them. Attenties can talk with homeowners and garden designers about maintenance, installation and their experiences growing native plants.
Wildflower Hotline
Started in 1983, the Wildflower Hotline keeps the public updated on what and where flowers bloom from March to May. Originally the hotline was a recording that would play over a phone line, it is still possible to call in to hear a recording of the update, read by Tom Henschel. The blog has the bonus of beautiful images of the flowers that are mentioned. The TPF aims to cover a wide range of sites, from the more urban to the wild and covering a large swath of Southern California.
Plant Sales
The TPF hosts three annual plant sales from fall to spring. The most exciting of these is the Fall sale. Fall is the best planting season in California, and the Fall Sale has the largest inventory. The sales generally last for two weeks and offer a blanket discount with members getting a slightly better deal. Parking reservations are recommended but it is always possible to park on the street and pop in without one. They also have an online store where you can order plants, when you are, for example, bored at work, that can be shipped or for in-store pickup.
Local Source Initiative
The loss of diversity that we face is not only species of plants but within the species themselves. It is almost as important to conserve genetic diversity as it is the species diversity. The TPF’s Local Source Initiative focuses on propagating seeds collected from the wildlands of the Los Angeles area. Cultivating local plants creates habitat connectivity and these plants are better suited to grow in these local conditions. Anecdotally, I personally have found this to be the case. Plants from this initiative grow better, faster and healthier than the same plant from a generic nursery stock. If you have a difficult site, I would recommend utilizing this plants from this program.
Theodore Payne Gallery
Started in 2006, the Theodore Payne Gallery features artists whose work focuses on plants, ecology, botany and our relationship with the land. The gallery is open during normal nursery hours.
Opening Hours:
Tuesday – Saturday
8:30 AM – 4:30 PM
Theodore Payne Foundation
10459 Tuxford St
Sun Valley, CA 91352
Established:
1966
Size:
22 acres
Designed by:
The Theodore Payne Foundation
Features:
Retail Nursery
Awesome book selection
demonstration gardens
classes
tons of information
public programing
Native Plant Garden Tour
Notable Plants:
Santa Cruz Ironwood
(Lyonothamnus floribundus ssp. aspleniifolius)
Humbolt’s Lilly
(Lilium humboldtii)
Baja spurge
(Euphorbia xanti)
Showy Penstemon
(Penstemon spectabilis)
Island Oak
(Quercus tomentella)
Shaw’s agave (Agave shawii)
Indian Ricegrass
(Stipa hymenoides)
Canyon Sunflower
(Venegasia carpesioides)
Manzanita
(Arctostaphylos)– there are too many cool ones to pick
Hooker’s Evening Primrose
(Oenothera elata)
Seep monkeyflower
(Erythranthe guttata)
Best time to visit:
All year
Spring and early summer are always the most spectacular seasons, with wildflowers, penstemons, ceanothus and the sages in bloom. Summer brings on the buckwheats and mallows. Fall is arguably the best time to visit as this is the planting season and also has the Fall Plant Sale.
The knowledge, care, and, over all, their love for our vibrant ecosystem is visible in the grounds of the Theodore Payne Foundation. The number of species found here is truly exciting, it sometimes feels like a mini botanical garden. Here you can find more rare plants, like the Island Oak or the Catalina Island Ironwood.
The gardens have a wild, enthusiastic feel to them. The nursery site is surrounded by beautiful mature oak trees, including a valley oak, enormous white sages, and large manzanitas. The grounds have so many cool manzanitas, many of them mature and large. Because these plants are so slow growing, seeing them at this size in gardens is a real treat.. Seasonal wildflowers, telegraph plants (a personal favorite), a gorgeous (and large) chaparral mallow grow on the sides of the nursery yards. To the east of the nursery site is a wildflower walk with a fire prevention garden. The trail winds its way up the hill to a lovely view of the nursery site and the surrounding hills.
To the west of the parking lot is a newer demonstration garden that surrounds the classroom and shaded picnic area. Little trails meander through the gardens around two ponds that are filled with really cool plants like seep monkey flower. Around the area of the pond are the Catalina ironwood trees, palo verde and red shanks.
This mixing of plants from different habitats really highlights how varied the ecosystem is. Buckwheats, showy penstemons and sages grow underneath the trees. Bordering the concrete walkway down to the admin building, there is a delightful selection of grasses, along with other plants that would thrive in tricky, hot full sun areas like parking strips or the side of driveways.
Tucked behind the admin building is a spectacular Humboldt’s Lilly. These amazing plants are complicated to propagate and it can take up to five years before they will bloom. The results of all this care and patience is a very tall very strange plant covered in stunning orange flowers. These are rare to find and is not be missed.
“The gardens have a wild, enthusiastic feel to them. The nursery site is surrounded by beautiful mature oak trees, including a valley oak, enormous white sages, and large manzanitas.”
“
These beautiful gardens give an insight into the proper care and planning. The maintenance of native plants often comes with a learning curve. When and how much to prune, and of course the age-old question of “is it dead or is it dormant” are not always easily answered. A visit to the TPF grounds at various times of the year gives some insight into the life cycle of the plants.
For so many the Theodore Payne Foundation has played an important role in our love of native plants.Their advocacy reaches beyond the propagation to address the root of the problem; that because we have lost so much, we do not know what our ecosystem looks like.
Amy Greenwood, the executive director of the TPF writes, “My vision is simple and hopeful: I want us all to put more native plants into the ground so we can heal the ecology of LA. The first step is to learn to recognize native plants, because if you can’t identify them, you don’t know they’re missing.” One of the TPF’s top goals is to normalize the use of native plants and to reach a larger and more diverse audience. They are active in the community, often popping up in unexpected places, like farmers markets or the LA Festival of Books. Many of the sites featured here, like the California Native Gateway Garden at the Los Angeles Zoo and the Elysian Gateway Park, were created with the TPF’s involvement.
It is hard to overstate the importance of the Theodore Payne Foundation in Southern California. The foundation is a huge voice for native plant advocacy and education. In 2009 TPF launched a Native Plant Library of more than 1,000 entries of native plants with guides and horticultural information. In 2011 they received a $930,000 grant from the State of California for the construction of educational facilities.
2017 saw the completion of the La Fetra Nature Education Center, with two new classrooms, an amphitheater, interpretive signage and replanted demonstration gardens.
They offer a comprehensive variety of classes, like garden design, maintenance and botany. Aside from the classes they also offer volunteer days, where you are able to work in the gardens, and learn useful care and maintenance skills (and the TPF gets free labor, so win win).
“My vision is simple and hopeful: I want us all to put more native plants into the ground so we can heal the ecology of LA. The first step is to learn to recognize native plants, because if you can’t identify them, you don’t know they’re missing.” -Amy Greenwood
In the spring the hosts the Native Plant Garden tour. This two day self guided tour opens up many privately owned native gardens. Every spring the Wildflower hotline is revived to keep the public up to date on what is blooming and where. 2018 saw the creation of the Long Live LA seed bank, which stores locally collected native plant seeds for preservation of locally adapted native plants. In light of the recent devastating fires in Los Angeles, this type of preservation becomes more and more vital.
Theodore Payne was born in Church Brampton, Northamptonshire, England in 1872. His parents worked on the Manor Farm in the Althorp Estates. There, on the estate, is a California Sequoia that was brought to England in seed form. The tree still stands to this day.
By age twelve Theodore’s mother and father had passed away and he was sent to Ackworth Academy, a Quaker boarding school, where he studied natural history and botany. Payne was apprenticed to J Cheal & Sons, where he learned the nursery and seed business and assisted in the horticultural installations for the Crystal Palace. On June 10, 1893 Payne arrived in New York and traveled west to California where he worked as an estate manager and then as a seed salesman for the Germain Fruit and Seed Company from 1893 to 1903. At the end of 1903 he was able to purchase his own nursery at 440 S. Broadway in Los Angeles and then a few years later the nursery moved to 345 S. Main Street.
It was then that he began to specialize in native California plants. As his business and influence grew, Payne seemed to touch every important native plant space that existed at the time. He helped to create gardens for Pomona College, Occidental College, Washington Park in Pasadena and installed a five acre California Wild Garden at the corner of Figueroa and Martin Luther King Blvd. It contained 262 species of native plants.
He provided insight and plant materials for the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, assisted in the original design of the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and then later, in 1951, helped with the relocation of the garden to Claremont. Payne worked with the Descanso Gardens to install a wildflower meadow and native plant area, both before and after it was sold to the Los Angeles Estate.
“There, on the estate, is a California Sequoia that was brought to England in seed form. The tree still stands to this day.”
During the 1930’s a large portion of his land was taken by the city to make stormwater improvements and, in 1941, the bank foreclosed on the land. He was, however, able to lease a small portion of what was the nursery and focused only on California native plants and seeds. The Theodore Payne Foundation (TPF) was created in 1960 and Payne and the Foundation started looking for a new site for the nursery. The Foundation was almost moved to the Whittier Narrows but, upon learning that they intended to sell plants, the Army Corps withdrew permission. Three years later Theodore Payne passed away at the age of 91. Not long after- ward, in 1966, Eddie Merrill, a fellow nurseryman and friend of Theodore Payne, donated twenty acres in Sun Valley to the Foundation, where it has remained to this day.
Native Plant Garden Tour
The Native Garden Tour is one of the best events of the year. Spanning two days and covering the greater Los Angeles area, the self guided tour opens up between thirty and forty gardens. The sites range from small, privately owned gardens, urban farms, schools, to large scale restoration projects. Many of these spaces are not generally open to the public and the tour is one of the few opportunities to visit them. Attenties can talk with homeowners and garden designers about maintenance, installation and their experiences growing native plants.
Wildflower Hotline
Started in 1983, the Wildflower Hotline keeps the public updated on what and where flowers bloom from March to May. Originally the hotline was a recording that would play over a phone line, it is still possible to call in to hear a recording of the update, read by Tom Henschel. The blog has the bonus of beautiful images of the flowers that are mentioned. The TPF aims to cover a wide range of sites, from the more urban to the wild and covering a large swath of Southern California.
Plant Sales
The TPF hosts three annual plant sales from fall to spring. The most exciting of these is the Fall sale. Fall is the best planting season in California, and the Fall Sale has the largest inventory. The sales generally last for two weeks and offer a blanket discount with members getting a slightly better deal. Parking reservations are recommended but it is always possible to park on the street and pop in without one. They also have an online store where you can order plants, when you are, for example, bored at work, that can be shipped or for in-store pickup.
Local Source Initiative
The loss of diversity that we face is not only species of plants but within the species themselves. It is almost as important to conserve genetic diversity as it is the species diversity. The TPF’s Local Source Initiative focuses on propagating seeds collected from the wildlands of the Los Angeles area. Cultivating local plants creates habitat connectivity and these plants are better suited to grow in these local conditions. Anecdotally, I personally have found this to be the case. Plants from this initiative grow better, faster and healthier than the same plant from a generic nursery stock. If you have a difficult site, I would recommend utilizing this plants from this program.
Theodore Payne Gallery
Started in 2006, the Theodore Payne Gallery features artists whose work focuses on plants, ecology, botany and our relationship with the land. The gallery is open during normal nursery hours.
Opening Hours:
Tuesday – Saturday
8:30 AM – 4:30 PM
Theodore Payne Foundation
10459 Tuxford St
Sun Valley, CA 91352
Established:
1966
Size:
22 acres
Designed by:
The Theodore
Payne Foundation
Features:
Retail Nursery
Awesome book selection
demonstration gardens
classes tons of information
public programing
Native Plant Garden Tour
Notable Plants:
Santa Cruz Ironwood (Lyonothamnus floribundus ssp. aspleniifolius)
Humboldt’s Lilly (Lilium humboldtii)
Baja spurge (Euphorbia xanti)
Showy Penstemon (Penstemon spectabilis)
Island Oak (Quercus tomentella)
Shaw’s agave (Agave shawii)
Indian Ricegrass (Stipa hymenoides)
Canyon Sunflower (Venegasia carpesioides)
Manzanita (Arctostaphylos)- there are too many cool ones to pick
Hooker’s Evening Primrose (Oenothera elata)
Seep monkeyflower (Erythranthe guttata)
Best time to visit:
All year
Spring and early summer are always the most spectacular seasons, with wildflowers, penstemons, ceanothus and the sages in bloom. Summer brings on the buckwheats and mallows. Fall is arguably the best time to visit as this is the planting season and also has the Fall Plant Sale.
he knowledge, care, and, over all, their love for our vibrant ecosystem is visible in the grounds of the Theodore Payne Foundation. The number of species found here is truly exciting, it sometimes feels like a mini botanical garden. Here you can find more rare plants, like the Island Oak or the Catalina Island Ironwood.
The gardens have a wild, enthusiastic feel to them. The nursery site is surrounded by beautiful mature oak trees, including a valley oak, enormous white sages, and large manzanitas. The grounds have so many cool manzanitas, many of them mature and large. Because these plants are so slow growing, seeing them at this size in gardens is a real treat.. Seasonal wildflowers, telegraph plants (a personal favorite), a gorgeous (and large) chaparral mallow grow on the sides of the nursery yards. To the east of the nursery site is a wildflower walk with a fire prevention garden. The trail winds its way up the hill to a lovely view of the nursery site and the surrounding hills.
To the west of the parking lot is a newer demonstration garden that surrounds the classroom and shaded picnic area. Little trails meander through the gardens around two ponds that are filled with really cool plants like seep monkey flower. Around the area of the pond are the Catalina ironwood trees, palo verde and red shanks.
2017 saw the completion of the La Fetra Nature Education Center, with two new classrooms, an amphitheater, interpretive signage and replanted demonstration gardens.
“The gardens have a wild, enthusiastic feel to them. The nursery site is surrounded by beautiful mature oak trees, including a valley oak, enormous white sages, and large manzanitas.”
They offer a comprehensive variety of classes, like garden design, maintenance and botany. Aside from the classes they also offer volunteer days, where you are able to work in the gardens, and learn useful care and maintenance skills (and the TPF gets free labor, so win win).
These beautiful gardens give an insight into the proper care and planning. The maintenance of native plants often comes with a learning curve. When and how much to prune, and of course the age-old question of “is it dead or is it dormant” are not always easily answered. A visit to the TPF grounds at various times of the year gives some insight into the life cycle of the plants.
For so many the Theodore Payne Foundation has played an important role in our love of native plants. Their advocacy reaches beyond the propagation to address the root of the problem; that because we have lost so much, we do not know what our ecosystem looks like.
Amy Greenwood, the executive director of the TPF writes, “My vision is simple and hopeful: I want us all to put more native plants into the ground so we can heal the ecology of LA. The first step is to learn to recognize native plants, because if you can’t identify them, you don’t know they’re missing.” One of the TPF’s top goals is to normalize the use of native plants and to reach a larger and more diverse audience. They are active in the community, often popping up in unexpected places, like farmers markets or the LA Festival of Books. Many of the sites featured here, like the California Native Gateway Garden at the Los Angeles Zoo and the Elysian Gateway Park, were created with the TPF’s involvement.
It is hard to overstate the importance of the Theodore Payne Foundation in Southern California. The foundation is a huge voice for native plant advocacy and education. In 2009 TPF launched a Native Plant Library of more than 1,000 entries of native plants with guides and horticultural information. In 2011 they received a $930,000 grant from the State of California for the construction of educational facilities.
2017 saw the completion of the La Fetra Nature Education Center, with two new classrooms, an amphitheater, interpretive signage and replanted demonstration gardens.
They offer a comprehensive variety of classes, like garden design, maintenance and botany. Aside from the classes they also offer volunteer days, where you are able to work in the gardens, and learn useful care and maintenance skills (and the TPF gets free labor, so win win).
“My vision is simple and hopeful: I want us all to put more native plants into the ground so we can heal the ecology of LA. The first step is to learn to recognize native plants, because if you can’t identify them, you don’t know they’re missing.” -Amy Greenwood
In the spring the hosts the Native Plant Garden tour. This two day self guided tour opens up many privately owned native gardens. Every spring the Wildflower hotline is revived to keep the public up to date on what is blooming and where. 2018 saw the creation of the Long Live LA seed bank, which stores locally collected native plant seeds for preservation of locally adapted native plants. In light of the recent devastating fires in Los Angeles, this type of preservation becomes more and more vital.
Theodore Payne was born in Church Brampton, Northamptonshire, England in 1872. is parents worked on the Manor Farm in the Althorp Estates. There, on the estate, is a California Sequoia that was brought to England in seed form. The tree still stands to this day.
By age twelve Theodore’s mother and father had passed away and he was sent to Ackworth Academy, a Quaker boarding school, where he studied natural history and botany. Payne was apprenticed to J Cheal & Sons, where he learned the nursery and seed business and assisted in the horticultural installations for the Crystal Palace. On June 10, 1893 Payne arrived in New York and traveled west to California where he worked as an estate manager and then as a seed salesman for the Germain Fruit and Seed Company from 1893 to 1903. At the end of 1903 he was able to purchase his own nursery at 440 S. Broadway in Los Angeles and then a few years later the nursery moved to 345 S. Main Street.
It was then that he began to specialize in native California plants. As his business and influence grew, Payne seemed to touch every important native plant space that existed at the time. He helped to create gardens for Pomona College, Occidental College, Washington Park in Pasadena and installed a five acre California Wild Garden at the corner of Figueroa and Martin Luther King Blvd. It contained 262 species of native plants. He provided insight and plant materials for the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, assisted in the original design of the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and then later, in 1951, helped with the relocation of the garden to Claremont. Payne worked with the Descanso Gardens to install a wildflower meadow and native plant area, both before and after it was sold to the Los Angeles Estate.
“There, on the estate, is a California Sequoia that was brought to England in seed form. The tree still stands to this day.”
During the 1930’s a large portion of his land was taken by the city to make stormwater improvements and, in 1941, the bank foreclosed on the land. He was, however, able to lease a small portion of what was the nursery and focused only on California native plants and seeds. The Theodore Payne Foundation (TPF) was created in 1960 and Payne and the Foundation started looking for a new site for the nursery. The Foundation was almost moved to the Whittier Narrows but, upon learning that they intended to sell plants, the Army Corps withdrew permission. Three years later Theodore Payne passed away at the age of 91. Not long after- ward, in 1966, Eddie Merrill, a fellow nurseryman and friend of Theodore Payne, donated twenty acres in Sun Valley to the Foundation, where it has remained to this day.
Native Plant Garden Tour
The Native Garden Tour is one of the best events of the year. Spanning two days and covering the greater Los Angeles area, the self guided tour opens up between thirty and forty gardens. The sites range from small, privately owned gardens, urban farms, schools, to large scale restoration projects. Many of these spaces are not generally open to the public and the tour is one of the few opportunities to visit them. Attenties can talk with homeowners and garden designers about maintenance, installation and their experiences growing native plants.
Wildflower Hotline
Started in 1983, the Wildflower Hotline keeps the public updated on what and where flowers bloom from March to May. Originally the hotline was a recording that would play over a phone line, it is still possible to call in to hear a recording of the update, read by Tom Henschel. The blog has the bonus of beautiful images of the flowers that are mentioned. The TPF aims to cover a wide range of sites, from the more urban to the wild and covering a large swath of Southern California.
Plant Sales
The TPF hosts three annual plant sales from fall to spring. The most exciting of these is the Fall sale. Fall is the best planting season in California, and the Fall Sale has the largest inventory. The sales generally last for two weeks and offer a blanket discount with members getting a slightly better deal. Parking reservations are recommended but it is always possible to park on the street and pop in without one. They also have an online store where you can order plants, when you are, for example, bored at work, that can be shipped or for in-store pickup.
Local Source Initiative
The loss of diversity that we face is not only species of plants but within the species themselves. It is almost as important to conserve genetic diversity as it is the species diversity. The TPF’s Local Source Initiative focuses on propagating seeds collected from the wildlands of the Los Angeles area. Cultivating local plants creates habitat connectivity and these plants are better suited to grow in these local conditions. Anecdotally, I personally have found this to be the case. Plants from this initiative grow better, faster and healthier than the same plant from a generic nursery stock. If you have a difficult site, I would recommend utilizing this plants from this program.
Theodore Payne Gallery
Started in 2006, the Theodore Payne Gallery features artists whose work focuses on plants, ecology, botany and our relationship with the land. The gallery is open during normal nursery hours.
Opening Hours:
Tuesday – Saturday
8:30 AM – 4:30 PM
