Krystle Hickman is a National Geographic Explorer, community scientist, and conservation photographer based in Los Angeles, California. Through her photography, she raises awareness about the decline of native bee species
while highlighting the ecosystems they reside in.
Hickman’s work has taken her across the globe, where she documents native bees without using lethal collection methods. This approach has enabled her to document behaviors new to science and capture some of the first images of living representatives of many species.
She explorers the natural histories of rare, threatened, and/or endangered bee species and examines how human activity affects their life cycles, including the impacts of wildfire and fire abatement, competition with honey bees for resources, and the effects of climate change.
Her work has been featured across television, digital platforms, and podcasts, including Ologies, and she has presented internationally, including at the 2024 United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP16) in Colombia.
Hickman has also lectured at institutions such as Harvard University, UCLA, and more.
We’re excited to host this program with our friends at the Environmental Nature Center in Newport Beach, a beloved community hub for environmental education, habitat restoration, and connecting people with nature. June 27 at 11am. Link in bio
📷 photo of Krystle by Damian Dovarganes
Repost from @californianativeplantsociety
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After 46 years, Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano has closed its doors, but the plants it sent home with generations of customers are still growing, still shading streets, still feeding pollinators across Southern California.
Founded in 1980 by Mike Evans and Jeff Bohn, Tree of Life grew to become one of the largest native plant nurseries in the state, producing over 20 million plants and introducing countless people to the beauty of California’s native flora. Its legacy lives on in the growers, seed libraries, and community members it supported along the way.
Read the full story in the Spring 2026 issue of Flora Magazine. Link in bio or at bit.ly/FloraTreeOfLife 🌳
✍️: Emily Beyda @emilybeyda
📸: Alisha Jucevic @alishajucevic
Before selecting plants, we must learn to read the land.
Join Mike Evans for a small-group walk through the Environmental Nature Center, exploring Southern California native plant communities in place.
Together, we’ll look at soil, slope, moisture, sun exposure, and plant relationships—learning how habitat shapes what grows, and how those patterns can guide more resilient native gardens at home.
This workshop is more walk than lecture, with the land itself as the classroom.
Saturday, May 2 | 10:00 AM
Instructor: Mike Evans
Presented in partnership with ENC + CNHF
Space is limited.
Link in bio.
Come for Working with Place
Stay for Wild Medicine
In between, check out the Native Plants Sale
A full day at the Environmental Nature Center, all rooted in connection to place
April 25
Newport Beach
10 AM to 11:30 AM Working with Place
12 to 1:30 PM Wild Medicine
10 AM to 3 PM Native Plant Sale
Registration is required for both workshops
Link in bio
As things warm up, the garden shifts.
Less about doing more
more about paying attention.
Watch the soil, water deeper,
and let the plants adjust in their own time.
From April CONNECT.
Link in bio.
We’re building something here.
Not all at once
but slowly, with care.
In the soil,
in the plants,
and in the people who show up for it.
Read more in April CONNECT
Link in bio.
The California Native Horticultural Foundation is excited to announce that we are working with Los Angeles-based horticulturist Katherine Pakradouni to find a home for a CNHF native plant nursery in the Los Angeles area.
Katherine brings extraordinary depth to this work. Her practice is rooted in ecological landscape design, urban habitat restoration, native plant horticulture education, and what she calls “nursery catalyzation,” the art of building the community infrastructure needed for native plants to truly take hold in a place. She is deeply committed to hyper-local, community-centered, and innovative approaches that go far beyond simply planting natives.
One question I get often is how folks can volunteer with the seed library project. My answer has always been, “I’m trying to get my head around a volunteer day.” Until now, finding a regular time, space, and routine for volunteers has been challenging. It was Tree of Life’s generous seed and equipment donation that unlocked a new perspective for me. In February, Tree of Life closed down their 40+ year nursery in San Juan Capistrano and began transitioning parts of their practice into California Native Horticulture Foundation, a project that is about a year old but represents decades of knowledge and community building. As an offshoot of our partnership at Eaton Canyon, Mike asked if I might be interested in adopting and stewarding an antique seed cleaning machine, one that he’d received from S&S seeds decades ago after their own barn fire. I was over the moon about this, and eager to get it up and running. Mike said had a vision of the machine being used in community, of neighbors and friends testing it out, tinkering, learning, and fixing together.
In addition to the seed cleaning machine, Mike, Michelle, and their team donated several bins of seeds that have been collected over the years by their team, and stored in their earthen seed bank (the very same one that inspired the seed storage building that will be introduced at Eaton Canyon). These came right at a time when my own native seed supply was beginning to dwindle, and when I’m eager to support new library outposts with seed packets.
In short, this is a call for volunteers! Are you interested in helping clean and package these generous bulk seed donations so they can be distributed to library outposts? Do you have a penchant for tinkering with old machinery, and a curiosity to learn about vintage seed cleaning machines? Sign up to volunteer on my website, and while you’re at it, sign up for a membership with California Native Horticultural Foundation, or to receive their wonderful newsletter.
Our April newsletter
CONNECT is out
We’re building something here
A place to learn, share, and stay connected to native plants and each other
Come be part of it
Link in bio
Huge thank you to the ENC for such a wonderful time last Sunday!
Such a great community, great energy, and an all-around memorable day.
Don’t miss what’s next! We’re back for another special collaborated event, Part two of our Native Plant Workshop Series with the Environmental Nature Center on April 25th.
Working With Place: Introduction to Gardening with Native Plants
Presented by Hugo Sopeña & Lori Whalen
10:00–11:30 AM | 📍 ENC Newport Beach
You’re going to want to be there 👀
Visit our Linktree in Bio to register.
or visit the event page at encenter.org
Grateful to Tony Tubbs for the opportunity to walk his native garden at Tesoro High School and see this work in action.
It was especially meaningful to visit the Simmondsia chinensis (jojoba) and Quercus kelloggii (black oak) grown from seed that CalNativeHort provided, now thriving as part of a living classroom shaped by care, curiosity, and time.
And as a reminder that these spaces are truly alive, we also come across a rattlesnake along the way.
Thank you, Tony, for creating spaces where native plants, students, and community all grow together
Juncus textilis — basket rush. At California Native Horticultural Foundation, we are weaving together a legacy of stewardship, because this plant belongs not to any person, but to the land itself.
On March 25, we witnessed something meaningful: divisions of this remarkable clone being transferred from Mike Evans of Tree of Life Nursery to Samantha Morales Johnson Yang and her brother Seth Morales Johnson of the Gabrielino San Gabriel Tribe of Mission Indians.
This plant’s story runs deep. It originated at Acjacheman Meadow in the upper reaches of San Juan Creek, where centuries ago it was selected and tended by the ancestors because of its exceptional qualities. Around 1985, master basket weaver Marian Walkingstick confirmed what those ancestors already knew, that this clone was of superior quality for weaving baskets.
Tree of Life Nursery has lovingly stewarded this clone for 40 years. Now, we are honored to see it return to the traditional lands of the Tongva, where it will take root, grow, and provide basket material for generations to come.
At Cal Native Hort, we are proud to have helped facilitate the next chapter in the stewardship of the Shwaar, now planted at Siban’gna, the Gabrieleno Tongva Tribal Center, where we look forward to seeing continued growth of this significant species that demonstrates our deep connection between people, place and plants!
Mission style basket by Abe Sanchez ca 1989 depicting, California fan palms and the little brown bat. Made from basket rush and deer grass. The basket rush was gathered from this same plant. Approx 5”H x 8”W.
