Resources for Bringing Native Plants Home
Learn In Person and Take Home Native Plants For Free!
Here at Santa Monica Mountains Fund, we offer numerous volunteer opportunities and certification courses for the community where you can learn how to grow and care for California Native Plants and become a certified California Naturalist. Weekly vounteer opportunities offer free native plants from our nursery for volunteers to bring home after.
Other Native Plant Resources
- Theodore Payne Foundation Nursery
- Cityplants.org
- Growingworks
- Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains
- Council for Watershed Health
- TreePeople
- California Native Plants Society
- Amigos de los Rios
Native Plant Gardens Funding Resources
- Metropolitan Water District Turf Removal Program
Funding by the square foot to remove lawns and install California friendly gardens. (Must have recent photo of living lawn to obtain funding) Depends upon available funding, amount varies from 2.00 – 5.00 per square foot depending upon support from local water districts; can also include $100 per tree. - Safe Clean Water Program Watershed Coordinators
For larger projects
- USDA-NRCS
Conservation Innovation Grants Program, which funds new tools and technologies to further conservation on private lands.
Other Resources
- Santa Monica Mountains Plant ID App
- UCLA Horticulture Certificate
- UC Master Gardener Program
- Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains
- Santa Barbara Natural History Museum California Native Plants garden
- Theodore Payne Annual Native Plant Garden Tour
- Selva International
- Enviroscape
- Sage Coast
- Duvivier Architects
Reading About California Native Plants
- NPS Plant List
The National Park Service has tracked every single plant as it occurs in the Santa Monica Mountains and created a list — which is incredibly helpful to creating a plant palette for your garden which will support biodiversity.
- Jepson Manual of California Native Plants
Affectionately referred to by biology undergrads as “a doorstop”, The Jepson Manual : Vascular Plants of California by Bruce G. Baldwin, Douglas Goldman, David J. Keil,Robert Patterson, Thomas J. Rosatti. is the guide to California native plants across the state. Good to have on hand and a PDF version available nowadays.
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Tree is the story of a California live oak written from the point of view of the tree. The author’s obsessive botanical, scientific and historical research give substance to a world that feels both as real as last weekend’s dust on hiking boots and as mind altering as a fully fledged mystical experience. Take a journey into the heart of the woods where every plant shines. Tree will change how you see nature.