Our tour will begin at Artemisia nursery, where we'll be joined by owner, Nicole Calhoun. Here, using plants from the nursery as examples, we'll discuss what Los Angeles was like before people paved it over. From there, we'll head out into the streets to find wild plants of the city, and learn to identify them. We'll discuss the amazing stories that these plants can tell us about the globalized society we live in, and see how nature can reclaim an extremely unnatural environment. We'll look up close at the plants we encounter to learn about their biology and botany.
Evan and Nicole will be ready to answer botanical and horticultural questions. Expect to learn a lot about the plant kingdom, urban nature and the human hand in shaping the natural world. We hope after this tour that you will see the city and it's "weeds" in a whole new light.
We will meet up at Artemisia Nursery, a beautiful space celebrating plants, gardens and nature in an industrial Los Angeles neighborhood. From there, we'll head out into the streets of El Sereno to observe Los Angeles’ wild plants in their unnatural habitat.
Hi. I’m Evan, a member of the Atlas Obscura community.
In 2008, I spent the summer counting wildflowers in the coastal prairies of Northern California and have followed the botanical path ever since. My current job is Assistant Director at the UCLA Botanical Garden, where I oversee a diverse and thriving urban ecosystem full of rare plants sourced from all over the world. As a horticulturist and botanist I'm fascinated by the ambiguous and intertwined relationships between the cultural and natural worlds. To me, the plants poking out of sidewalk cracks aren't weeds, they're amazingly resilient organisms with incredibly deep and complicated stories. My article series Street Plants explores these plants in detail, and I'll share their stories with you.
For questions about this experience, please contact me directly through Airbnb.
Expect to walk up to two miles.
There are 10 spots available on this experience.
Guests ages 12 and up can attend.
- sun hat
- sun screen
- water bottle
- comfortable walking shoes
Any experience can be canceled and fully refunded within 24 hours of purchase. See cancellation policy.
We'll provide black sage lemonade after the tour. Black sage (aka Salvia mellifera) is one of the most common local shrubs in the Los Angeles hills.
We'll provide you with a hand lens to look at the minute details of plants under magnification.
