Theodore Payne Foundation

If the phrase “native plants” conjures the image of a scrubby yard that looks more like wild parkland than lovingly tended landscape, then Lynnette Kampe asks for a little open-mindedness. “You can't typecast these gardens,” said Kampe, executive director of the Theodore Payne Foundation for Wildflowers and Native Plants, which holds its annual garden tour this weekend. The 42 featured properties include romantic cottage gardens, native gardens with clean lines and a modern aesthetic, and some pretty substitutes for traditional lawns, she said.

Autumn sage ("Seductive Scent of the West," Sept. 9) sounds like it's a wonderful plant to have if you live in Arizona, Texas or Mexico, where the plant is native. Why not focus on the many amazing native sages, such as Salvia pachyphylla (rose sage) with its amazing purple- and rose-colored blooms, the sweet scent of Salvia spathacea (hummingbird sage) or Salvia clevelandii (Cleveland sage), with its beautiful purple blooms and fragrance? Most natives are easy to grow and anything but finicky.

A nonprofit foundation dedicated to preserving native California wildflowers and plants has organized a one-day bus tour to the Antelope Valley on Saturday to view the the springtime explosion of color.

The threat of El Nino storms has underscored the need to protect hillsides from erosion and appropriate planting is the best way to prevent mudslides, experts say. Although deep rooting trees and large shrubs are ideal for holding hillsides together, the fall is too late in the year for those varieties to take hold. September and early October are the time to plant fast-growing grasses and native chaparral for at least some anchoring effect before the start of winter rains.

He had been called the Indiana Jones of horticulture, breaking his leg while hanging from a cliff in Mexico to collect bromeliads and facing down the rifles of Ecuadorean soldiers who mistook him for a spy. Nurseryman Gary Hammer "risked life and limb, literally, to find new plants and bring them back" to Southern California, said Lili Singer, a horticulturist with the Theodore Payne Foundation in Sun Valley. Over more than 35 years, the plant hunter introduced scores of rare and unusual plants to the local landscape from countries around the world.

Occupy L.A. protesters planned to leave their mark on City Hall's park with graffiti declarations and treehouses when they were evicted in late November. Instead, they left behind a park stripped of its lush north and south lawns, creating a financial and planning burden for the city and a waiting game for the displaced farmers market that has held sway every Thursday. But in a way, the land is a blank canvas for the city's Recreation and Parks Department, which must decide how to landscape a bit more than 1.7 acres of now-barren soil.

Ground cherry, golden current, panamint, Bermuda buttercup, ground pink, mild maids, sugarbush, wild cucumber and globe mallow. These may sound like the newest flavors at the blender bar or the latest in herbal tonics to cure your inattention syndrome. But they're the names of some of the wildflowers you can discover this spring, as areas of Southern California explode into color. Wildflowers are nature's reward for winter's deluge.

LIKE so many Californians, the man who would become synonymous with the campaign to save our fluttering wildflowers wasn't born here. Rather, Theodore Payne was born in Northamptonshire, a no-nonsense belt of middle England. Orphaned in childhood, he emigrated from Britain as a young nurseryman in 1893. By his death in 1963 at the age of 91, he was not just a paid-up Californian, but also one of that distinctly independent subset: a Southern Californian.

YOU'D THINK it would be easy to murder a lawn, since many of us have had plenty of success without even trying. But finishing off that green sponge takes a smart strategy, or it may come back to haunt you. Removing lawn seems basic enough: Dig it up and haul it away. But it's best to subordinate reflex and forgo brute hacking, experts say. First of all, yanking out sod "can be back-breaking work," says Steve Gerischer, a Glassell Park landscape designer who gives talks on turf termination for the Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers and Native Plants as well as the Los Angeles County Arboretum.