This mother and son are sowing purpose and hope, one wildflower at a time

Welcome to December, dear readers, and the end of 2025, a year only the Grinch could love.

Except there was the birth of my youngest son’s perfect baby girl. Plus I got to listen to my other perfect granddaughter read her first book and help her plant her first sunflower. And then there was the continuing honor and adventure of reporting for The Times and all you Plants newsletter subscribers.

So yucky year or no, I’m a lucky lass, especially because I get to meet so many passionate people driven to improve some part of our world. Before we move to the list of plant-related activities below, I’d like to mention a few of those inspiring people who have stepped outside their personal tragedies this year to bring some hope and happiness to Los Angeles.

Journalist Dana Goodyear and her family are among the thousands of Angelenos who lost their homes in the Palisades and Eaton fires that destroyed more than 11,000 homes in Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Altadena in January. Goodyear wrote movingly about their experience in a recent issue of New Yorker magazine, but she barely mentioned the Seed Bomb Project she and her son Rummy (short for Ramsey) began last spring with a kind of Johnny Appleseed fervor.

Except in this case, instead of sowing apple trees, they want to blanket the burned and scraped lots of Pacific Palisades and Altadena with wildflowers native to Southern California.

Rummy Goodyear has recruited students and other volunteers to help him make 4,200 wildflower seed bombs. Each doughnut-hole-sized “bomb” contains multiple wildflower seeds native to Southern California mixed with potting soil, powdered clay and compost. The bombs disintegrate when they’re thrown onto soil, but provide enough soil and nourishment to the tiny seeds to help them sprout and grow after they get water.

(Jeanette Marantos / Los Angeles Times)

Goodyear has written about wildfires in the past and remembered that certain native wildflowers are fire followers, more likely to bloom after a fire. She was casting around for something positive to do, she said, that could help her neighbors and her family. “When the idea came, it was fully formed, a direct action that could help the hurting neighborhoods and, I hoped, help US,” she explained in a text.

Her 14-year-old son Rummy, a freshman at the Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences in Santa Monica, was grieving so badly he said he didn’t ever want to return to the site of their former home in the Alphabet Streets of Pacific Palisades. But when Dana suggested making wildflower seed bombs for his school-required service learning project, he grabbed the idea like a lifeline.

“I think it’s really helped me,” said Rummy, looking out over his fledgling wildflower garden, sprouting in the area where the family’s living room used to be. “Now every time I go up here, I associate it with doing positive work and helping to make a change. So when someone says, ‘We’re going up to the house today,’ I’m obviously not, like, ‘Yippee!’ But it feels like I have some great work to do, and I’m really excited to just help our community.”

Rummy and his mom met me at their lot in late November, a few days after the season’s first heavy rains. Most of the homes in their neighborhood were destroyed in the fire too, so the once-scenic street is now bristling with chain-link fences and raw patches of dirt where homes and yards once stood. In Rummy’s and Dana’s vision, those sad scraped lots will be transformed this spring by fields of colorful California poppies, yarrow, brittlebush, sunflowers, California buckwheat and evening primrose.

Making seed bombs is a little like making mud pies. The Seed Bomb Project’s recipe mixes native wildflower seeds with powdered clay, compost and water to create little doughnut-hole-sized balls. Once the “bombs” are dry, you can easily toss them or crush them over soil. And the clay-compost coating gives the tiny wildflower seeds enough of a boost to help their sprout and grow, once they get water.

Rummy began his work in May, at first making the seed bombs with a friend, to pass out to neighbors. Then his science teacher helped him expand the project to the entire school. In May, the middle school and high schoolers spent two days making seed bombs during lunch and snack breaks. And in June, the school’s elementary students enthusiastically got involved. Since then, he and his mom have recruited other volunteers to pass out more seed bombs in Altadena.

A $75 pound of wildflower seed can make about 150 to 175 seed bombs once it’s mixed with compost, powdered clay and water, says Rummy Goodyear.

(Jeanette Marantos / Los Angeles Times)

They’ve had small events passing out seed bombs this fall to Pacific Palisades residents who lost their homes in the fire. They passed out 500 on Nov. 30 and will pass out another 500 on Dec. 6 between 1 and 4 p.m. at the corner of Hartzell and Carey streets.

But the work is expensive. The seeds are a special wildflower blend from the Theodore Payne Foundation that costs $75 a pound — enough to make about 150 to 175 seed bombs. The Seed Bomb Project has raised about $10,000 in grants and pledges, and Dana Goodyear said her family has spent around the same amount in personal funds to make and distribute about 4,200 seed bombs so far this year at a cost of about $5 per bomb.

It started as a small investment, she wrote in a text, “but then I saw how excited others were by it ..., how much kids of all ages enjoyed it, how much joy it brought me and my son, and how it re-framed everything. And I guess a kind of madness took over where it became very central to my life and how I wanted to spend my time.”

Clearly though, this kind of family subsidy is not sustainable. So now, they’re embarking on a fundraiser starting Tuesday — Giving Tuesday — to raise $50,000, enough to make 10,000 seed bombs to be distributed for free to people who lost homes in the Palisades and Eaton fires. The Creative Visions Foundation is acting as the Seed Bomb Project’s fiscal sponsor; the donations are tax deductible.

Rummy and Dana Goodyear are not the only fire survivors trying to heal with wildflowers. Altadena activist René Amy sold native wildflower seeds through his business Altadena Maid, but he lost his inventory and his home in the Eaton fire.

Nonetheless, Amy is spearheading a similar project to “poppify” the burned out areas of Altadena with the Great Altadena Poppy Project, with support from the Altadena Chamber of Commerce, Altadena Heritage, the Altadena Historical Society, the Altadena Rotary Club, Amigos de los Rios and scouts from Altadena Troop 1, according to articles in Pasadena Now and the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

The goal is to sow 100 million California poppy seeds this winter on fire damaged lots around Altadena. The work will be done for free, once property owners fill out a form giving the project permission to sow seeds on their property.

With all those seeds, and some good winter rains, maybe a quilt of wildflowers can help us heal from the terrible fires that began 2025.

Saying goodbye ... almost

At the beginning of the year, I wrote about four longtime nurseries and growers who were planning to close at the end of the year: Nuccio’s Nurseries, San Marcos Growers, Tree of Life Nursery and the Idyllwild Lilac Garden. Here’s where things stand.

Nuccio’s Nurseries lost most of its buildings in the Eaton fire, including the longtime home of one of the owners, Tom Nuccio, but miraculously almost all of its stock of some 500 varieties of camellias and azaleas survived. The 90-year-old nursery has been selling down most of its stock this year, said co-owner Jim Nuccio, but it still has plenty to get it through its prime bloom season between January and March. He expects the nursery to stay open until April or May. The property was up for sale before the fire, but not much has happened since.

San Marcos Growers has been a wholesale nursery in Santa Barbara since 1979. It was a major grower and supplier of California native and unusual Mediterranean-climate plants to retail nurseries around the state. The land the nursery leased is being developed into housing, including 300 units of badly needed affordable housing. The nursery has been winding down since 2023, finding jobs for its 50 employees and selling off its plant inventory. Owner Randy Baldwin said he expects the nursery to permanently close Dec. 23.

Baldwin doesn’t have plans to get back into the nursery business, but he does intend to maintain his detailed and highly informative website for landscapers and gardeners who want to learn more about unusual varieties, especially the many hybrid varieties his nursery introduced.

Tree of Life Nursery, one of the state’s oldest native plant nurseries, is still planning to close at the end of December after 45 years of growing and selling California native plants. Owners Mike Evans and Jeff Bohn are hosting a California Native Plant Nurseries Meet and Greet on Dec. 6 so their customers can discover other predominantly native plant nurseries — retail and wholesale — in Southern California.

Retail nurseries expected to attend include Artemisia Nursery in El Sereno; Californica Nursery in Long Beach (pop-ups and contactless pickup of orders); California Botanic Garden’s Grow Native Nursery in Claremont; Hardy Californians in Sierra Madre (open seasonally); Theodore Payne Foundation in Sun Valley, which recently opened its satellite Los Nogales Nursery in Montecito Heights; Walkers Wildlands in Fallbrook; Native West in San Diego and Neels Nursery in Encinitas.

Note too that Evans has already embarked on a new venture: the nonprofit California Native Horticultural Foundation, focused on “promoting climate resilient gardens and the horticultural use of California native plants through propagation, research, and education.”

Idyllwild Lilac Garden closed in June when owner Gary Parton sold his Idyllwild home and the 165-plus varieties of lilacs he had been tending and propagating around his yard for some 20 years. He used to open his garden to visitors for free every May and June and sold many plants from his driveway. However, Parton turned 86 this year, and caring for the large property had become too much. He sold the property to people who appeared indifferent to the lilacs and their care, he said, and arranged for Descanso Gardens and the International Lilac Society to get cuttings from his rarest plants for propagation elsewhere.

He’s moved to a new home in Boulder City, Nev., near Las Vegas, where the winters will be warmer than Idyllwild’s, and the pace is slower, “which I like,” but that doesn’t mean Parton has retired from nurturing beautiful flowers. It turns out Boulder City’s flower is the hollyhock, another profuse, old-fashioned bloomer. True to form, Parton has been reading all he can about the flower. He just moved in this summer but already he’s ordered hollyhock seeds from Europe and obtained 35 plants in gallon pots that he’s planning to plant this winter. There’s also a local hollyhock society “that’s a little disorganized,” and he’s going to do his best to help that organization flourish.

So all in all, it sounds like Idyllwild’s loss is Boulder City’s gain, at least when it comes to show-stopping flowers. If you’re driving through Boulder City next year, keep your eyes open for a lavish hollyhock display. If it’s Parton’s — which wouldn’t surprise me at all — give him my best.

Wishing you and yours a holiday filled with music, laughter and good food shared with the people you love.

Upcoming events

Dec. 5
Intro to Native Plant Garden Design, a Theodore Payne Foundation workshop about the basics of landscape design taught by Horticulture Director Tim Becker; 9 a.m. to noon at the foundation in Sun Valley. Register online, $105.19. theodorepayne.org

Santa Barbara Botanic Garden Family Nature Night, a chance for families to take a guided walk through the garden at night, watch nocturnal insects at a glowing blacklight station and participate in games and activities. Flashlights are recommended. Register online; tickets are $10 for adults ($7 for members) and $8 for children ($5 members). sbbotanicgarden.org

Dec. 6
Weather Extremes and Native Landscapes, a Theodore Payne Foundation workshop taught by author and Santa Monica College earth sciences professor William Selby discussing how our local ecosystems will respond “to the unexpected atmospheric chaos that is transforming our natural landscapes” due to climate change; 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the foundation in Sun Valley. The workshop will end with a walk through the foundation’s demonstration garden of native plants. Register online, $53.24. events.humanitix.com

Southern California Native Plant Nurseries Customer Meet & Greet, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano, which will close in January. Tree of Life is hosting this event to introduce customers to other native plant nurseries in Southern California. Admission is free. californianativeplants.com

MiniNature Reserve Native Wreath Fest, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Oxnard, a chance to shop for native plants and make a wreath out of native plants. It’s also possible to order a DIY wreath kit for $15 or a pre-made wreath for $20 to pick up at the fest. Suggested donations for the fest are $10, but participants can “donate more or less,” according to the website. Reservations are encouraged but not required. eventbrite.com

Open Farm Days at Black Thumb Farm are for volunteers to learn while they help prepare the Panorama City farm for its next growing season; 9 a.m. to noon. Participation is free, but registration is required. blackthumbfarm.org

Descanso Gardens Student Community Service Day for ages 12-15; 9 to 11 a.m. at the gardens in La Cañada Flintridge. Students can earn community service hours for school, but adult chaperones must be present. Bring water and gardening gloves. Participation is free, but you must register online and sign a waiver to participate. descansogardens.org

Dec. 7
High Desert Plant Celebration & Giveaway hosted by the Antelope Valley Audubon Society and the San Gabriel Chapter of the California Native Plant Society; 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the VFW Post 3000 in Lancaster. The event includes free plants, educational talks, interactive workshops such as making seed bombs and native foods, and a live performance by the L.A.-based band Sage Against the Machine. Admission is free; registration recommended but not required. eventbrite.com

Dec. 12
Wreath-Making with California Native Plants, a Theodore Payne Foundation hands-on workshop taught by Director of Public Programs Maryanne Pittman; noon to 4 p.m. at the foundation in Sun Valley. The workshop is open to families, and one child age 10 or older can join one ticketed adult in making one wreath together. Participants will receive one 18-inch grapevine wreath and an array of native plant cuttings, ribbons, floral wire and glue guns to make their wreaths. Register online, $68.83. theodorepayne.org

Dec. 13
Hands-on Lasagna Mulching + Intro to Hugelkultur Workshop is from 8 a.m. to noon in Altadena. Learn techniques for capturing rainwater, storing carbon in the soil, building fungal networks, reducing waste streams through in-situ composting and building better soil by layering cardboard and mulch “lasagna style” and creating hugelkultur berms with logs, branches and debris. The workshop is $25 and includes lunch. eventbrite.com

Fruit Trees and California Native Plants: Landscaping Together, a Theodore Payne Foundation workshop about how to grow healthy and productive fruit trees alongside less-thirsty native plants, will be taught by Joanna Glovinsky, founder of Fruitstitute fruit tree service company in Los Angeles; 2 to 4 p.m. at the foundation in Sun Valley. Register online, $48.05. theodorepayne.org

Fig Earth Supply’s Bare Root Fruit Tree Class with fruit tree expert Sanjay Gupta; 11 a.m. to noon at Fig Earth Supply in Mount Washington. Register online or at the store, $10. figearthsupply.com

Dec. 14
Point Vicente Garden Volunteers are needed to help keep the native plant garden clean of weeds and debris as they soak up some pretty astounding ocean views outside the Point Vicente Interpretive Center in Rancho Palos Verdes; 10 a.m. to noon. Gloves and tools will be provided as well as community service hours for students. Advance registration required. chapters.cnps.org

Dec. 27
Native Plant Wonders; Guided Garden Tour & Native Plant Sale at the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy’s White Point Native Plant Garden in San Pedro; 11 to 11:30 a.m. The free tours and plant sales, offered the fourth Saturday of every month, include expert tips on the care of California native plants as well as information about how the plants support local wildlife. The native plants, grown at the conservancy’s nursery, are on sale from 10:30 a.m. to noon. (Plants can also be ordered online or purchased at the George F. Canyon Nature Center the second Saturday of every month.) Tour participants should meet at the White Point Nature Education Center; registration is not required. pvplc.org

What we’re reading

It’s that gifting time of year, and The Times’ 2025 Holiday Gift Guide has plenty of choices, from stocking stuffers that aren’t Labubus and places to shop that support fire-affected retailers to, of course, gifts for plant lovers that won’t break the bank.

Hundreds of Joshua trees were scorched during the federal government’s shutdown. It’s too early to know how many of the iconic, endangered trees will survive, but with at least 25% fewer Park Service employees, there’s little park staff can do to help them pull through.

Red poinsettias have become a mainstay for Christmas decor, but if you’re tired of the same old, same old, Weidner’s Nursery in Encinitas grows poinsettias in multiple colors and sizes from a vivid pink to a near Renaissance-style plaid.