Native Desert Plant Gardening
Mike Evans was born and raised in southern California where he developed a deep love for nature and opportunities to immerse himself in many activities including surfing, camping and hiking. He and Hilda, his wife of 48 years, tried their best to pass those experiences on to their three kids, and now to their four grandchildren.
Mike founded Tree of Life Nursery in 1978 and was joined by his business partner Jeff Bohn in 1980 to operate what became the largest native plant nursery in California. Located on the historic Rancho Mission Viejo, Tree of Life is blessed to be on one of the loveliest spots in southern California, 40 acres with huge oaks and sycamores along the San Juan Creek, where people experience a step back in time in the adobe style buildings and rustic layout.
At one time, the Tree of Life team consisted of 40 knowledgeable dedicated people. The team is slightly smaller today. The nursery consistently grows nearly 400 varieties of native plants and is known for their educational outreach and informative website. Workshops and seminars are held most Saturdays, and the retail store, ‘Casa La Paz’ carries over 200 book titles, all centered on outdoor California.
Mike is active in several professional and conservation-based organizations and has been honored with many awards over the years. He plans to continue his participation in the native plant world when the nursery closes this year, after 45 years providing California native plants to the nursery and landscape trades as well as the general public.
Plant Walks with the Botany Society
Join us for a stroll through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park with the Botany Society! Botanists will lead us on a leisurely walk to different locations within the park each week from early February through the end of March. They’ll share their knowledge of the fascinating plant life of Anza-Borrego, discussing the plants’ roles in the landscape, their adaptations to the desert, and the efforts being made to conserve and protect the park’s flora.
This walk is designed for beginner botanists, but all are welcome. Expect a slow-paced, short walk with plenty of stops to admire and discuss the plants we encounter. We’ll take our time, exploring and talking about every intriguing plant along the way, marveling at exciting or rare species, and enjoying the beauty of the wildflowers! After the guided walk, you’re free to continue exploring on your own.
Fridays - February 7, 14, 21, 28 March 7, 14, 21 Saturdays - March 8, 15, 22, 29
Time: 9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. (end time is approximate)
Location: Meet at the ABF Store: 587 Palm Canyon Dr. #110, Borrego Springs, CA, 92004 (located in The Mall next to Calico’s). We’ll then carpool and/or caravan to our site locations.
Register at theabf.org
Desert Pollinators
Dr. Shahan Derkarabetian was born and raised in Southern California. Dr. Shahan Derkarabetian graduated with a B.S. in Biology from San Diego State University and an M.S. in Evolutionary Biology from San Diego State University with Dr. Marshal Hedin where he studied Opiliones systematics and evolution. He then continued on to complete his Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology through a joint doctoral program with UC Riverside and SDSU where he studied phylogenomics, integrative taxonomy, and population genomics of Opiliones. After a five-year postdoctoral fellowship at The Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, he returned to San Diego in September 2023 to start his current position as Curator of Entomology at the San Diego Natural History Museum (the Nat). Dr. Shahan Derkarabetian is bringing innovative technology and genetics methods to help modernize taxonomic and conservation research at the Nat. He is continuing his passion studying taxonomy and evolution of Opiliones (and other arachnids) in North America, with focus on Southern California and the Baja peninsula. More recently, Dr. Shahan Derkarabetian is beginning to dip his toes into some fascinating pollinator work, including our local endangered butterfly, Hermes Copper.
Rachel Allingham is also a local from San Diego. In 2019, Rachel graduated with a B.S. in Biology with an emphasis in Zoology from San Diego State University. After working at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park with a variety of hooved animals in 2019, she began volunteering with the Entomology Department at the Nat. After the world returned to some normalcy post-covid, Rachel Allingham was hired to work as a technician at the Nat doing a variety of work including but not limited to; Flat-tailed Horned Lizard surveys, Crotch’s Bumble Bee surveys, Hermes Copper surveys, diseased tree assessments for Golden Spotted Oak Borer and Shot Hole Borer, small mammal trapping, as well as sorting, identifying, pinning, and other curations skills. Most recently Rachel helped lead a large collaborative project focused on developing a pollinator monitoring protocol for the County of San Diego. Since May, Rachel has been sampling pollinator communities all around the County and is becoming an expert at identifying local bees, among other pollinators.
Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, Eva Horna Lowell traveled to Denver, Colorado to complete her bachelor’s (2017) and master’s (2019) degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Denver. After a brief two-year stint at UCLA in a PhD program, also in Ecology and Evolution, Eva decided to explore other career options. She found her way down south to San Diego and was hired as an Entomologist to manage the Nat’s role in the California Insect Barcode Initiative, a statewide effort to build a DNA barcode library for every insect in the state. This project led her to spend a year sampling insect diversity in San Diego and Imperial counties. This included monthly trips to Borrego Springs, where Eva Horna Lowell began asking questions about environmental factors that may influence pollinator diversity, particularly in deserts across southern California. Most recently, Eva received funding from the Nat to develop non-lethal methods to sample insects. She is building custom made camera traps that will be deployed in the field and integrating machine learning algorithms to identify insects from those images
