Sun Valley Tutors

About Sun Valley

Sun Valley is home of the 'Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers and Native Plants'. Sun Valley tutor’s frequently visit this education center and plant nursery, where programs for children include plant-animal relations, butterflies and human uses of native plant materials. There are also courses available for the general public, which include horticulture, botany and ecology of California native plants.

Theodore Payne was from England. His passion for California flora 'stemmed' from a visit to the Royal Botanical Gardens or 'Kew Gardens' as it is frequently called, in Kew, London. After Payne completed a three year long apprenticeship at a nursery firm in Sussex, he left the U.K. and traveled west to the United States. He made his way from New York via Chicago to Southern California. When he arrived in Orange County he found a suitable position as head gardener at a ranch estate in Santiago Canyon. It was while in this role that he was able to explore the surrounding lands and his life passion for California native plants took hold. He took on a position a few years later with the Germain Seed Company, learned the business and eventually was able to purchase his own nursery, Evans Nursery, in Downtown Los Angeles.

Payne recognized even in these very early stages of development that the increase in housing, agriculture and industry was having severe harmful effects on native habitats. He was one of the first documented environmentalists. Payne was so passionate about the preservation of these wild flowers that he took it upon himself to attempt to educate others on the possible repercussions of urbanization. A tutor in his own right, he lectured across the state of California, focusing on preservation of wild flowers and landscapes native to California. He went a step further and took action to make sure these plant species would survive, even if in a manufactured environment. Payne created a very special garden in central Los Angeles in 1915 in Exposition Park. In total he planted 262 different species. About a decade later he gave Santa Barbara their very own Botanic Garden known as 'Blaksley Botanic Garden'. Just over a decade after this work was completed, he created a native plant garden at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

It was in Sun Valley in 1960 that the 'Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers and Native Plants' was founded and incorporated in a bid to carry on Payne’s work after his retirement. By this time Payne had introduced more than four hundred species of native plants to the public through his nursery.