Biodiversity

WED-A01: Layered Landscapes: Growing the Past in the Present

Wednesday, September 16, 2026

8:30 AM - 9:45 AM PT

1.25 PDH, LA CES/HSW

Speaker(s)

John Lambert Pearson, ASLA, PLA

Senior Landscape Architect
RIOS
Los Angeles, CA
Nina Raj (she/they)

Founder
Altadena Seed Library
Pasadena, California
Katie Tilford (she/her/hers)

Director of Development and Communications
Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers & Native Plants
Sun Valley, California

Plants can be powerful ambassadors of historical and cultural interpretations in California's public realm. This session examines how three ongoing efforts use planting design, seeds, and native horticulture as interpretive tools to unearth the history of Southern California through landscape architecture, institutional programming, and urgent grassroots conservation responding to wildfire.

Learning Outcomes:

Recognize how plants function as interpretive tools in landscape design, moving beyond their ornamental roles in order to communicate site history and cultural narratives.
Apply collaboration strategies with nonprofit educators and mutual aid networks to strengthen botanical knowledge in landscape projects and local neighborhoods.
Evaluate how institutional, commercial, and grassroots plant conservation efforts preserve regional plant heritage at different scales.
Develop strategies for integrating botanical research and historical plant narratives into planting plans, site interpretation, and public education programming.