If you’re out hiking this time of year, you may have noticed an explosion of bright red berries all along the Santa Monica Mountains and San Gabriel Foothills. It’s a nice burst of color at a time ...

The holly, with its prickly green leaves and bright red berries, is often used as decoration this time of year. There’s a similar native plant called the California holly, also known as Toyon. That’s ...

If you have space in your garden for a large shrub or small multi-trunked tree that will live for decades, is attractive year-round, and provides food and shelter for wildlife, you can hardly beat our ...

It is a wonderful thing when plants are able to decorate themselves for the holidays, with bright red berries against deep green foliage. This is one of the appealing features of the Toyon, a ...

This is a great year for toyon berries. Toyon, Heteromeles arbutifolia, is our California native holly. So convincing is its impersonation - at least by the standards of early European immigrants here ...

Heteromeles arbutifolia. That’s the fancy botanical for the Toyon, a drought-tolerant, Southern California shrub that this week became Los Angeles’ official municipal plant thanks to a vote by the L.A ...

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to name the native, drought-tolerant toyon plant as the city’s official plant. The toyon – its formal name is Heteromeles arbutifoila – is a ...

Every other week, Patrice Hanlon, garden manager at Walnut Creek’s Gardens at Heather Farm, writes about plants in the garden that grow well in the fertile Bay Area. October’s light intensifies the ...

While it may not be a classic winter wonderland, the South Coast does boast several festive flora for the winter season. Among them are California holly and the region’s two genera of mistletoe — and ...

Nancee Wells, a field guide in the Dana Point/Laguna Beach area, sent me an email asking about the fire resistance of California native plants. Although California natives will eventually go up in ...