Theodore Payne
Theodore Payne was born in Northamptonshire, England in 1872 and served an apprenticeship in horticulture. He moved to Los Angeles in 1893 and fell in love with the California flora, dedicating his life to its preservation.
Even in the early years of this century, native vegetation was being lost to agriculture and housing at an alarming rate. He urged the use of California native plants and lectured across the state on preserving the wild flowers and landscapes native to California.
In his own nursery and seed business, which he started in 1903, native wildflowers and landscapes were his specialty. In 1915 he laid out and planted 262 species in a five-acre wild garden in Los Angeles' Exposition Park. He later helped to establish the Blaksley Botanic Garden in Santa Barbara, planted 178 native species in the California Institute of Technology Botanic Garden in Pasadena, helped create the native plant garden at Descanso Gardens in La Cañada Flintridge, and advised the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Orange County.
By the time he retired in 1958, Payne had made over 430 species of native plants available to the public.
The Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers and Native Plants was founded and incorporated in 1960 and is located in Sun Valley, California, The Foundation promotes the understanding and preservation of California native flora.
Career
After arriving in California in 1893, Payne found a job in charge of the gardens at the ranch of Madame Helena Modjeska in Santiago Canyon in Orange County, California. In his memoir, Life on the Modjeska Ranch in the Gay Nineties , he offers perhaps the best account of daily life on the ranch.
It was there that he began his life-long interest in California native plants.