Mathias Botanical Garden

Botany Brown Bag with Dr. Pam Soltis
2025-10-30 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | La Kretz Garden Pavilion, 707 Tiverton Drive, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Join us for a new Botany Brown Bag Public Lecture Series!
Our Botany Brown Bag series is continued by Dr. Pam Soltis, who will give a talk titled “Using Natural History Collections to Address 21st Century Societal Problems” on Thursday, October 30 at 12 pm.
Make sure to bring your lunch!
This event is free and open to the public, no RSVP required!
Pamela Soltis is a Distinguished Professor and Curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida. She is also Director of the UF Biodiversity Institute and Director of Research for iDigBio, the NSF-sponsored National Coordinating Center for Biodiversity Collections. Her research addresses patterns and processes of plant evolution, including phylogeny and polyploidy. This work spans genomic to landscape scales, with applications for biodiversity assessment, conservation, and agriculture. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the US National Academy of Sciences, where she recently served as Secretary of Biological Sciences.

Guided Garden Tour - November 1
2025-11-01 10:00 - 11:00 | 707 Tiverton Dr, 707 Tiverton Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90095, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, US
Join a Garden Guide for a free tour on November 1, 2025 at 10 am. Explore our living museum featuring collections of plants from around the globe!
You’ll hear the stories of selected plants in the Garden and their relevance to human society. All ages are welcome. Tours meet at the La Kretz Garden Pavilion at the northern end of the Garden and are given a grace period of 5 minutes.

Our tours are free; become a member to support free public programming and access member-exclusive events.

Día de los Muertos: Mourning and Remembering through Ecological Change
2025-11-01 11:00 - 13:00 | La Kretz Garden Pavilion, 707 Tiverton Drive, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Día de los Muertos: Mourning and Remembering through Ecological Change will explore cross-cultural grief in the context of environmental and species loss. Join us on November 1 from 11am-1pm at the UCLA Mathias Botanical Garden for ofrendas, art, and talks on topics such as deforestation, extinction, and environmental colonialism and imperialism. We’ll have snacks and drinks including champurrado and a variety of pan dulces. Come early for a Guided Garden tour at 10 am.
This event is free and open to the public; it is hosted by the Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies (LENS), Environmental Humanities Reading Group (EHRG), and Radical Imagination Coalition (RIC), and is co-sponsored by the UCLA Mathias Botanical Garden and Center for Developing Leadership in Science (CDLS).
If you are interested in contributing an ofrenda, art, or your time to this event, please email Elijah Catalan (elijahcatalan@g.ucla.edu) and Olivia Simon (oliviameyers@g.ucla.edu) with a short description of how you would like to be involved and “Día de los Muertos: Request to Participate” in the subject line.

Wreath Making Class
2025-11-22 10:30 - 12:00 | UCLA La Kretz Garden Pavilion, 707 Tiverton Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90095, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, US
Get in the holiday spirit at this festive class on Saturday, November 22 from 10:30 am to 12 pm in La Kretz Garden Pavilion! Assistant Director Allison Keeney will lead a hands-on workshop about how to make a grapevine wreath like the one featured on the flyer to adorn your door.
All supplies provided, space is limited. Tickets can be purchased here. Admission is $25.
UPDATE 11/12/2025: Tickets for this event are sold out and can no longer be purchased via our website. If you are interested in being added to the waitlist for this event, please reach out to botanicalgarden@ucla.edu with your name and number of guests (limited to 2 guests per email).

Botany of the Holidays
2025-12-04 12:00 - 13:00 | La Kretz Garden Pavilion, 707 Tiverton Drive, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Save the date! Join the Garden for our annual holiday event where we dive into the botanical histories of holiday traditions from around the world.
This year, Botany of the Holidays will take place on Thursday, December 4 from 12 pm to 1 pm in La Kretz Garden Pavilion. This event is free and open to the public, no RSVP required. More details will be announced soon!

Guided Garden Tour - December 6
2025-12-06 10:00 - 11:00 | 707 Tiverton Dr, 707 Tiverton Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90095, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, US
Join a Garden Guide for a free tour on December 6, 2025 at 10 am. Explore our living museum featuring collections of plants from around the globe!
You’ll hear the stories of selected plants in the Garden and their relevance to human society. All ages are welcome. Tours meet at the La Kretz Garden Pavilion at the northern end of the Garden and are given a grace period of 5 minutes.

Our tours are free; become a member to support free public programming and access member-exclusive events.

Guided Garden Tour - January 17
2026-01-17 10:00 - 11:00 | 707 Tiverton Dr, 707 Tiverton Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90095, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, US
Join a Garden Guide for a free tour on January 17, 2026 at 10 am. Explore our living museum featuring collections of plants from around the globe!
You’ll hear the stories of selected plants in the Garden and their relevance to human society. All ages are welcome. Tours meet at the La Kretz Garden Pavilion at the northern end of the Garden and are given a grace period of 5 minutes.

Our tours are free; become a member to support free public programming and access member-exclusive events.

Guided Garden Tour - February 7
2026-02-07 10:00 - 11:00 | 707 Tiverton Dr, 707 Tiverton Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90095, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, US
Join a Garden Guide for a free tour on February 7, 2026 at 10 am. Explore our living museum featuring collections of plants from around the globe!
You’ll hear the stories of selected plants in the Garden and their relevance to human society. All ages are welcome. Tours meet at the La Kretz Garden Pavilion at the northern end of the Garden and are given a grace period of 5 minutes.

Our tours are free; become a member to support free public programming and access member-exclusive events.

Guided Garden Tour - February 21
2026-02-21 10:00 - 11:00 | 707 Tiverton Dr, 707 Tiverton Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90095, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, US
Join a Garden Guide for a free tour on February 21, 2026 at 10 am. Explore our living museum featuring collections of plants from around the globe!
You’ll hear the stories of selected plants in the Garden and their relevance to human society. All ages are welcome. Tours meet at the La Kretz Garden Pavilion at the northern end of the Garden and are given a grace period of 5 minutes.

Our tours are free; become a member to support free public programming and access member-exclusive events.

Botany Brown Bag with Dr. Andy Kleinhesselink
2026-02-26 12:00 - 13:00 | La Kretz Garden Pavilion, 707 Tiverton Drive, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Join us on Thursday, February 26 from 12-1 pm at La Kretz Garden Pavilion for another installment of Botany Brown Bag. Dr. Andy Kleinhesselink will give a talk titled “A Scrap of Nature: Rediscovering UCLA’s Native Plants on Sage Hill.”
One-hundred years ago, UCLA began constructing the Westwood campus on 419 of acres of open pasture, riparian, and coastal scrub habitat. Within 40 years, nearly all of that open space and most of the native species were gone, replaced by lawns, buildings, and parking lots. Nevertheless, a few small patches of natural habitat and about 50 native plant species survived. But which native species were lost? And which species should we attempt to bring back? Dr. Andy Kleinhesselink, the Managing Director of Sage Hill, will describe how he uses herbaria collections, historical photos and other data to piece together a more complete picture of campus’ past biodiversity. He will discuss how this history guides our plans for restoring Sage Hill, and how we can use the story of biodiversity on campus to bring lessons about conservation and restoration to life for UCLA undergraduates.
Make sure to bring your lunch!
This event is free and open to the public, no RSVP required!

Clarkia Flower Festival
2026-05-16 10:00 - 16:00
Save the date! The Clarkia Flower Festival will take place on Saturday, May 16, 2026 from 10 am to 4 pm. Check back later for more details!
