Member Story: Discovering the Secret World of Native Plants

Dida and Rich Merrill in the Garden, 2022

By: Taylor Keefer, Marketing and Communications Specialist

Fifty some years ago, Dida Merrill was attending the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), for her undergraduate schooling in zoology and was told she was required to take a botany course.

Dida thought, “Do I really have to take botany”, she imagined that it would be a sitting in a lab course.

Soon enough, Dida found herself in the field biology class taught by J.R. "Bob" Haller, Ph.D., unprepared for the revelation that would open her eyes to experience the secret world of native plants.

Haller, a renowned California botanist, frequently took his classes on field trips to Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, opening the door for a passion for plants that had yet to be discovered.

“The Garden was absolutely beautiful back then. Not just the plant connection, but the native plant connection started for me with that field botany class,” Dida said. “That’s where I learned it’s not just a backdrop of flowers — if it weren’t for them, there wouldn’t be life.”

Dida couldn’t wait to get home and share what she had learned with her husband, Rich Merrill, who was also a student at UCSB studying environmental studies. Rich considered his study of ecosystem dynamics and invertebrates “pretty far from plants.”

However, retracing Haller’s one-of-a-kind field trips with Dida to deserts, mountains, and Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, Rich was converted. They both were pointed toward a new trajectory in life as their awareness of the relationship between native plants and the well-being of entire communities grew.

“Although my study was in ecosystem dynamics, the foundation of an ecosystem is plants, and the native plants are the foundation of it all,” Rich said. “I recognized that the well-being of native habitats is crucial. What was taught in that class was legendary.”

Haller was not only instrumental in guiding students, college professors, and field biologists across the country toward a deeper appreciation of native plants but continued to give back by serving as the education botanist at the Garden after he retired. He inspired his audiences with the beauty of California’s floral splendor and continued to lead field trips.

Rich and Dida became members and explored the Garden’s 78 acres (31 hectares) of California’s native plants. Rich believes the depth of geographical diversity found in California explains why California contains 40% of all the plant species in the country with only 5% of the land area.

“There’s really no place on the planet that I know of — although some places come close — that has the geographical diversity that California has,” Rich said. “A lot of those microcosms are represented beautifully at the Garden, and that is what we’re celebrating here.”

Some years after finishing up graduate school in environmental studies, Rich and Dida moved to Santa Cruz where Rich became the director of the Environmental Horticulture program at Cabrillo College for 30 years. At that point, Rich admits he was a plant nerd, whether he liked it or not.

Rich and Dida were cocreators of the Department of Environmental Horticulture where they struggled to find ways to financially support the expensive infrastructure needs, such as greenhouses. After finding a loophole in education code that allowed them to sell the plants they raised in instruction, Rich and Dida found their funding source.

“We had regular plant sales and sold plants at farmer’s markets,” Rich said. “It was very successful.”

Their success led to a booming Horticulture program with thousands of students and volunteers and an 11-acre (4-hectare) marine terrace overlooking the Monterey Bay with classrooms, botanic gardens, herbariums, and one of the largest collections of sages (Salvia spp.) in the world.

The plant sales not only helped provide the funds needed for the program, but Rich and Dida began to notice their plants in home gardens around their community.

“Through Rich’s teachings, people became aware of the plants, and people were replacing petunias with native species of Salvia [sages],” Dida said. “In our 30 years, we saw it start to change the landscape of Santa Cruz, and it was all inspired by what we learned here at the Garden.” Rich and Dida noticed more birds, pollinators, and beneficial insects were all coming back. Even endangered species or wildlife they thought were extinct were returning.

Even throughout many successful decades in Santa Cruz, Rich and Dida always planned on returning to Santa Barbara so they could once again reunite with their original source of inspiration.

“We never stopped being members of the Garden because, as cocreators of an educational department, the educational component of raising awareness is a very important thing for us to support,” Dida said.

After moving back to Santa Barbara three years ago, the first thing Rich and Dida did was sign up to be volunteers. Dida was volunteering with membership and special events, and recently became a parttime member of the Garden staff and guest services associate. Rich does data entry for the Clifton Smith Herbarium with Matt Guilliams, Ph.D., identifies insects with Zach Phillips, Ph.D., and prepares lectures for the Education and Engagement Team, and he is currently writing an assessment/design report on the present and future of the Garden’s nursery facilities.

Family botany field trip in 1970

In the Garden, 1994

In the Garden, 1994 Rich with kids, 1972

Rich with kids, 1972

Both Dida and Rich have come a long way from that first introduction and have never stopped the learning process. As the years have gone by, they have discovered even more beneficial roles native plants play in our existence.

“There’s something besides just their place in the ecosystem,” Dida shared. “I remember in those field trips, walking through the chaparral, just the scent of Salvia [sage] and Artemisia [California sagebrush] was like aromatherapy. There’s something about them that just uplifts people.”

Another dimension both Rich and Dida have grown passionate about is how the plants have been used by endemic peoples for culinary and medicinal purposes. In her time at Cabrillo College, Dida taught a year on ethnobotany and showed her students how to do extractions.

Rich and Dida are avid gardeners themselves and admit that the biggest arguments they’ve had with each other are about what plant to put where. Dida likes sage ‘Aromas’ (Salvia clevelandii X leucophylla) and native species of Artemisia for the aromatherapy when she steps into her garden, but Rich’s plant pickings are based on if they will attract, nurture, and provide refuge for pollinators and beneficial insects. He suggests that a novice gardener starts with planting native species of milkweed (especially Asclepias fascicularis and A. californica), wild buckwheat (Eriogonum spp.), and common yarrow (Achillea millefolium) because they “attract everything.” “We just put them all together and everyone says it’s a jungle,” Dida said.

Rich considers this a great compliment.

Home is where the heart is, and for Rich and Dida, the Garden is home. Rich believes the Garden taught him how to identify native plants in a fuller context. He no longer stops at getting the name of the plant; he wants to get acquainted with the plant by knowing what the source of its name is, where it comes from, what its range is, what its habitat is, what it attracts, and much more.

“Once you learn all that, it’s like sitting down and getting to know somebody,” Rich said. “That’s the beauty of the Garden. It puts it all in one place so you can truly get to know the plants.”

Dida’s great joy is the ability to introduce people to this world by bringing them to the Garden; an accessible, hike-able place no matter what age they are.

“I love watching their eyes light up, watching it maybe even change their lives,” Dida said. “I can share this gorgeous place with others and awaken them to the wonders. It opens them to a whole new world.”

Self-proclaimed plant evangelists and “plantaholics,” you can find Rich and Dida eager to learn something new on a garden trail or bickering over plant placement in their home garden. If you happen to scan their garden and mention that it looks like a lot of work, Rich will politely respond: “No, it’s my play." O