Spring 2026
By Emily Beyda
Photos by Alisha Jucevic
On one of the last days in business for Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano, the breeze carried the familiar smell of California’s coastal sage scrub. Shoppers lingered, browsing the remaining plants, which were mostly what the nursery’s co-founder Mike Evans called “the woody stuff”—manzanitas (Arctostaphylos spp.), California lilacs (Ceanothus spp.), holly leaf cherry (Prunus ilicifolia), and oak saplings (Quercus spp.). One customer, a suntanned man in a bucket hat, smiled as he described buying a coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia) with his mother on Tree of Life’s opening day in 1980 and the way it had grown tall to shade his entire cul-de-sac.
L-R: Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano, photographed on March 21, 2026—the nursery’s last official day of business; Mike Evans (left) and Jeff Bohn, who founded Tree of Life Nursery in 1980.
The oak isn’t the only thing that’s expanded since 1980. Over the course of its 46-year history, Tree of Life grew to be one of the largest native plant nurseries in the state, propagating and growing on 40 acres, consistently employing 25-40 people, and producing more than 20,000,000 native plants representing nearly 500 native taxa. “Tree of Life was a team, and it was a family,” says Evans, sitting under a trio of coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) trees he and his fellow co-founder Jeff Bohn planted back in the early days of Tree of Life. Before starting the nursery, Evans and Bohn were longtime landscaping professionals who met in the late 1970s through their shared love of California native plants. Initially, the duo became interested in the plants for their drought resistance and erosion control, but in conversations with clients and other native plant enthusiasts, they noticed a shift. “Slowly, people started to change their perception toward native plants,” Evans says. “It shifted in people’s minds to, ‘Hey, it’s not just about water conservation. We also want birds and butterflies. We want kids to enjoy the nature outside their door.’ ”
For 20 years after founding the nursery, Evans and Bohn served landscaping professionals like themselves. Eventually, the growing demand made them rethink their audience. “People who wanted native plants basically started beating down the door,” Evans says. “It took us a long time to figure out that these people really wanted to buy our plants, and maybe we should make a place for them.” After adapting to a public-facing business, Bohn and Evans undertook more community outreach. They were early adopters of the internet in 1997. During the last 25 years in operation, public education became a fixture at Tree of Life, a component that continued until the end of the nursery’s run.
L-R: The nursery will offer limited business hours in April as it winds down operations. “We will sell everything,” Evans says; Evans and Bohm pass by Tree of Life’s dismantled native plant greenhouse, which will soon relocate to Greenbelt Growers in Riverside.
Evans and Bohn started talking about closing Tree of Life in 2022. When, in 2024, their landlord asked if they were interested in renewing their lease for another decade, they both took it as a sign that it was time for a change. Anticipating the gap Tree of Life’s closure would create in the marketplace, other nursery owners have worked with the duo to take up the mantle of selling—and evangelizing on behalf of—California native plants.
“We’re able to hand them some books out of our library, hand them some materials, some equipment, some seeds,” Bohn says. They have donated the remainder of their seeds to a seed library in Pasadena, dismantled and handed down their immense greenhouse to Greenbelt Growers in Riverside, and shared resources with anyone who asks. They had so much support and encouragement starting out, they said, it only seems right to help the next generation of native plant growers in any way they can.
Tree of Life Nursery co-founders Jeff Bohn (left) and Mike Evans.
The team is content to let these final days linger, slowly selling off the remaining inventory and saying extended goodbyes to staff, customers, and community. (Although their planned last day has come and gone, Tree of Life expects to have limited hours through April; “We will sell everything,” Evans says.) Once Tree of Life closes, Bohn says he plans to spend more time with his 16 grandchildren, while Evans will pivot to the California Native Horticultural Foundation, an organization he founded to continue Tree of Life’s vital work in promoting and educating around native plants. The nursery site itself will become part of the Rancho Mission Viejo Nature Reserve, with the straw bale architecture Evans and Bohn helped construct over the years serving as offices and teaching spaces.
It’s clear that Tree of Life has meant many things to its customers, including generations of CNPS members. “We are excited to help others as they either start or continue on their native plant trail,” Evans says, “because we’re coming to the end of ours.” The man with the bucket hat, meanwhile, stood at the cash register with another Quercus agrifolia, destined to be planted at the other end of his street for more much-needed shade. It seemed, he said, an appropriate way to say goodbye.
