Verso

William Deverell, the director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West (ICW), chats with USC doctoral student Sarah Keyes about her research on the Overland Trail experience of 250,000 Americans who moved west before the Civil War. This is the first in a new series highlighting the work of USC graduate students.

Another post in a series about Mr. Huntington's Garden by the botanical director of The Huntington.

When Ben Oki first saw a bonsai tree as a curious youngster of six, he asked his father what bonsai was. "It's something people do when they retire," his father explained. Luckily for the world of horticulture, Oki didn't wait that long to start.

Brandon Tam and Lance Birk know what it's like to drive the 101 Freeway with a truck full of orchids. Last summer, they helped move more than 6,000 orchids from the Santa Barbara home of the late S. Robert Weltz to the greenhouses of The Huntington.

Another post in a series about Mr. Huntington's Garden by the botanical director of The Huntington.

Sweet alyssum is a common flowering plant, easily available in seed or in pony packs at your local nursery. It is usually planted in the fall in Southern California. This is what it looks like today

I want to quickly introduce you to one of the beauties of the Fall-planted vegetable garden: Osaka Purple Mustard. This Japanese mustard green has a spicy, wasabi-tinged taste that is great in stir fry

Forget shamrocks. The best plant at The Huntington on St. Patrick's Day is a bromeliad. At the bottomof the Desert Garden is the giant Puya berteroniana, which amazes us each year at this time with green flowers.