Welcome to I Heart Habitat — a campaign to expand and enhance the UC Davis Arboretum’s habitat gardens.
This expanded habitat for pollinators and other native wildlife will showcase Arboretum All-Stars and highlight the power of thoughtful plant selection for creating beautiful, resilient, and sustainable spaces that support our environment. Planned demonstration gardens and a new teaching patio will show visitors how to create thriving habitats at home, while Learning by Leading™ students will use the area to engage the community, share climate-ready gardening practices, and strengthen their own environmental leadership skills. Together, we’re cultivating a living classroom where hearts, roots, and habitats grow!
Thank you to all donors whose gifts supported the I Heart Habitat campaign:
Challenge Donors
- Terry Davison
- Tré Frane
- Kathleen Socolofsky & Bob Gregoire
- Glenys & James Kaye
- David & Pamela Louie
- Kevin & Bea Olsen
- Will Green & Martín Palomar
- Marty West
- Friends Board Challenge:
- Kent Bradford
- Kristen Bennett
- Ann Daniel
- Ann Filmer
- Anonymous (3)
Donors
Did you make a gift but don't see your name on this list? You requested that your name be hidden from view when you gave during UC Davis Give Day or Big Day of Giving. If you'd like your name to show, please let us know!
- April Aguilar
- Erich Aigner
- Cindy Anders
- Frances Andrews
- Jerry Au
- Kevin Bacon
- Courtney Bartolich
- Cynthia Bates
- Sylvia Bender
- Carol Benedetti
- Christina Blackman
- Doris Blaker
- Valerie Bono
- Stephen Brush
- Dawn Calciano
- Davis Campbell
- Manuel Carbahal
- Gerald Carr
- Camille Chan
- Brandon Chee
- Aaron Cheesman
- Sharon Clevesy
- Darleen Coppersmith
- Candace Cross-Drew
- Juliane Crowley
- Mara DaPrato
- Dana Drennan
- Keith Emrick
- Heather Fargo
- Yeganeh Farzin
- Carmia Feldman
- JoAnne Fillatti
- Judith Fletcher
- Stacie Frerichs
- Sabina Funk
- Koto Garcia Maquis
- Andrea Gaytan
- Tara Gee
- Carolyn Geng
- Paul Gepts
- Phyllis Graham
- Jaritza Granillo
- Cliff Gravem
- Brenda Grewell
- Emily Griswold
- Jerry Guerzon
- Tessa Haden
- David Haggerty
- Ellen Hamilton
- Abbey Hart
- Rachel Hartsough
- Anna Hermle
- Katie Hetrick
- Susan & Jeffrey Hoffmann
- Kathleen Holder
- Jeffrey Holmsen
- Rachel Howard-Till
- Jessica Hubbard
- Ing-tzong Hwang
- Louise Jackson
- Stephen Jacobs
- Sean Kaer
- Hossain Kazemi
- Alison Kent
- Robert & Cathryn Kerr
- Marguerite Knipe
- Nancy Latta
- Barbara Leach
- Lorie Lindsey
- Michael Lopez
- Cynthia Lopez
- Mario Lowe
- Frances Maguire
- Karen Majewski
- Norika Malhado-Chang
- Mark K. Mancl
- Michelle Maranta
- Karen Martin
- Don McBride
- Naoko & Tom McHale
- Paul Menard
- Jose Mendoza
- Dawn Miller
- Robin Mitchell
- Kathryn Miura
- Vicki Moering
- Roxanne Moger
- Ernie Moore
- Vicki Moore
- Dylan Musgrove
- Bruno Nachtergaele
- Leslee Newton-Reed
- Minh Nguyen
- Jane O'Meara
- Harry Ohlendorf
- Frances Oliver
- Linda Olsen
- Stacey Parker
- Erin Peltzman
- Lynn Perkins
- Michelle Poesy
- Cory Poroli
- Sharon Radke
- Alexander Robinson
- Sarah Roeske
- Marilyn Saarni
- Michele Santoro
- Julia Serat
- Ryan Sharp
- Sonjia Shelly
- Amy Shuman
- Jacquelin Siegel
- Elisa Skop
- Robert Snider
- Elizabeth St. Goar
- Meg Stallard
- Ann Steiner
- Kathleen Stock
- Margaret Strode
- Renee Swank
- Martha Teeter
- Nancy Temple
- Dana Topousis
- Fred Turner
- Suzanne Ullensvang
- Ginny Vaughn
- Marc Vayssieres
- Ann Marie Velasco
- Renee Wilson
- Henry Wirz
- Jason Wohlman
- Kerry Wright
- Judy Wydick
- Kayoko Yamamoto
- Elaine Yee
- Matthew Zavod
- Anonymous (25)
Donations are helping in these areas
Habitat Garden Expansion
Your support helps fund the plants, supplies, and site improvements to develop a new Arboretum All-Star Habitat Demonstration Garden and enhance other habitat gardens in the Arboretum’s Environmental GATEway.
More About the All-Star Demonstration Garden
The I Heart Habitat campaign will support construction of our newest habitat garden – the Arboretum All-Star Habitat Demonstration Garden – and will showcase many of our top recommended climate-resilient plants that are available for sale at the Arboretum Teaching Nursery during seasonal plant sales. The plant selection will emphasize plants that are great for supporting biodiversity and provide regional home gardeners with ideas for how to incorporate wildlife-friendly plantings in their gardens. The All-Star Habitat Garden will include a teaching patio, benches and circulation paths and is slated for construction in late 2026/early 2027.
Student Leadership
Your support helps fund undergraduate students in the Arboretum and Public Garden’s award-winning Learning by Leading™ (LxL) environmental leadership internship program.
More About the LxL Habitat Horticulture Team
Students are at the center of our work at the Arboretum and Public Garden. Student leaders in the Habitat Horticulture strand of our Learning by Leading™ program focus on creating and sustaining climate-ready landscapes that support biodiversity, with an emphasis on plant-wildlife interactions. This team’s work is centered in the habitat gardens of the Environmental GATEway near the Arboretum Teaching Nursery. The Habitat Horticulture team members use these habitat gardens as a living laboratory for plant identification and cultivation, wildlife and pollinator monitoring, hands-on learning and community education.
Community Outreach
Your support helps fund student-led educational programs and outreach events to inspire care for the environment and empower people to create their own sustainable, wildlife-friendly home gardens.
More About Community Outreach & Engagement
The habitat garden area near the Arboretum Teaching Nursery is emerging as a dynamic space for community engagement, education and events. Already the Arboretum and Public Garden team collaborates with partners across campus to host UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day activities in the habitat gardens each February. Another of our Learning by Leading™ teams – the Arboretum Ambassadors – is planning even more public engagement activities in this area, including the popular Chair Share events. Your support of I Heart Habitat helps our students, staff and volunteers develop and host Climate-Ready programs as free education opportunities for people of all ages from our campus and regional communities.
Expanding our Habitat Gardens
At the heart of the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden’s Environmental GATEway is a ring of habitat gardens that support wildlife, advance research and education, and inspire sustainable gardening at home. Several gardens are already thriving, with more planned—including a new Arboretum All-Star Habitat Demonstration Garden supported by I Heart Habitat donors. Your gift helps these landscapes—and the people who care for them—flourish, creating a more resilient future for wildlife and our community.
Habitat Gardens Timeline
In 2015, UC Davis added a stormwater basin and paths near the Arboretum Teaching Nursery, creating space for new gardens. In 2016, our students, staff, and volunteers planted native species to establish a meadow, which now captures and filters stormwater before it flows to the Arboretum Waterway.
2016 also marked the creation of the collection’s first garden—the Hummingbird GATEway Garden—designed and planted in collaboration with campus researchers from the Hummingbird Health and Conservation program to provide food, shelter, and nesting sites for hummingbirds.
By the early 2020s, the Hummingbird Garden, Native Plant Meadow, and Pollinator Garden were thriving and widely used for school tours, public events, and outreach. Learning by Leading™ student interns continue to regularly host programs and conduct citizen science research in these areas.
In 2024, the Climate Adaptation Living Lab (CALL Garden) research plots were added in collaboration with Entomology professor Emily Meineke, giving campus scientists a new outdoor laboratory to study how climate change impacts plant–insect relationships.