Swimmer Medicinal Garden

Ballona Discovery Park, Playa Vista

Welcome. This garden contains native plants that have sustained and continue to sustain people in this place for thousands of years. The four panels in the garden carry each plant's name in Tongva, Cahuilla, Chumash, and Spanish alongside interpretations in English and Spanish as well as their scientific names. This page holds the full list, the story of how the names were gathered, and the people who made it possible.

Land acknowledgment

As part of Loyola Marymount University’s commitment to recognizing our history, location, and connection to the Indigenous communities of Los Angeles, we acknowledge the Tongva peoples as the traditional caretakers of Tovaangar—the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands—and the presence of LMU on their traditional, ancestral, and unceded land. We are grateful for the opportunity to live, learn, create, and build community in this place.

To reflect more deeply on the meaning and purpose of land acknowledgments—what they ask us to recognize, how they call us to accountability, and how we might move from words to meaningful action—read The Importance of Land Acknowledgments as Preludes to Transformed Relations by Ernesto Colín and Brenda Nicolás.

About the garden

The Swimmer Medicinal Garden was constructed in 2017 with the loving hands of these expert craftspeople:

• Michael Swimmer, Landscape Architect (retired)
• Lisa Fimiani, Master Gardener and Naturalist
• Lanny Kaufer, Nature Guide and Native Plant Expert
• Exiquio de Leon, Landscape Contractor and Irrigation Expert
• Everardo Berumen, Landscaper and Arborist

In 2024 a research project began to include the Tongva, Spanish, Cahuilla, and Chumash names of the plants.

The plants

Each panel in the garden is marked with a color. Find the color of the panel in front of you to see its plants.

Jump to a panel: Orange | Magenta | Green | Blue

About the names

The names on this page were gathered through a research project that began in 2024, working from documented vocabularies and in consultation with community knowledge. Each plant is presented in Tongva, Cahuilla, and Chumash first, followed by common English and Spanish interpretations and the scientific name. We note where names have not, to the best of our knowledge, been documented in a given language.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the Tongva, Cahuilla, and Chumash communities whose knowledge sustains these plants and their names. We thank the naturalists who photographed the plants and shared their images through iNaturalist under Creative Commons licenses; each photograph is credited beneath it.

The garden was built in 2017 by Michael Swimmer, Lisa Fimiani, Lanny Kaufer, Exiquio de Leon, and Everardo Berumen. The 2024 naming research and this page were made possible by the contributions of many hands and are offered in a spirit of ongoing learning.

We especially thank the following people who helped gather and review the Indigenous plant names:

• Citlali Arvizu, Gabrieleno-Tongva Cultural Educator
• Mónica Cabrera, Chair and Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures, Spanish, Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts, LMU
• Garett Collins, LMU Graduate 2024, Classics and Archaeology Major, Environmental Science Minor, English Minor
• Jared Coleman, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Seaver College of Science and Engineering, LMU
• Robert Dorame TC/ MLD, Gabrielino Tongva Indians of California, Caretakers of our ancestral land
• Pamela Munro, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus, Department of Linguistics, UCLA
• Edgar Perez, Gabrielino-Tongva Elder
• Bob Ramirez, President, Gabrielino Tongva Springs Foundation
• Julie Tumamait-Stenslie, Chumash Elder, Commissioner on the California Native American Heritage Commission, Board Member Santa Clara River Conservancy, serves on the accessions committee for the Museum of Ventura County

Support and partners

This garden and the naming project are supported by Loyola Marymount University and community partners who care for Ballona Discovery Park and native plant education in the Los Angeles region.

Learn more

To visit the garden, plan a trip to Ballona Discovery Park in Playa Vista. To learn more about the park, its habitats, and native plants, see Ballona Discovery Park: Ballona Discovery Park.