The phyllosphere—the above-ground parts of plants—hosts diverse bacterial communities with important ecological and plant-beneficial roles. However, major groups like Hyphomicrobiales (Alphaproteobacteria) remain poorly characterized due to the limits of 16S rRNA metabarcoding and biases in reference databases. In our lab, we use metagenomics and culturomics to better represent these leaf-associated bacteria in reference databases and to uncover the evolutionary and functional mechanisms driving their adaptation to plants.