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March 2021
Hello Volunteers!
Spring is approaching, and starting Sunday, March 14th, the Garden moves to its Spring & Summer hours, with last entry at 6pm.
In other good news, San Francisco Botanical Garden has received all required approvals to move forward with new nursery construction and has raised 95% of the $7 million fundraising goal. Construction will begin at the end of this month with the nursery area closed to all but authorized personnel for the following year until construction is complete. The new nursery is scheduled to open in Spring 2022.
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Just when you thought Bean Sprouts couldn't get any cuter...
After a 5-week break, Bean Sprouts restarted in February, and in the first two weeks back saw 225 participants! The Children's Garden itself has benefited a lot of hard work by Green Team volunteers, families from the After School Program and a few volunteer "specialists" who have pruned our fruit trees and created a new StarBerry bed for us.
Huge thanks to everyone involved!
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Green Team
Here's a sample of a typical week in the Garden with our horticulture volunteers:
- Weeded and pruned along MLK Ave and edge of the Celebration Garden
- Added soil to dwarf conifer section to prepare for new plantings
- Weeded Ehrharta erecta (invasive grass) from base of Heidelberg Hill (to make way for poppies!)
- Sheet-mulched in New Zeland
- Weeded and pruned the Zellerbach Garden
- Raked beds and pathways in the Succulent Garden
- Removed ivy in the Redwood Grove
Plus of course, a lot of laughter and a lot of calories burned... If you are interested in joining a Green Team, please contact Chloe. New volunteers should plan to commit to at least 4 sessions with the same Green Team; shifts are offered on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings.
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Community Volunteer Days
If you'd like to get your hands in the Garden but can't commit to a regular Green Team shift, join us for a Community Volunteer Day. You'll get to meet and work with some of our talented horticulturists, and get a new perspective on what it takes to maintain the Garden.
No experience required, but please sign up in advance. Guests welcome, must be over 16 years of age.
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Expanded Plant Offerings
Saturday, March 13 & Sunday, March 14
The Garden will be having a plant sale this month! We are still looking for help on Sunday, March 14, 10am-1pm and 1-4pm, and for regular shifts at the arbor. Please contact Chloe if you have experience volunteering at the nursery or with a plant sale and would like to help out.
Roving Docents
Docents continue to engage visitors with the Magnolia collection this month. If you haven't met one of our incredible docents, be sure to visit the Garden when they are active—on Tuesdays, and Thursdays-Sundays, from 12-2pm.
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Volunteer Spotlight: Nancy, Green Team
In August 2020, Nancy Isaac joined our Green Team, usually working with Dolores' and Alma's teams twice per week. Nancy retired, relocated from Chicago 1.5 years ago, and had always found gardening restorative and satisfying. At the Garden, she's learning the local plants, loves maintaining the gardens, and working with others who share that interest.
Nancy likes both the physical and meditative aspects of gardening, focusing on the task at hand and letting her mind wander. "Before I know it, I have put some seeming order to a tiny corner of chaos. I also enjoy the group effort it takes to clean out beds and the conversations I have (from afar) with other volunteers as we weed and mulch beds. At the end of each shift, it is gratifying to see the results of the group effort."
Nancy is excited by the challenge of learning the names of new plants. She was surprised, however, to learn that the sound of geese in the Garden was actually an audio recording to deter other geese. "I loved hearing the sound of geese and feeling that I was in the midst of an urban refuge."
With or without wild geese, the Garden is definitely a refuge for many of us. Thank you Nancy and all the Green Team volunteers for helping take care of it!
[Note- we'll be doing more spotlights on volunteers from different programs, helping you get to know each other. If you'd like to recommend someone, or a group of folks, for this feature, please email me.]
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Slices of Joy: Women's History Month
Here are a few of our favorite females working in the plant world, both living and from the past. Enjoy!
- Leslie Bennett is an Oakland-based landscape designer focused on creating aesthetic edible gardens and productive outdoor spaces. She founded the Black Sanctuary Gardens Project, a series of garden spaces created for Black women and Black communities in and around Oakland.
- Robin Wall-Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs that draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared concerns for Mother Earth.
- Deepa Natarajan: A natural fabric dyer and ethnobotanist, for many years Deepa coordinated a fiber and dye festival at the UC Berkeley Botanic Garden. Learn more about her work here.
- Florence Fang: Founder of the Florence Fang Community Farm, based in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco—the largest community farm and second most productive urban farm in San Francisco.
- Alice Eastwood: Eastwood became the herbarium curator for the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco in 1891, and is most famous for her daring act of rescuing specimens of California plants from the wreckage and fire of the 1906 earthquake.
- Ynés Mexía: Ynés is a Mexican-American botanist and adventurer who spent years traveling and collecting plant specimens along the Amazon River. She discovered over 500 new species of plants, of which 50 are named in her honor.
There are so many more, such as Jennifer Jewell, founder of the Cultivating Place podcast which highlights gardens and gardeners from around the country and led a fantastic webinar for the Garden last year, "The Earth in Her Hands", and the Garden's Executive Director, Stephanie Linder, who will be speaking at Filoli's Women's Speaker Series on March 16.
If you have other great stories you think should be shared, please send them my way!
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Wishing you all a happy spring!
Warmly,
Chloe
Chloe Wieland | Director of Volunteer Engagement
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San Francisco Botanical Garden
P (415) 661-1316 Ext. 400
C (415) 629-2010
9am-5pm, M-F
cwieland@sfbg.org
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