Lombard Reservoir to Francisco Park
San Francisco

When we plant local native plants, we build buffets to feed clouds of butterflies and feed our ecosystem!

Native plants look gorgeous in landscapes as varied as urban, residential, commercial and parks. Native plants evolved together on our varied geology, in our varied weather (droughts and deluges) and are the foundation of our food web of pollinators, birds and other wildlife.

Benefits of native plants will be compared to introduced plants for butterfly caterpillars and pollen specialist bees. Each of California’s butterfly caterpillars evolved to eat a small set of native plant leaves, as Monarch butterfly caterpillars co-evolved to eat only milkweed leaves.

Lombard Reservoir is located on clay and chert rock soil, former northern oak woodland plant community.

Francisco Park is located on sandy soil, former northern coastal dune scrub plant community.

Bio
Susan Karasoff gardens in San Francisco’s clay and chert soil in former northern oak woodland. Susan is a member of the California Native Plant Society Yerba Buena chapter. Susan leads the Russian Hill Neighbors parks group that volunteers adding local native plants and weeding in Lombard Reservoir and Francisco Park. Susan takes an “only the easiest plants survive” approach to gardening. Susan grows a buffet of native butterfly caterpillar, pollen specialist bee, edible, shade tolerant and colorful native plants.

Location
Meet at Lombard Reservoir/George Sterling Park/Alice Marble tennis courts in front of the tennis courts, Greenwich at Hyde, prior to walking down to Francisco Park. Francisco Park has bathrooms, a children’s playground and a dog park

Cost: ASLA Members Free, Non-Members $10

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