The Park
A designated Natural Area our neighborhood.
The hill is a rare remnant of San Francisco's coastal-bluff ecosystem — and the city has flagged it as a place worth protecting.
The hill has been specially designated a Natural Area by the SF Rec & Park Natural Resources Division — meaning the city has flagged it as a place whose natural resources are a priority to protect.
What makes it valuable is what survives here: remnant patches of coastal-bluff ecosystem that have hung on for millennia even as the city grew up around them.
Why have these native plants held on and not been outcompeted by invasive annual grasses and other weeds? The answer is the thin, rocky soil that faces directly into the wind off the Pacific. Native plants have been here for thousands of years and have evolved to survive these gnarly conditions. They have deep roots bringing in and storing moisture and nutrients from far below even after the rains have stopped and the topsoil has dried out.
In parts of the park where the soil is a little deeper and the conditions less harsh, invasive annual grasses can move in and crowd out the originals. Native plants are tough, but not invincible. That's where we come in.
Lakeview Nature Stewards organizes several workdays each year in collaboration with SF Rec & Parks. In fall, winter and spring, we clean up the area, pull weeds, put in new plants and seeds, and water new plants to help them get established. We welcome your help at any of these workdays
Why native plants
A web of life, built over thousands of years.
Wildlife has evolved alongside specific plants — a complex web that provides pollen, insects, seeds, cover, and places to nest and raise young.
Many invasive plants simply don't offer these life necesssities to the insects, birds, and other animals that would otherwise live here. Lose the plants and, eventually, you lose everything that depended on them.
(We'll add specific examples soon — like the hairstreak butterflies that rely on particular host plants found right here on the outcrop.)