About Pennsylvania Garden

For a long time we had wanted to clean up and beautify the Mariposa Street off ramp which lets onto Pennsylvania Avenue, and which is owned by Caltrans. We wanted to make it a relaxing and safe place for all sorts of people and animals to enjoy. In December 2008 we noticed that a Princess Plant (Tibouchina urvilleana) that someone had left down on 17th Street had somehow made it up to this area, and had been planted.

Inspired, we went to a San Francisco Botanical Garden plant sale and came home with a car full of plants. Pennsylvania Garden was born. As we planted those first plants, Jim and Carrie from across the street came over and introduced themselves - they had planted that Princess Plant!

Our plans
We plan to build paths and steps so that adults, children, dogs and wildlife can enjoy the garden. Our agreement with Caltrans means we have agreed to look after the garden for 5 years, and during this time we hope the plants will become established and the neighborhood beautified. We'll be blogging about our progress on this site weekly.

What's growing here?
The plants we are putting in are nearly all native species, or drought tolerant when established, so the garden won't need to be watered much after the first year or so. We've bought some of them, propagated some of them from seeds or cuttings, and had many donated by generous friends.

The labels on the right of this site show all the different genera of plants we have in the garden - click on one to read all the blog posts mentioning that plant.

Dogs
We encourage our dog owning friends to use the biodegradable bags from our poop station and deposit them in the city trash can at 18th street so that everyone can enjoy the garden. There is also a poop container by the light pole. This is emptied by dog owners periodically - if you use this container, please do your part and empty it every now and again.

It's worth noting that a great many common garden plants are poisonous if ingested - don't let your dog in the borders, and don't let them eat the plants!

Our hopes
Over the coming years, as they plants grow and fill out, we hope this work will provide habitat for wildlife, improve Potrero Hill, distract the eye from the freeway view, and most importantly provide a peaceful and beautiful meeting place for people in the community.

We have already met many of our neighbors and enjoyed great support from them all! We hope you'll join us in the garden if you're interested in helping out, and that you'll literally stop and smell the flowers every now and again.