Tootfinder

@scott@carfree.city
2026-02-16 03:38:15

Today in the drizzle I stopped by the Living Library, a beautiful native plant garden near SF's Balboa Park at the San Jose/Seneca intersection. Highly recommend a visit to see some #ceanothus in bloom and California poppies and island mallows beginning to, and much more.

A lush green garden with various shrubs and forbs, a curving stone path to the left, a couple of trees, and there's a two-story school building with sand-colored walls off to the side. There's an information panel that's too distant to make out the text in this photo.

A shrub with large leaves and a few small pink flowers. Seems to be Malva assurgentiflora, or island mallow.

A row of two or three shrubs that look like one shrub at first glance, but there are two distinct types of flowers: one variety is more blue-indigo and larger, the other is smaller and purple. They have dark green leaves and are something in the Ceanothus genus, or mountain lilac.

Information panel titled: "California Native Plants: The ecological benefits of planting Native San Francisco. Life frames a living library."

A bunch of text I can't fit here about the benefits of planting native, restoring nature, one plant at a time. A colorful drawing shows some California native plants and their associated pollinators: California poppy and native bees, milkweed and monarch butterfly, yarrow and hummingbird, buckwheat and native bee, toyon and cedar waxwing.