Portola neighbors open gates to gardens
The rows of cookie-cutter homes that line the streets of the Portola district are often overlooked — their beauty hidden behind fences, walls and garage doors.
Take Bonnie Bridge’s home, a flat gray house just off a steep hill. She bought it in 1999 from an Italian family, then spent years coaxing kale, lettuce, peppers, cucumbers, roses and edible flowers out of the dry soil. She built a chicken run for her four hens and a shack for her three rabbits. And when the oasis was complete, she flung open her front door and invited complete strangers in.
“People are always in shock that we have such a beautiful garden back here,” she said, scooping up her Boston terrier, Lacey. “This is a sleepy neighborhood, an often forgotten neighborhood. The beauty is here, but you can’t see it from the outside.”
At the ninth annual Portola Garden Tour, 25 public and private gardens were opened to prying eyes.
Proceeds from tickets — which cost $25 for one, and $40 for two — go to fund scholarships for students studying environmental horticulture and floristry at City College of San Francisco. The tour’s organizers awarded two $1,000 and two $500 scholarships this year.
“We started this all these years ago as a fundraiser for the Portola Branch Library,” organizer Ruth Wallace said. “And over the years, it started picking up. At first people didn’t believe that we even had gardens here because they are all tucked away.”
The Portola, a traditionally blue-collar neighborhood, has become emblematic for urban farming in a densely populated city. Residents, like Bridge and Wallace, grow their own produce and share with each other. Each year, the tour attracts residents from all over the city.
Some, like Luke Spray of Noe Valley, 26, were impressed by the wide sweeping views of downtown. He sat in a folding chair in Wallace’s garden, breathing in the scent of damp wood mulch.
“I couldn’t envision a better way to spend a Saturday morning,” he said. “It’s so wonderful to have these people open their homes to us and see parts of San Francisco that you never would have known existed. I’m so glad I made it out here.”
Spray’s friend, T.J. Guardino of the Mission, 26, wasn’t sold on the idea at first — especially because it involved waking up early. But even he begrudgingly admitted it had been a good experience.
“It’s way cooler than I expected,” Guardino said. “Yeah, it’s actually way more cool than I originally thought. Luke guilttripped me into coming, and this morning I wasn’t so happy. These gardens are gorgeous.”
The tour also highlighted public gardens, like Burrows Pilot Park on San Bruno Avenue. Once plagued by illegal dumping and homeless encampments, the space was redone in 2012 with a $65,000 grant from the city. Now it’s home to a tiny library, a short walking path and a coffee shop.
“Let me tell you, this is much better than staring at some abandoned toilet or water heater,” neighbor Luiselle Yakas said. “It draws a lot of people who weren’t even aware of it. I grew up here, and it’s a tight community. It’s important for us to be able to have a place we can meet our neighbors and spend time in.”
Another spot on the tour was a bee farm on a stretch of land underneath a massive billboard along the freeway. Workers tended to hives painted pastel purples, blues and greens. The muted sound of traffic drifted through the air.
“People have been very excited and curious all day,” bee keeper Kasey Wooten said. “There’s good energy surrounding that, and this entire tour. It opens the community up to each other.”
That’s the big reason for the tour, Yakas said, more than pretty flowers or honey bees.
“We are so busy,” she said. “But for a few hours once a year, we can sit in each other’s gardens and really talk. This is what community is really about.”