The Woman Who Planted San Diego: Kate Sessions | San Diego Uncovered

SAN DIEGO UNCOVERED

The Woman Who Planted San Diego

Try to imagine San Diego without its palms, jacarandas, eucalyptus, pepper trees, shady parks and lush residential streets.

Now imagine Balboa Park as mostly undeveloped hills, canyons, brush and rocky dirt.

That was much closer to the San Diego that Kate Sessions encountered in the late nineteenth century.

Then, in 1892, she made the City of San Diego an extraordinary offer.

Give her land inside what was then called City Park for a nursery, and in return she would help plant the city.

More than a century later, San Diego is still living beneath the trees that grew from that idea.

Before Balboa Park Looked Like Balboa Park

San Diego set aside approximately 1,400 acres for a public park in 1868—an astonishingly ambitious decision for a city with only a few thousand residents.

But setting aside the land and creating a landscaped park were two very different things.

For much of the nineteenth century, the area known simply as City Park remained largely wild: hilltops, canyons, arroyos, scrub and dry ground overlooking the growing city.

The ornate buildings, landscaped promenades and gardens visitors associate with Balboa Park did not yet exist.

Enter Katherine Olivia Sessions

Katherine Olivia Sessions was born in San Francisco in 1857 and became a botanist, horticulturist, nursery owner and landscape designer.

She moved to San Diego in the 1880s and became deeply involved in the young city's horticultural development.

San Diego offered tremendous possibilities for plant experimentation. Its climate could support species from Mediterranean regions, Australia, South Africa, Mexico and other parts of the world.

Sessions recognized that opportunity earlier than almost anyone.

The Deal That Changed San Diego

In 1892, Sessions obtained permission from the City to operate an experimental nursery on land inside City Park.

The arrangement was remarkably specific.

In exchange for use of the park land, Sessions was required to plant and care for 100 trees every year inside the park.

But that wasn't all.

City records show that she was also required to provide 300 additional ornamental trees annually for planting elsewhere around San Diego.

That meant the agreement wasn't merely about beautifying a park.

It was about planting an entire city.

Four Hundred Trees a Year

Think about the scale of that commitment.

One hundred trees planted and cared for in City Park.

Three hundred more supplied for planting around San Diego.

Every year.

Sessions' 1893 annual report, preserved in the City of San Diego archives, documented the first 100 trees and palms permanently planted under the agreement.

Her nursery became an experimental laboratory for determining which species could thrive in San Diego's climate.

She Brought the World to San Diego—One Tree at a Time

Sessions corresponded with horticulturists and botanists and obtained seeds and plants from around the world.

City historical accounts credit her with helping fill Balboa Park with species including cypress, pine, oak, pepper trees, eucalyptus and jacaranda.

Some plants flourished. Others did not.

That experimentation was part of the process.

Sessions wasn't simply decorating San Diego. She was helping discover what Southern California urban horticulture could become.

San Diego Started Turning Green

As Sessions' work continued, the visual character of City Park began to change.

The City of San Diego describes brushwood and rocky dirt gradually giving way to tree-shaded lawns, flower gardens and hillside paths.

Sessions also pushed for broader park improvements and became involved with civic leaders who wanted City Park transformed into a true urban park.

In 1902, she helped organize the Park Improvement Committee with George Marston and Mary B. Coulston. The committee eventually brought professional landscape planning to the park.

Then Came the 1915 Exposition

By the early twentieth century, San Diego had much bigger plans for its once-empty park.

The city decided to host the Panama-California Exposition of 1915–1916, celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal and promoting San Diego as the first major American port north of the canal on the Pacific coast.

The exposition brought the Cabrillo Bridge, California Tower and the famous Spanish Colonial Revival architecture along El Prado.

But those buildings were surrounded by a landscape that had already been evolving for decades.

Sessions' plantings helped provide the mature greenery that made the exposition grounds feel established rather than newly constructed.

Why She's Called the “Mother of Balboa Park”

Kate Sessions did not single-handedly create Balboa Park.

That's an important distinction.

Many civic leaders, gardeners, architects, landscape architects, donors and organizations shaped the park over generations.

But Sessions' sustained planting program and advocacy made her one of the most influential figures in its development.

Her contribution became so closely associated with the park that she eventually became known as the “Mother of Balboa Park.”

Her Influence Spread Far Beyond the Park

The 300 trees she supplied annually under her original agreement were intended for locations throughout San Diego.

Her nursery work and plant introductions also influenced residential landscaping, streets and gardens around the region.

Sessions wrote about horticulture, helped found the San Diego Floral Association in 1906 and later worked with city schools, teaching horticulture and supervising school gardens.

Her influence was therefore not limited to planting trees herself.

She helped teach San Diego how to grow them.

A Pioneer in a Male-Dominated Profession

Sessions built her career at a time when women had far fewer professional and business opportunities than they do today.

Yet she operated nurseries, negotiated agreements with city officials, wrote and lectured about horticulture, corresponded with leading botanists and became an internationally respected figure in plant introduction.

In 1939, she received the Frank N. Meyer Medal from the American Genetic Association.

According to the San Diego History Center, she was the first woman to receive the award.

Her Trees Became Her Children

Sessions never had children, but one surviving line from her correspondence beautifully captures the way she viewed her life's work.

Writing to botanist Alice Eastwood, she described flowers as “our children”—plants that Sessions grew and Eastwood helped identify and name.

For someone whose legacy lives quite literally in things that continued growing after her death, the sentiment feels especially fitting.

You Can Still Meet Kate in Balboa Park

Kate Sessions died in 1940.

Decades later, San Diego formally commemorated her contribution with a bronze statue installed in Balboa Park in 1998.

Visitors can find her standing among the trees of the park she helped transform.

And unlike many historical monuments, the landscape around her is part of the monument itself.

The Next Time You Sit Under a Tree in Balboa Park...

Think about the deal made in 1892.

A nursery operator asked San Diego for a piece of undeveloped park land.

The city said yes—with conditions.

Plant 100 trees here every year.

Give us 300 more for the rest of San Diego.

Sessions agreed.

It turned out to be one of the best landscaping deals San Diego ever made.

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Sometimes the biggest stories aren't about disasters or scandals.

Sometimes they're about someone planting a tree.

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