Modern-day San Diego, California, is a city full of trees, flowers, parks, and plants. But up to the late 1800s, it was mainly dusty, empty land. San Diego’s development into a green city is widely credited to the efforts of one woman.
Kate Sessions came to the city in 1884. Soon after, she realized she had a passion for growing plants and flowers, and in 1885 she opened a flower shop.
Seven years later, Sessions rented a small space downtown in what later became Balboa Park. Over the following decades, the strong-willed Sessions planted a hundred trees a year in the park, turning it into one of the most charming urban parks in America. She went on to introduce thousands more plants, flowers, and trees all over San Diego. Many of those were non-native, rare species that, thanks to Sessions, thrived in the hot, dry climate.
Sessions died in 1940. Though she may be gone, Kate Sessions’s green thumb truly left its mark on San Diego. The city never forgot her and even put up a statue of her in 1998 to honor her as the “Mother of Balboa Park.”