THIS DEVOTED PRESERVATIONIST is dedicated to documenting a valuable historic San Diego landscape. While the focus of historic preservation is often on buildings, landscapes can tell us just as much if not more of the development of a place over time.

While working in Presidio Park in 2007, a local park ranger discovered a huge gap of 38 years in its documented landscape history. Being one of San Diego's most historically significant parks, he made the decision to embark on a monumental 10-year plant survey and historical analysis of this treasured land. Working with two previous surveys carried out by Percy Broell in 1937 and Chauncy Jerabek in 1969, this ranger surveyed a total of 3436 plants and created from it a 207-species encyclopedia, GPS inventory, and maps of the site throughout the past 95 years.

This fully comprehensive survey offers insight into every period of life in San Diego, from the Kumeyaay natives to the official development of Presidio Park by George Marston in the 1930s. Once complete, he approached SOHO with an offer to digitize and share freely online to all HERE. The combination of the two previous surveys with the new 2018 information now allows researchers, students, horticultural professionals, and beyond, the ability to trace this botanical palette through time.

Congratulations Parish Rye on your Educational Stewardship Award for the Presidio Park Plant Survey.

Click HERE to watch a congratulatory message from San Diego City Councilmember Chris Ward.