The Native Landscape Renovated at Cabrillo National Monument Visitor Center

By Kay Stewart

Greg Rubin's California's Own crew using his mighty shrub uprooter- the crane tugs the plants right out of the ground, no stump grinding required.

The landscape that welcome visitors to Cabrillo National Monument Visitor Center has a beautiful new look. A great team has implemented a landscape plan developed as a collaborative effort to renovate the site. Together, they removed thirty years of non-native and weedy shrubs, and replanted plant species native to Point Loma. 

Keith Lombardo (R) and Adam Taylor, biologists/ecologists at CNM, after hauling tons of debris.

The thirty total participants included Greg Rubin and the crew of his company, California's Own Landscapes; Kay Stewart, Landscape Architect; Al Field, CNPS member and project manager for the renovation; Lorraine Kelley and Joel Kalmonson, with a team of five volunteers; and Keith Lombardo, Adam Taylor, Nicole Ornelas, and six other co-workers at the Monument. 

Volunteers collecting the plants that have been grown by staff and volunteers at the National Monument's propagation nursery on Navy property near CNM.

This big team cleaned out the overgrown beds, and planted over 300 plants grown mostly by CNM staff at their own greenhouse and yard. Al and Joel deserve special thanks for their extra volunteer work, prepping the site for two weeks before the 3-day work party. 

CNP staff and Community volunteers carefully planting locally native plants grown by the Cabrillo propagators next to the Visitor Center.

The planning and landscape contracting services were paid for by a $5,000 grant from the San Diego Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects under their 2016 Community Outreach program. This program, administered by its chair, landscape architect Jen Webster, invites organizations to work with landscape architects to apply for grants for one-year long community projects that improve our regional landscape. 

Greg Rubin (R) and volunteers replanting the border next to east side of the Visitor Center with a glorious view of downtown San Diego to the east.

For more on this project, see https://www.nps.gov/cabr/blogs/cabrillofieldnotes.htm 

All photos by Al Field