In 2019, Landscape Designers volunteered to work with the Yerba Buena California Native Plant Association and the Dogpatch & NW Potrero Hill Green Benefit District (GBD) to design an experimental CA native plant garden to learn what native plants grow best in this Serpentine soil that is originally found in San Francisco. The Eco-Patch became a volunteer GBD project that when through stages of preparing the hillside with compost, cardboard, and mulch after getting permission from the land owner, Caltrans. By 2020, after much volunteer work, planting, watering, and weeding, the Eco-Patch was blooming and continues to be worked on by volunteers.
In 2021, the Neighborhood and SFDPW Potrero Gateway project design signed up a contractor, Bauman, to begin construction. Part of the construction involved removing a car lane and moving and expanding the Vermont Street sidewalk far enough away from the Caltrans property line to have space for landscape, seating areas, and a dog park. The GBD applied for and was funded a grant from the SF Community Challenge Grant program. The grant was for the Vermont Greenway. The program funded hardscape and landscape for the area.
The Vermont Greenway hardscape was a design / build project based on pro-bono design from Surfacedesign Inc., which advocates material reuse. The GBD landscape contractors, Lianez Inc. completed the hardscape project. Once the hardscape was complete, the GBD Vermont Greenway Eco-Patch committee began working with YB CNPS and local volunteers to cardboard and mulch the planting area both in the Greenway and the hillside. This work and maintenance continue today.
