S.F. native's quest to fill city with natives Gardening

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Greg Gaar sounded like an air traffic controller who'd just spotted the biggest plane in the world.

"Here's a butterfly coming in right now!" he shouted. "It's a red admiral."

The butterfly had come to the right place: The Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council's Native Plant Nursery lures all kinds of wildlife to the southeast corner of Golden Gate Park. Gaar, however, would like to attract more humans to the undertaking he started five years ago.

"I want people to know that we exist," said the 61-year-old ecologist. "My main problem is marketing - it certainly is not propagating plants."

That's for sure. The nursery has at least 60 species of native plants, most of them indigenous to San Francisco. The 5,000 or so individual plants can trace their origins to the seeds Gaar collected from more than 30 natural areas in the city. They are priced at $7 apiece, but will cost less if they're for a community project or if someone buys several.

"If I can sell $150 worth of plants, that's a good day," Gaar said. Weekends are busiest, but a typical Saturday or Sunday might draw only 15 people to the nursery, which shares space with the neighborhood council's recycling center. They occupy a parking lot that was reserved for media when the 49ers used to play at nearby Kezar Stadium.

"As a kid, I went to all the 49er games at Kezar. I haven't moved that far," said Gaar, who lived in the Haight 35 years before inheriting the Mount Davidson house in which he grew up.

"The first thing I did was rip out the driveway and put in native plants," he said. "That's when the neighbors knew my mother was right when she said, 'I've got a crazy environmentalist for a son.' The last time I owned a car was 1971."

His passion for nature comes through when he shows off the nursery to visitors, who will probably get a botany lesson and a sense of San Francisco history when they drop by the spot at the corner of Frederick Street and Arguello Boulevard. They are often greeted by a cat named Fluffy, abandoned by a homeless woman 14 years ago, and by Sylvia, a younger feline.

"The best thing you can do if you have a garden is to plant native plants," Gaar said. "Because then you're creating habitat for the whole food chain of native plants. We're not saying mountain lion or grizzly bear, but something slightly smaller. And we're not going to bring back the drifting sand dunes that used to be here, but we still have many of the dune plants, which thrive quite well in nonsandy soil."

Many plants are in pots, while others are growing in one garden or another. They include seaside daisies, Douglas iris, lizard tails, columbines, coast buckwheat, monkey flowers and angelicas.

"Everything's peaking right now," Gaar said as he pointed out purple needle grass, one of his favorites. "When the seed is ripe, the tail turns 90 degrees and then it spins and drills into the soil. That's what you call adaptation."

He also showed off some farewell-to-spring plants, which are easy to find in San Francisco right now. "If you look up to Twin Peaks, Tank Hill, Bernal Hill, Bayview Hill, you'll see those areas are very pink," he said. "It's not because of the Gay Freedom Day Parade - but they happen at the same time of year."

Suddenly, Gaar spotted an Ehrharta erecta from South Africa and yanked it out of the ground.

"It's a very bad weed," he said. "One of the worst. It tries to turn everything into a soccer field."

Gaar sniffed a California sagebrush. "Doesn't it remind you of California?" he asked. "It reminds me of going camping."

Five years ago, he merely wanted to plant a garden on the perimeter of the recycling center, which he was running at the time. "I never had any intention of starting a nursery," he said. "I took seeds and scattered them onto a flat of potting soil. They came up like fur on a dog's back."

Gaar's dedication to native plants is contagious. About a year ago, Haight resident Michelle Welch began visiting the nursery and, over time, bought 25 plants. She said they've transformed her small backyard, which used to feature pretty flowers that usually met untimely deaths.

"I just didn't have a clue about California, let alone San Francisco, native plants," she said. "They don't need a lot of water. In fact, they don't need any water. I don't have to do much, except cut them back. Once they get going, they go. I've been very happy with them."