Bayview Hill Description
Bayview Hill is one of the largest of San Francisco’s Significant Natural Resource Areas, and it contains the most diverse habitats remaining in the City. Located just above Candlestick Park above the western shore of the Bay, Bayview forms a similar-sized bookend to Mt Davidson to its west.
Managed by the Natural Areas Program of the Rec&Park Department, Bayview Hill gets regular attention from two volunteer groups — San Francisco for Democracy and the Yerba Buena Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. So far there are no regular nearby neighborhood groups that work at Bayview Hill, but we hope that will one day change.
Bayview Hill has wonderful areas of coastal scrub, oak groves, and the largest population rare Islais cherry trees around.
The principle management challenges at Bayview Hill include controlling French broom, fennel, radish, and ehrharta grass. Here is the management plan.
Bayview Hill currently has 25 volunteers who have subscribed to our regular email newsletters and work at this site. They have posted 28 photos and 4 posts to their blog.
Regular Workparty Schedule
- 2nd Saturday, every odd-numbered month from 9:00 to 12:00
Regular Meeting Location
- Key Avenue -- [Map and Details]
Blog Posts
Here are blog posts about the Bayview Hill project — presented 2 at a time in reverse chronological order. Browse to earlier or later posts via the pagination controls below.
We told you there was more radish!
Thu, 17 Jul 2008, 12:04am, Alane said:
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A small but determined group ascended Bayview Hill on Saturday morning, July 12th to do battle with the remaining radish around the radio tower. The radish plants had grown a lot since our last visit and were covered with seed pods. Fortunately, very few seeds had matured. The ground was dry and hard, so we were surprised at how often we got the radish roots, but we piled the truck bed high. Good riddance!
Our reward, besides a much improved area for native plants, was seed collection. We hunted and gathered seeds from Soap plant (Chlorogalum pomeridianum), Bee plant (Scrophularia californica) and Tufted hairgrass (Deschampsia caespitposa). The seeds will be used to grow seedlings at the nursery for planting in natural areas.
As always, it’s beautiful up on the hill. It’s golden like most California hills this time of year, and it feels far away from the City even though the City is RIGHT THERE. (The views are breathtaking.) Isn’t that a good reason to visit Bayview Hill? We hope to see you up there sometime soon.
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High on native grasses
Mon, 12 May 2008, 5:07pm, Alane said:
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Saturday, May 10th was one of the most beautiful days we’ve had on Bayview Hill, and that’s saying a lot because that is one beautiful hill. It was sunny and warm with a cool, mellow breeze.
We gathered seeds, mostly from grasses such as Purple Needle Grass (Nassella pulchra), California Barley (Hordeum brachyantherum), Blue Wild Rye (Elymus glaucus), and Onion Grass (Melica californica). We saw non-native grasses, including Wild Oats (Avena barbata) and Ripgut Brome (Bromus diandrus).
We also cleared European radish from around the radio tower (don’t worry, there’s more), and were treated to a man climbing the tower to change light bulbs up there. A hawk landed on the tower BELOW him.
If you like watching the wind move over grassy meadows and lots of yarrow and poppies in bloom, among other earthly delights, I recommend a visit to Bayview Hill right about now. Enjoy.
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