Diamond Heights Community Association

Why is the median on Diamond Heights Blvd.
so lovely these days? These volunteers
are the reason. And you can help.

JULY 7, 2021 BY MURRAY SCHNEIDER

Betsy Eddy is a middle of the road kind of person.

Literally. In the middle of Diamond Heights Boulevard tending to a the plantings.

On June 5 she put in a three-hour stint keeping San Francisco beautiful, one block at a time.
This time it was between Gold Mine Drive near St. Aidan’s Church and north to Duncan Street
at Saint Nicholas Church.

Eddy, who has lived on Farnum Street for 35 years, supervised 12 neighborhood volunteers
in the service of filling 36 refuse bags with grass and foxtails along three median islands.

Significantly, this was the first project work party since the onset of COVID-19 sequestration.

“We left the thistle, though,” Eddy told the Glen Park News, “because gold finches
like its nectar.”

She took up the mantle from Paul Matalucci, the former Diamond Heights Boulevard Median
Project Coordinator. He moved to Hood River, Oregon in June 2020 to fulfill a dream of
planting an orchard of rare apple trees.

Never one to allow the grass to grow under her feet, she now finds herself overseeing
what she hopes will become monthly work parties to continue an effort that Matalucci
began in 2014, but remained dormant during the coronavirus pandemic.

Her mission? To inspire neighbors to replant and maintain islands along Diamond Heights
Boulevard between Duncan Street and Berkeley Way.

“The resumed median project will schedule a volunteer workday each month,” with
the next work party scheduled for July 10, she said.

Standing near a teepee of trash bags on June 5, Eddy, who is also a columnist for the 
Glen Park News, watched automobiles pass while volunteers tugged weeds buried
in soil hardened by lack of rain.

“When Paul started the project,” she added, “the medians from Berkeley Way to the corner
of Duncan were a jumble of dead trees, tall growing shrubbery and brush that obscured
sight lines for pedestrians and motorists.”

Up in Oregon, Matalucci and his husband, Tom Osborne now run the Apple Core Farm,
where they are establishing an apple orchard with heritage trees developed by early
pioneers. This spring, with the help of a Yakima, Washington apple grafter, Matalucci
grafted 120 trees representing 11 unique varieties. One of them was the Hewes Crab,
considered the best cider apple by Thomas Jefferson who grew it in Virginia.

The botanical scene is a little different along Diamond Heights Boulevard. There, Eddy
and the crew looked out at 14 Canary Island pines, purchased by Friends of the Urban
Forest and planted by DHBMP volunteers in September 2016.

In the past year, only four of the graceful trees have succumbed to the elements.

The team worked to daylight the hearty survivors, along with drought tolerant plants
such as red buck wheat, thanks to the efforts of the Matalucci-Eddy corps of volunteers

Gilbert Chavez is one.

Chavez has lived in the Tenderloin for 15 years, and has been involved in the median project
for five years. A congregant of St. Aidan’s for 35 years, Chavez didn’t take long to throw in
his lot with Eddy when he learned she’d revived pre-pandemic efforts.

“The good work of the people of Diamond Heights often goes unappreciated, and I wanted
to do my part to make the neighborhood safe and beautiful,” he said.

Eddy has long labored to make Diamond Heights a better place. She‘s been the Diamond
Heights Community Association president for 12 years, a term that’s included advocating
for park renovations at George Christopher and Walter Hass Playgrounds, championing
traffic improvements such as crosswalks and cement sidewalks, lobbying for the repair
and or replacement of City water pipes along streets such as Diamond Heights Boulevard,
Topaz Way and Jade Court, and jawboning with the MTA about retaining the 35 Eureka bus
loop down Farnum Street and back up to Addison Street and extending the 35 bus to BART.

The pandemic was not good for the medians. Waist-sized grasses threatened half-a- decade
of earlier planting of gold leaf, pink kaboom and a host of succulents along the thoroughfare.

The median project leadership had mapped out a six-year timeline that included installation
of plants and gopher baskets, coordination with both PUC and DPW to confirm status of
median irrigation and landscape design and finally neighborhood review of the design.

The beautification effort began in the spring of 2014 when Matalucci got a District 8 Greening
Grant from Supervisor Scott Wiener that helped him launch Phase 1 of our project.
That included replanting of the ‘thin’ median islands between Diamond Street and
Berkeley Way.

The DHBMP then received two Community Challenge Grants, the first awarded in 2015 to
the tune of $46,000; the second, in 2017, for $40,948.

“The first CCG included funds to hire a landscape architect who created a water use and
attractive assortment of California native plants,” Matalucci wrote in an email to the News.
“We also worked hard to develop relationships with San Francisco Public Works and were
grateful for its partnership.”

The money was earmarked for shrub removal, soil remediation, landscape design, gopher
abatement and the purchase of plants. And along the way the project received an anonymous
donation from generous residents that allowed the median project to retain the services
of a professional garden service to remove weeds from Gold Mine Drive near the shopping
center up to Saint Nicholas Church.

Surveying the morning work on June 5, Eddy envisions setting reasonable goals as the
median project springs back into action.

“We have no plans for new plants in the immediate future,” she said, eyeing Diamond
Heights Boulevard, rife with swaying knee-high grasses propelled by ever-present
neighborhood winds. “We need to get a handle on clearing weeds and getting the
irrigation system back in operation. We are also waiting for Public Works to repair a
city water pipe break at the south entrance to the shopping center.”

And Eddy, after nearly four decades as a community advocate, is stepping back.
She relinquished her DHCA presidency one year ago and now shares the office as
co-president with Mike Kramer.

Succession planning has taken center stage.

“I am hoping someone with more gardening experience takes on the role of project
coordinator,” she revealed.

Fresh from the COVID-19 lockdown that thwarted their efforts, Eddy’s volunteers bagged
the last of the encroaching grasses by 11:30. Removing their safety vests, they began
eclaiming parked cars and preparing to walk to nearby residences.

Prior to the pandemic volunteers were treated to lunch at St. Aidan’s, but the church
is still in lockdown mode, not yet ready to open its doors for social gatherings.

It’s this ongoing effort that keeps the medians looking lovely for everyone.

“The real work is ongoing maintenance and I’m grateful to Betsy for taking up the cause
and reenlisting many of our core volunteers to weed and clean the median islands now
that it’s safe for people to gather outside again,” Matalucci said.