Inspiring and educating San Francisco South Bay and Peninsula plant enthusiasts since 1963

Sally joined the Western Horticultural Society in February 1978. Born in Illinois, she grew up on a small farm. When she was young, she and her mother collected one of each native plant from the surrounding area and planted them in their garden below a grape arbor. Even as a young child, she found this very satisfying and rewarding. She attended a school in town as her parents felt it was important for her education.

Sally was a Music Education teacher. She married a member of the Air Corp during World War II and later her husband became a resort manager. Together they traveled into Canada and Nassau in his line of work. She moved to Los Altos and opened a shop in the Town and Village Shopping Center in Palo Alto, spending 16 years there. She obtained a Master's Degree from San Jose State and taught Botany at Mission College in Santa Clara for ten years.

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Sally is a a long time member of the Santa Clara Valley Native Plant Society. She was one of three women who started the local chapter and is a very active member today. She tends three gardens in the summer and also volunteers with Elderhostel in the Sierras as a Botanist. She hikes with a group of friends in the Santa Cruz Mountains at least once a week anywhere from three to five miles. Sally is a young 89 year old!

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Dodecatheon hendersonii, Henderson’s Shooting Star (Primulaceae)

This charming plant is a specialty of Sally's. Henderson’s is the most common shooting star around here. Its flower color varies from purple to pink and sometimes white. She grows it each year for the California Native Plant Society sales. Great patience is needed to grow them as it takes a few years to get flowers from seed. She shows the plants in the spring at the Plant Discussion table at WesterHort meetings.