SAN DIEGO’S HORTICULTURAL AND LANDSCAPE HISTORY has a tireless champion in Nancy Carol Carter. As a dedicated historian and advocate for San Diego’s cultural and natural treasures, her work ensures that the roots of our past remain vital and flourishing in the present.
Nancy is one of San Diego’s most consistent and compelling voices for horticultural history and the preservation of our designed landscapes. A sharp-eyed scholar, historian, and skilled communicator, she has brought vital clarity and correction to our understanding of Balboa Park’s evolution through her influential writing and public talks.
 Kate O. Sessions Cactus Garden |
She has also helped bring proper credit to the role of early landscape architects, like Paul Thiene, whose 1915 Exposition designs are now back in the historical spotlight. Significantly, her research often upends long-held assumptions, bringing recognition to talents who shaped San Diego’s natural and built environment in important ways and places, but may have faded from view over time.
Successfully reaching audiences across generations and disciplines, Nancy has held many linchpin roles: Associate Editor of California Garden, historian for the Mission Hills Garden Club, and served on the boards of the San Diego Floral Association and the California Garden and Landscape History Society. Add to this her groundbreaking research and published work on pioneering landscape figures such as Mary B. Coulston, Paul Thiene, Kate Sessions, and the Brandegees, and you understand how Nancy has significantly advanced the protection of San Diego’s rich garden and landscape heritage.
Nancy also wrote the Historical American Landscapes Survey (HALS) report for the Fountain Grotto in Golden Hill, a site created in 1908 during the Arts and Crafts era, as well as a winning essay for SOHO’s 2024 writing contest on the same. In “How San Diego Speaks to Me,” Nancy’s own words best convey her emotional and intellectual connection to this site and to Balboa Park:
“Preserved by a stubborn sturdiness, the Golden Hill fountain grotto weathered 80 years of obscurity before being publicly recognized and appreciated as the oldest designed feature of Balboa Park (excepting roads created in 1903-05),” she wrote. “I am so grateful it has survived, but mindful that every historic site cannot so successfully await its day in the sun—the time when historic significance is finally recognized and protections are offered. And mindful, too, that the fountain grotto remains a historic preservation challenge.”
Her work on comprehensive interpretive and wayfinding signage, with Forever Balboa Park's horticultural committee is another area that speaks to her commitment to public education. Her work can be found published in Pacific Horticulture, Eden, the Journal of San Diego History and California Garden.
Through her Journal of San Diego History article "A Moreton Bay Fig Tree and San Diego Memory,"" Nancy revealed the significance of the iconic tree beside the Natural History Museum, portraying it as a "witness tree" and century-long observer of Balboa Park’s history. Her research and writing clarified why the tree is landmarked and recognized as a sentinel of the park, deepening public understanding of its importance.
Nancy’s invaluable historical research led to the renaming of the Balboa Park Cactus Garden to the Kate O. Sessions Cactus Garden in her honor. Originally developed in 1935 under Sessions’ direction, the garden was revitalized with Nancy’s scholarship ensuring its founder received lasting recognition.
As a well-known authority on the life and work of Kate Olivia Sessions, the still-influential early San Diego nurserywoman and horticulturist, Nancy is currently compiling a definitive bibliography and website on Sessions to share her extensive research. Her goal is to ensure that one of San Diego’s most important figures in landscape and plant history receives the in-depth, scholarly attention she deserves.
A preservationist at heart, Nancy documents, uplifts, and actively shapes how we understand and steward our green spaces. She is an outspoken, knowledgeable advocate for honoring the intent and legacy of historic landscapes. Her lasting impact extends well beyond our region.
NANCY’S DECADES OF WORK demonstrate the essential role of the historian in the act of preservation: to question, to teach, and to protect. Through research, writing, public engagement, and advocacy, she ensures that the stories embedded in our landscapes are heard, remembered, and defended.
It is with the greatest pleasure and honor that SOHO awards Nancy Carol Carter with the People In Preservation Culture Keeper: Landscape Heritage award.
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