When Laurel Heights was home to the Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co., the 10-acre site at the crest of California Street was landscaped by a full-time team of gardeners. But since late 1993, when UCSF began occupying the facility, its trees, shrubbery and flower patches have been manicured mainly through the efforts of one man.

The skills of landscaper Adrian Field, who often works before sunrise, have not gone unnoticed. Laurel Heights last year received the Environmental Improvement Award of Distinction from the Associated Landscape Contractors of America, a trade association representing roughly 1,500 landscape contracting firms throughout the US and Canada, for “promoting, protecting and preserving the heritage of beauty for all future generations.” The campus has also received the San Francisco Beautiful Award, which recognizes the “creation and preservation of beauty of San Francisco.”

Adrian Field, far right, and members of the Gardener's Guild plant flowers at Laurel Heights.

Fragrant rosemary bushes, eucalyptus and Monterey cypress line the property’s California Street entrance. Marigolds, red salvia and impatiens dot the east and west perimeters, and to the south, a park-like courtyard overlooks the city’s downtown.

Laurel Heights employees often approach Field for home gardening tips. And in what is perhaps the ultimate form of flattery (and frustration), passersby can be seen picking flowers and rosemary.

“You get people borrowing things,” Field says with a smile.

Field formerly taught landscaping to developmentally disabled people at Peninsula hospital, where gardening was used as a tool to teach social and work skills.

Lately, he has been doing long-range landscape planning for Laurel Heights, whose population will grow when the Center for Social, Behavioral and Policy Studies moves into the vacant upper floors.

“Apart from that,” Field says, “it’s work, work, work, weed, weed, weed, snip, snip, snip.”

By Brad Foss

1st appeared 6/10/97

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