Hermosa Beach Flowers of the Valley School Dune
Suzanne Evans, and Jackie Tagliarro are leading the effort to restore native flora to the sand dune behind Valley School, one of Hermosa’s last areas of undeveloped dune
by Kevin Cody
Whenever Suzanne Evans looks at the largely barren sand dune behind Hermosa Valley School, and wonders if it will ever bloom again the way it did when she was a child, she reminds herself of what naturalists say about sand dune flora:
“It sleeps, it creeps, and then it leaps.”
Since 2014, Evans and a group of helpers, including Valley School eighth graders, have been clearing the dune west of the school of invasive species, and seeding it with Beach Evening Primrose, Deerwood, Lupine, Toyon, Lemonade Berry, Coastal Sagebrush, Coyote Bush and other native flora.
Evans gathers the seeds from Hemosa’s increasingly scarce vacant lots. She found Evening Primrose and Pink Sand Verbena on two sandy lots in the 1100 block of Palm Drive. Both lots have since been built on. She found more of the same seeds in the front yard of a home in the 1400 block of Hermosa Avenue, but that yard has since been uprooted and covered in wood chips. Residents in the 1400 block of Monterey gave her permission to go through their gates and gather seeds from the back of their property, which faces Bayview Dr. But it, too, will soon be built on.
California Beach Sunflower. Photo by Beverly Baird
As a result of the growing scarcity of vacant lots, Evans now buys most of her seeds and plantlings from the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy nursery. The Conservancy owns 1,600 acres of native habitat in the Lunada Bay/Portuguese Bend area of the Peninsula.
And on a hopeful note, this year for the first time, Evans and her eighth graders were able to gather seeds from the plants growing on the school sand dune.
Evans traces her fascination with the Valley School dune to her childhood in the valley during the 1950s. She and her parents, Betty and Gordon, and younger siblings, Bobby and Jeanne, lived next to the school. The ocean-loving family walked to the beach on a trail over the dune.
Betty was a member of the Hermosa Garden Club, and taught her children the names of the plants that bloomed on the dune, and the names of the birds that fed on their seeds. Evans recalls common sightings of Great Horned Owls, Bushtits, Cooper’s Hawks, Red-tailed Hawks, White Crowned Sparrows, Allen’s and Anna’s Hummingbirds and Yellow-Rumped Warblers.
Over the ensuing decades, as more homes were built on the dune, the amount of flora and number of birds diminished. Residents planted South African ice plant on the remaining vacant lots to stop sand from blowing into their homes.
In February 1987, Betty, who was the Civic Beautification Chair of the Hermosa Garden Club,
addressed a letter to then Hermosa Beach Schools Superintendent Marilyn Corey. “I have noticed that in some places on the hill [the dune behind the school], the ice plant is squishing some of the lupine and buttercup that are presently there. I think it would be a good idea to carefully remove some of the ice plant….This would allow the present natives to have some breathing room. It is important to have a few patches of sand here and there for the doves and insects.”
She added, “I will be in touch with Mr. Rogers [a local butterfly expert] about the idea of planting some sea cliff buckwheat that would attract the blue butterfly…”
Maritima Dune Poppy. Photo by Beverly Baird
Years passed, and the ice plant continued to squish the native flora. Betty Evans died in 2005, and Suzanne had moved to Zurich, Switzerland, where she married, raised her family and pursued her painting career.
But on every visit home to Hermosa to see her father and siblings, she was reminded of how beautiful the dune behind the school had been when it was in bloom.
“My father and I walked the trail up the dune regularly to walk along the beach. The invasive ice plant was everywhere. The pink sand verbena, the beach evening primrose, the dune lupine and Silver Beach Burr were all gone. A few Coastal Poppies and California Bush Sunflowers were all that survived being strangled by the ice plant.
Shortly after her father passed away in 2010, Evans came across newspaper stories about native plant restoration projects along The Strand in Manhattan Beach, and the Esplanade in Redondo Beach. The articles inspired her to think about restoring the sand dune of her childhood.
Pink Sand Verbena. Photos by Beverly Baird
On a visit home in 2012, she mentioned her idea for restoring the Valley School dune to local photographer Chris Miller, who referred her to local community activist Dency Nelson. Nelson introduced her to School Board Member Ray Waters, who introduced her to newly appointed Superintendent Pat Escalante. The school district had discussed carving out the dune for a gymnasium, but neighbors blocked the plan.
In 2014, the school board approved the Hermosa Valley School Back Sand Dune Native Plant Restoration Project, with the understanding the program must find financing elsewhere.
“People told me I’d need a landscape architect, which I couldn’t afford. But then Carol Tanner, a garden club friend of my mother’s, suggested I make a rough sketch of the project. Andrea Pulccini, another garden club member, turned my draft into a rendering,” Evans said
“Then Miyo Prassas introduced me to Tony Baker, a native plant expert who had helped Miyo reintroduce native flora to the sand dune behind her valley home.”
Baker advised against enlisting a landscape architect.
“You don’t want a landscaped garden. You want a natural garden,” he told her. Baker gave her a list of seeds to gather, and told her to scatter them across the dune, just as the wind would.
During the ensuing years, Evans devoted visits home to Hermosa to tearing out the ice plant, and Australian acacia trees, which carpeted the dune, and prevented native flora from growing.
In her absence, she entrusted supervision of the project to another Hermosa valley resident Jackie Tagliaferro, who had been a close friend of her father.
A condition she insisted on in her agreement with the school board was that students be involved with the restoration.
Suzanne Evans, and Hermosa Valley eighth grade teacher Tammy Heath, whose students are helping restore the sand dune. Photo by Kevin Cody
In 2013, when the project was still in its formative stage, Hermosa Valley eighth grade history teacher Tammy Heath encouraged her students to help clear and seed the dune.
“The students learned how the Indians used the Mule Fat stalks for arrows, and why the plant was called Mule Fat (mules like to eat it). We rolled a tennis ball through the Beach Burr to show how its barbed seeds get picked up, and spread by passing animals and people.
“The kids were more interested than you might expect, because they aren’t farm kids. Many had never picked up a rake or shovel,” Heath said.
During the 2016-17 school year, science teacher Vince Aza incorporated the restoration project into his indoor-outdoor ecology class. Evans hopes the “outdoor laboratory” will be incorporated into the school’s curriculum.
Evans also hopes the restoration project will be expanded to the neighboring dune areas.
About the time Evans embarked on restoring the school dune, Janice Yates, a Marineland Mobile Home Park board member (the mobile home park is the school’s southern neighbor), obtained a grant from the Southern California Native Plant Society to restore native flora in the park’s sand dune area. When Yates passed away in 2019, park resident Betty Starr continued the restoration effort until, according to Evans, the park management withdrew its support of the effort.
As protection of the dunes in their native state into the future, Evans has spoken to Hermosa Beach Environmental Programs Manager Doug Klauss about the city designating the Valley School dune as an historical site.
Krauss said in an interview on Tuesday that he is impressed with the restoration effort, and that he expects its protection to be addressed in the Master Park Plan, which the city is presently undertaking.
Suzanne Evans cradles a sea cliff buckwheat flower, without which the El Segundo Blue Butterfly would perish. Photo by Kevin Cody
To illustrate the importance of preserving native flora, Evans cradled a tiny, white, sea cliff buckwheat flower, newly sprouted on the dune. El Segundo Blue Butterflies lay their eggs on such flowers, where their pupae feed before flying off. The El Segundo Blue was in danger of becoming extinct, until the Chevron El Segundo Refinery reintroduced sea cliff buckwheat to the dune under the Los Angeles International Airport flight path.
Now, thanks to additional habitat restoration along the dune, which runs from the foot of Palos Verdes to the airport, the El Segundo Blues have their own flight path. ER