Next Meeting

Celebrating The Horticulturist Of The Year 2026, Nancy Carol Carter, On January 17

From 1:30p - 3:30p At Oasis Rancho Bernardo (Upstairs In The Grand Assembly Hall)

Online registration required -
SD Hort Member (and their guest) registration is FREE and 
in-person non-member registration is $15.00

(Consider joining or renewing with the San Diego Horticultural Society for $30.00 and attend this meeting for free.)

NO DECEMBER MEETING

About Nancy -

After a long and rewarding career in legal education, Nancy Carol Carter retired as a Professor of Law and Director of the Legal Research Center at the University of San Diego in 2013. During her academic career she published numerous articles on federal law as applied to Indian nations and wrote the first guides for building tribal legal histories and researching American Indian Law. She created the first website chronicling the history of Native American tribal groups in San Diego County. She holds a BS, MS, MLS and JD and is admitted to practice by the State Bar of Oklahoma and the Northern District of California.

In retirement, Carter turned to her long interest in the history of horticulture, gardens and landscapes. She has completed garden history courses and researches and publishes widely on the life and work of Kate O. Sessions, on lost stories of Balboa Park, and on the work of many local gardeners and horticulturists. Carter has made more than 100 invited presentations to garden clubs and community groups and, as a member of the SDSU Osher program faculty, offers continuing education classes. Two current projects are the publication of a book on Paul G. Thiene, the landscape architect of the 1915 Balboa Park exposition, and the release of her accumulated Kate Sessions research on a publicly accessible website, KateOSessions.info, due to launch on March 25, 2026.           

Carter is the associate editor of California Garden magazine and serves on the boards of the California Garden and Landscape History Society, the San Diego Floral Association and the Balboa Park Committee of 100. With Forever Balboa Park, she serves on the Horticulture and Park Improvement Committees. She is a trustee of the Library Foundation SD, chairing its Governance Committee.

Within Balboa Park, Carter contributes to the interpretive signs describing the history of buildings and gardens. She has successfully campaigned to gain official name recognition for two Balboa Park gardens attributable to Kate O. Sessions and the Cactus Garden and the San Jose Hesper Palm Grove now bear her name. Carter received the Friends of Balboa Park Millennium Award in 2015 for park contributions and advocacy. In 2025 Save Our Heritage Organization recognized her with the People in Preservation Culture Keeper: Landscape Heritage award.

And now, Nancy Carol Carter is the San Diego Horticultural Society's 2026 Horticulturist of the Year!