The Best Gardener on Potrero Hill

Last Spring the front yard of a yellow cottage on Arkansas Street was decorated with a burst of roses, tended to by David Garcia.

“David is the best gardener in Potrero Hill,” Jeanie Makanna, the cottage’s owner, said. “He’s been with us for thirty years. These roses – the Color Magic and Double Delight – were used in bouquets when Obama came to Potrero Hill! That was April 9, 2016, at the home of Susan Sandler and Steven Philips.”

Double Delight is a hybrid tea rose, creamy white with a red edge, especially suited to California’s climate.

Jeanie’s husband, Phil, said he’s lived in the cottage since 1969. It’s one of 50 surviving “earthquake shacks” that were deployed after the 1906 earthquake and fire that destroyed roughly 28,000 buildings in San Francisco. It’s been renovated and expanded over the last 120 years.

The couple co-founded and publishes the GHOSTS aviation calendars, first released in 1980, which feature aerial photographs of World War I and II combat airplanes. Phil captured the images from planes in flight throughout the world, including New Zealand, England, and the California coast.