By Nancy Carol Carter
Events, great and small, in the long life of Sessions (1857-1940) and in her after-life are recorded here, with source citations when available. As a nursery owner, San Diego’s weather had a profound influence on Sessions’ livelihood
and wellbeing, so this timeline includes dates of disastrous frosts and generous rains, as well as the landmark dates in Sessions’ busy and consequential life. This timeline will be supplemented with additional dates and source citations as revealed by ongoing research.
Nov. 8, 1857
Katherine Olivia Sessions born in San Francisco to Josiah and Harriet S. Parker Sessions.
1860
U. S. Census records the Sessions family living in San Francisco. Household members: Josiah Sessions 34, Harriet 33, Catharine O. 2. Head of household work: Teamster; personal and property estate valued at $4000.
March 1867
Sessions family relocates across San Francisco Bay to a large farm in Oakland, near Lake Merritt, at S.E. corner of East Nineteenth and 7th Avenue. Kate Sessions grows up riding horses in the Oakland hills.
Dated from a personal diary entry by Sessions on March 9, 1877: “Eleven years ago today came to Oakland to live on the ranch.”
1870
U. S. Census records the “Sissions” family living in Oakland.
Household members: J[osiah] 43, Harriet 41, Kate 12 and Frank 6.
1873
Univ. of California moves campus from Oakland to Berkeley. Enrollment 228. German agronomist Eugene Hilgard taught botany from 1875-1882. Economic botany taught by Charles Bessey, from Univ. of Iowa. Field Botany by Gibbons and Kellogg and lower plants by Harkness. See 1884.
May 28, 1876
Graduates from Oakland High School.
June 8 to Aug. 21, 1876
Travels to Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) for two months where she creates a treasured collection of dried ferns and learns to appreciate tropical plants. From June 30-July 2 she stayed at Volcano House on the island of Hawaii, signing in with companions Elizabeth Watson, Mrs. Hunt of St. Helena, and Mrs. David D. Shattuck and son of San Francisco.
Oct. 9 to Nov.13, 1876
Sessions successfully completes a five-week business school course in San Francisco, meeting her life-long friend Rosa Smith.
Ordered a course catalog from Cornell University.
Dec. 1876
Sessions was a founding member of the Ebell Society of Oakland. Named in honor of Dr. Adrion Ebell, a German professor who championed the education of women, the society was a study group promoting intellectual development.
Jan. 1877
Applied for a job at a bank but was “refused of course” according to her diary entry of January 19, 1877.
Fall 1877
Enters college at the University of California, Berkeley, enrolling in the “Scientific Course” rather than the “Classical Course”; is a student of the College of Chemistry and studies both French and German.
1880
Sessions is listed as a member of the Oakland Ebell Society for the Advancement of Art, Science and Literature.
U. S. Census records Sessions family living at 1470 7th Ave., Oakland. Household members: Josiah 53, Harriet 51, Kate 23, Frank 16.
May 23, 1881
During the University’s “Class Day” before graduation, Sessions read papers on “University Museums” [urging that one be established on the Berkeley campus] and “Rock Soap.” Oakland Tribune, May 26, 1881.
May 31, 1881
Is awarded the degree “Bachelor of Philosophy” from the University of California, Berkeley [According to the Bancroft Library at the University of California, no record of college majors was kept.].
1881-83
Part-time primary school teacher, Oakland [Her friend Rosa Smith also taught in the Oakland schools and was related to the owners of the San Diego Tribune and prominent San Diegans. Rosa Smith was Sessions’ link to San Diego.] Krakatoa sunsets begin in Dec. 1883.
Jan. 1884
Moves to San Diego to become principal at Russ School, arriving on the side-wheeler Orizaba. Boarded with Etta and Augusta Curtis, great aunts of Sessions’ biographer, Elizabeth MacPhail. Sessions was principal at Russ School, January-March 1884. When a former principal returned to San Diego, Sessions was demoted to assistant principal and taught algebra and geometry, serving April 1884-June 1885. Resigned because of low pay of $80 per month.
Jan. 1884
Heavy rains begin and continue throughout the Spring. Report of the President of Univ. of California recommends a botany department. Edward Lee Greene hired as “Instructor in Botany” in 1885.
April 1884
Sessions becomes eighth-grade mathematics teacher at Russ School.
June-Sept. 1885
Moves to San Gabriel for a teaching job.
Winter 1885
Becomes a nursery business partner of the Solon Blaisdells (she met the Poway fruit growers while gathering ferns.) They purchased the J. M. Asher Nursery). Sessions later advertised her business as “established 1885.” The growing fields were in Coronado and the retail store at 5th and “C” Streets.
Mid-1880s
San Diego economy booms and there is an influx of settlers, raising the population to 35,000 and creating many changes in city life.
Nov. 1885
Transcontinental train reaches San Diego, linking the town to the rest of the nation.
1886
Sessions given permission to create a botanical garden using University of California botanical collection plants.
Summer 1886
While visiting the Bay Area, called at the home of University of California (Berkeley) faculty member, A. Wendell Jackson.
May 24, 1887
Sessions is mentioned in two letters from Clark Alberti (1839-1906), associate editor of the Coronado Journal newspaper and a special correspondent for the Chicago Inter Ocean, to Mary Waterman Rice, daughter of California Governor Robert Waterman. In May he wrote: “I saw Miss Sessions today in the midst of her posies. She was as suave as ever, and I have hopes of winning her over to the Inter Ocean yet . . . .”
June 13, 1887
In June he mentioned Session’s presence at a social evening with the former governor, Speaker Jordan, Ida Benfey and others. Waterman family papers, 1839-1906, BANC MSS C-B 491, Carton 4. “Alberti, Clark,” Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley.
Dec. 14, 1887
Coronado Beach Company property records show S. G. Blaisdell taking Lots 10-28 and Sessions taking lots 1-9 and lots 29 to 32 in Block 151. Contract No 439-78 dated Nov. 13, 1886. Other lots in Block 151 transferred to four other buyers.
Copy of transaction printed in Coronado Magazine, No. 190 (Feb 11, 2015) 52.
Dec. 31, 1887
Partnership with Blaisdells is dissolved. Sessions retains the flower shop and some nursery growing grounds in Coronado where she starts a business, “Miss K. O. Sessions, Grower of Trees, Shrubs, and Plants.”
1888
San Diego boom economy takes a dive; population declines.
Meets Alice Rainford who at age 8 announced her interest in working for Sessions.
1889
Sessions paid the fare for George F. Otto to travel from San Francisco to work at her nursery. Later established his own nursery in National City. Sessions sees first Cocas plumosa and Bird of Paradise growing in San Diego in Hotel Del courtyard. MacPhail, 48.
Feb. 28, 1889
Sessions’ paternal uncle Milton Payne Sessions, dies in San Francico at age 53, leaving his widow Ellen Hunter Sessions (a native of Scotland) and no children. His thriving drayage business is managed by William E. Jackson who is later involved in litigation with Kate Sessions. See Aug. 1, 1910.
Aug. 11, 1889
Sessions returns to San Diego after a visit to Oakland.
June 7, 1890
Sessions is the first paying passenger on San Diego’s new cable car running from downtown San Diego, Sixth Avenue & C Street up Fourth Avenue to Spruce.
Sept. 8, 1890
Boston Globe publishes article on Sessions (Reprinted: San Diego Union, Sept. 22, 1890, 8:1).
1890
Meets Alice Eastwood, long-time botanist at the San Francisco Academy of Science while Eastwood is visiting in Coronado.
1890
Sessions’ florist shop moved to Fifth Ave. & C Street after leaving site purchased for the new Fisher Opera House.
1890?
Date uncertain, but before 1909, Sessions invited Naobumi Honda to offer classes in Japanese floral arrangement in her flower store. Alice Rainford Oral History, p. 11, San Diego History Center Archives.
Aug. 8, 1890
San Diego Union announces Sessions is visiting her mother in Oakland for two weeks. At a newly opened Japanese florist and nursery in Oakland, Sessions orders bamboo shoots and a Japanese dwarf palm.
San Diego Union, August 28, 1890, 8.
Oct. 25, 1890
San Diego Union carries Sessions’ invitation to visit her chrysanthemum display and the next day an “almost constant stream” of visitors crossed on the ferry to witness the beautiful display in the Coronado growing fields.
Nov. 14, 1890
Travels to Los Angeles for a floral exhibition.
April 1891
Travels to Oakland for 10 days to care for her sick mother.
June 7, 1891
San Diego Union reports that Sessions is taking swimming lessons in La Jolla.
June 11, 1891
San Diego Union reports that Blaisdell and Sessions nurseries are “very bright spots on the beach” in Coronado and have a variety of rare plants.
Nov. 1, 1891
San Diego Union reports Sessions’ trip to a chrysanthemum fair in Los Angeles.
Jan. 27, 1892
San Diego Union reports city council action employing Sessions as an unpaid city gardener and the lease of city park land to her for botanical purposes.
Feb. 9, 1892
San Diego’s Common Council approves Ordinance No. 153 approving a lease of City Park land to Sessions.
Feb. 1892
Moves nursery business to 32 acres of leased land at Sixth Avenue in the undeveloped city park (Balboa Park), agreeing to plant trees in the park. (Future business moves occur in 1903 to Mission Hills and 1926 to Pacific Beach.)
Sessions rents the two-story General Crittenden House on Upas Street between 6th and 7th Avenues; Mrs. Goddard, a dressmaker, and daughter Eunice lived at home.
Feb. 17, 1892
San Diego Daily Sun prints San Diego City Ordinance #153 granting Sessions right to use certain lands of City Park.
May 6, 1892
Presents a paper to Pomological Society of Southern California urging the mass planting of trees and their maintenance at public expense to enhance the appearance of streets and highways.
c. 1892
Meets Anna Held (Henrich), the developer of the Green Dragon Colony in La Jolla and governess for the children of U. S. Grant, Jr.
Oct. 29, 1892
San Diego Union reports that 200 people visited the Sessions’ nursery “beautiful display of chrysanthemums.”
1893
Sessions residence listed in City Directory as 6th and Upas.
1893
Sessions travels to the World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago.
Apr. 26, 1893
Sessions is accused of violating the terms of her lease of city park land.
1894
Helps Anna Held plant the first trees at Green Dragon Colony in La Jolla.
Sessions is mentioned in a Massachusetts newspaper: “The leading florist in San Diego, California, is a woman, Miss Kate Sessions, a college educated young lady.”
June 12-13, 1894
San Diego experiences a record-breaking cold snap with a high on each day of 50 degrees.
Aug. 25, 1894
Sessions returns from a visit to friends and family in the Bay Area.
1895
Sessions’ parents and brother move from Oakland to join her in San Diego.
Apr. 30, 1895
Sessions’ mother, Harriet S. (Parker) Sessions, dies at age 66 at Sessions’ home.
1895
Los Angeles Times, April 28, 1895, recognizes Sessions with comment, “San Diego has a woman to be proud of.”
c.1895
Charles S. Sargent of Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum, visits San Diego and advises Sessions to send a collector to Mexico for new plants.
1895
In the late 1890s Sessions’ widowed aunt Ellen (Mrs. Milton P.) Sessions moves to San Diego; builds a house at 3545 Sixth Avenue where Kate and her father live.
Oct. 8, 1896
Attends first meeting of “College Graduate Club” of San Diego (later the University Club) organized by Dr. Charlotte Baker.
1897
San Diego Public Library with 14,000 volumes is at corner of 7th and F Streets above post office (see 1889-90).
Jan. 19, 1897
Plants palm trees in the downtown plaza, opposite the U.S. Grant Hotel. MacPhail, 59.
1898
Sessions continues to reside at Crittenden House.
Mar. 1898
Sessions creates an exhibit of local wildflowers for the Wednesday Club.
April 14, 1898
Conducts correspondence with Alice Rainford about hiring her as an assistant at the San Diego Nursery and Cut Flower Depot Sessions ran at 5th and C Streets, San Diego. Rainford begins career with Sessions.
1899
Sessions named agent to sell surplus landscape material after Hotel Del Coronado landscaped.
1899
Relocates florist shop to Griswold Building at 5th and B Streets while Sefton Block is under construction.
Aug. 1899
Sessions assumes management of the Hotel del Coronado gardens and flower shop.
Aug. 6, 1899
Sessions publishes letter in the San Diego Union on ideal siting and landscape for the new public library under discussion. San Diego Union, August 6, 1899, 3.
Sept. 1899
Presents a paper to the San Diego Chamber of Commerce meeting with many attendees on City Park improvement. Includes mention of a cactus garden as a park attraction.
Sept. 1899
San Diego Weekly Union published Sessions’ suggestions on beautifying City Park (later Balboa Park).
1899
Presents a paper to the San Diego Chamber of Commerce meeting with many attendees on city park improvement. Includes mention of a cactus garden as a park attraction.
Feb. 1900
Sessions sells Coronado land to Louise F. Shirley, transferring lots 3 to 9 and 29 to 32, block 151. “Real Estate Transfers,” (San Diego) Evening Tribune, Feb. 16, 1900, 3.
June 1900
United States Census records Sessions living with her father, Josiah, and brother Frank on Sixth Avenue, San Diego.
June 1900
Relocates florist business to 1339 “C” Street between 4th and 5th Avenue opposite the Marston Building. (San Diego) Evening Tribune, June 1, 1900, 5.
Earle H. Bowerstock employed by Sessions around this date.
1901
Sessions residence listed in City Directory as 3553 6th Avenue.
May 16, 1901
Sessions speaks on “Demands of the Floral Trade in San Diego” at the Pacific States Floral Congress in San Francisco. “Floral Congress Sessions Over,” San Jose Mercury News, May 17, 1901, 2.
1902
Appointed to San Diego Chamber of Commerce Park Improvement Committee, serving with George Marston and Ernest E. White.
April 1902
“Miss Sessions Absent from City,” reported the San Diego Public Library Bulletin.
Oct. 1, 1902
Sessions provides floral decorations for the Klauber-Barrett society wedding.
Oct. 1902
Sessions travels with T. S. Brandegee to San Jose del Cabo, Baja, on her first and only plant-hunting expedition. She returns with five small plants and an abundance of seed, introducing the San Jose Hesper palm (Brahea brandegeei) to the U.S. She was away for three weeks. This trip is incorrectly dated to 1900 in a later recollection of Sessions.
Dec. 21, 1902
Sessions’ paternal uncle Charles A. Sessions, a successful and well-known businessman in Oakland, age 58, is killed in a gruesome collision of two trains in Northern California. He is survived by brothers William and Josiah, his wife and a son, Nathan. “Wreck’s Dead Number Twenty and Grim Roster is Growing,” San Francisco Call, Dec. 22, 1902, 1, 3.
Mar. 13, 1903
Sessions father Josiah dies in San Diego at age 77. Of his four brothers, only William survived him, along with his children Kate and Frank.
Fall 1903
Moves nursery business to Mission Hills.
1904
Quotation regarding Oakland meeting (no citation): “The auditorium never looked prettier great flaming poinsettias—all the way from San Diego, by the way, the gift of Miss Kate Sessions, a charter member of Ebell—glorifying the auditorium with their vivid color . . .”
Mar. 17, 1904
Organizes, in cooperation with Mary B. Coulston, first of many San Diego Arbor Day tree plantings in Balboa Park and at city schools.
Oct. 7, 1904
Coronado Beach Company confirms by letter to Sessions a contract to plant cacti in a garden close to the Del Coronado Hotel for a cost not to exceed $100.00.
1904-05
Two very dry years prompt Sessions to write to nursery owner Francesco Franceschi of her “discouragement.”
Jan. 1905
Sessions becomes involved in the domestic problems of her brother, temporarily caring for her 5-year-old nephew Milton as Frank and his wife settle a divorce.
Mar. 1905
Sessions reports in a letter to Franceschi that she has recovered from six weeks of illness due to scarlet fever.
Apr. 1905
Park Improvement Committee raised $11, 081 for park improvement; City Council replaced the Committee with an official Board of Park Commissioners. San Diego Union, April 18, 1905, 3.
c.1905
Charles S. Sargent of Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum makes his second visit to San Diego. Sessions located in a canyon near Kensington Park the Mountain Mahogany (Cerocarpus parvifolius) he was seeking for study.
1906
Sessions residence listed in City Directory as S.E. corner of California and Ft. Stockton Streets.
Aug. 1906
Sessions visits the San Francisco Bay Area, returning south via the steamer State of California to visit Francesco Franceschi’s nursery in Santa Barbara before continuing by train to San Diego.
1907-1908
Sessions made several very large sales of palm trees to the Huntington Land & Improvement Co. in San Marino where Henry Huntington was building a garden.
1907
Sessions is a founder of the San Diego Floral Association with Alfred D. Robinson and others; she serves as an officer and board member for decades.
1908
Sessions residence listed in City Directory as N.W. corner of Broadway and Hooker (now Montecito & Lark Streets). Frank Sessions is at same home.
June 14, 1905
Temperature matched record June cold set in 1894, 50 degrees.
Sept. 7, 1908
Visited South Moulton Villa home of Ellen Browning Scripps to look over the garden, take notes, and “put [the] place in shape and give advice and suggestions as to future planting.” Diary of Ellen Browning Scripps, Scripps University Library.
1909
Sells retail floral business to Alice M. Rainford on Sept. 9 (bill of sale in Rainford collection at San Diego History Center Archives).
Writes the first of 260 articles for the new San Diego Floral Association publication, California Garden magazine.
1910
Plants Cosos plumosas palm trees at Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego.
U. S. Census reports Sessions residing on Randolph Street in San Diego as head of household: Kate 53, and other family members, Leonidas Parker (uncle) 76, Ellen Parker (aunt) 67, Eugene Parker (cousin) 26, Clarence Parker, (cousin) 14.
May 1910
Sessions writes to Francesco Franceschi of being ill and very behind on her work. She mentions her appointment as guardian of a mentally incompetent aunt, Mrs. Ellen Sessions, a Santa Barbara property owner. She is unable to write for California Garden.
Aug. 1, 1910
Sessions petitions for guardianship over Ellen Sessions, her 85 year-old San Francisco aunt residing with Sessions in San Diego. The petition was contested by William E. Jackson, a San Francisco resident who had overseen Ellen Sessions’ business for many years and claimed that he was to inherit her property.
Sept. 1, 1910
Sessions appointed guardian over her aunt. Receives permission of court to spend funds for a new house, built at Randolph & Montecito Streets, a two-story home Kate occupied until 1920. MacPhail, 81.[This housing information may be inaccurate, needs further research.]
Dec. 16, 1910
Sessions and Alice Lee guide John Charles Olmsted and Fred Dawson of the Olmsted landscape firm on a tour of mature trees and planting in the San Diego area as planning for the 1915 exposition landscape.
Dec. 26, 1910
John Charles Olmsted and Fred Dawson of the Olmsted landscape firm visit the Sessions’ nursery in a first visit regarding the purchase of plants for the 1915 exposition.
1911
Builds a cabin in Grossmont [photos at San Diego History Center Archives].
Feb, 28, 1911
John Charles Olmsted and Fred Dawson of the Olmsted nursery firm make a second visit to the Sessions nursery regarding plants for the 1915 exposition.
March 1911
Local news reports on the “distinguished people” who passed a day as guests of the Stratford Inn, Del Mar. The party included John C. Olmsted, “the celebrated landscape architect of Brookline, Mass.” and his sister; Miss Kate Sessions, and “Miss Leo and Miss Teitze” [sic; the last two guests were Alice Lee and Katherine Teats of San Diego.] “Society News,” San Diego Union March, 1911.
May 1911
Sessions sells 60 large Phoenix canariensis palms to the exposition nursery established by the Olmsted Brothers landscape firm. Letter, Harold Hill Blossom to James Frederick Dawson, May 16, 1911, Olmsted Archives Collections.
1912
San Diego experiences political unrest throughout the year with Emma Goldman and labor “Wobblies” in town to defy free speech restrictions. Sessions and her brother Frank purchase a portion of Pueblo Lot 1785 in the Pacific Beach foothills of Mount Soledad.
Feb. 1912
Sessions begins promoting rock gardens in California Garden 3:8 (Feb. 1912), 12.
Mar. 10, 1912
A fierce windstorm downs many trees in San Diego.
April 1912
Sessions writes hopefully of getting a large order for plants needed in the “Botanical Garden Conservatory” being created for the Panama-California Exposition.
Dec. 1912
Sessions is profiled in Sunset magazine in “The Lady of the Christmas Flower,” describing her work in propagating and shipping holiday poinsettias and her place as a woman in the male domain of nursery ownership and management. Bertha H. Smith. “The Lady of the Christmas Flower.” Sunset 29:6 (Dec. 1912) 699-702.
1912-1913
San Diego experiences two years of drought and low rainfall.
1913
Sessions residence listed in City Directory at Broadway and Randolph (now Montecito and Randolph Streets).
Sessions hires Antonicelli brothers to work at her nursery.
Jan. 15, 1913
Sessions’ maternal uncle Leonidas Parker dies in the Los Gatos area at age 80. His large family provided Sessions with ten cousins; of these, Alice Catherine (Mrs. Raymond) Carroll became particularly close.
Mar. 1913
Reports in a letter to Francesco Franceschi on extensive frost damage in San Diego. She lost thousands of nursery plants, including all her poinsettias. Her brother lost 10,000 poinsettia plants in the cold snap.
Aug. 5, 1913
Aunt Ellen (widow of Milton P. Sessions, brother of Kate’s father Josiah), who is under Sessions’ guardianship, dies. She left a sum of money that was invested in building a home at Plumosa Way. MacPhail, 81. “Deaths,” San Diego Union, Aug. 6, 1913, 5.
1914
Purchases land in the Pacific Beach neighborhood of San Diego; upon which she later develops a nursery at 2590 Grand Avenue, subdivides lots and in the late 1920s, builds a home on Soledad Terrace.
Mar. 1914
Reports in a letter to Katharine Brandegee on a “fine rainy season.”
Aug. 12, 13, 14, 1914
Attends the California Association of Nurserymen convention in San Francisco.
Nov. 1914
Spends 12 days in San Francisco, renewing contacts with John McLaren (Golden Gare Park); botanists Alice Eastwood and Katherine Jones, former San Diego residents Katharine and T. S. Brandegees (botanists) and meeting new University of California faculty members.
Nov. 10-14, 2014
Speaks at a Los Angeles convention of fruit growers.
1915
Sessions residence listed in City Directory as 1464 W. Montecito (believed to be old numbering for 1432 Montecito).
1915
Sessions notes abundant winter rain in San Diego.
Apr. 1915
One hundred visitors responded to an invitation to visit Sessions’ new land in Pacific Beach and heard “her plans for the development of that section of San Diego.”
1915-18
Serves as Supervisor [or Superintendent] of Agriculture for San Diego grammar schools. Landscaped San Diego High School, oversaw student gardens at three schools and instructed students and teachers in botany.
April 11, 1916
Sixty members of the San Diego Floral Association ventured up the new Mt. Soledad Road to plant trees at the summit of the hill, all grown from seed by Sessions: eight pines, five Torrey pines, three Mt. Diablo big cone pines.
Mar. 9, 1918
Sessions speaks on growing poinsettias to the Channing Club at its Sixth Avenue and Cedar Street club room in San Diego. “Channing Club Members Meet,” San Diego Union and Daily Bee, March 9, 1918.
April 16, 1918
Hosts a meeting of the San Diego Floral Association at her home. “April Meeting,” California Garden 9:10 (May 1918).
June 1918
Proposes a cactus garden in San Diego’s new city park. Writes that “San Diego could be a world center for the study of cactus.” California Garden, 9, no. 12 (June 1918), 10.
Oct. 20, 1918
Writes to John McLaren that gardening is at a very low ebb and that she is struggling to hold on to her business; thanks him for sending her a “treasure” – a tree fern.
Oct. 12-13, 1919
Is the local guide for U.S. Department of Agriculture chief plant explorer, David G. Fairchild and his wife Marian during an official visit to San Diego, inspecting local experiment stations, orchards, farms, and private gardens, with emphasis on seeing the progress of economic crops and exotic plants introduced by the USDA.
1919
Botanist Alice Eastwood of San Francisco’s California Academy of Science visits San Diego.
Sessions aids in developing vegetable and ornamental gardens for the World War I installation, Camp Kearney. Kate O. Sessions. “Notes on Plants.” California Garden 11:2 (August 1919):3.
June 30, 1920
Sessions donates “Color Park” of 500 acres to the City of San Diego; park located south side of Los Altos Road, west of Jewell Street.
1921-23
Sessions conducts nature walks in Balboa Park for Natural History Society. MacPhail p.90.
May 11, 1921
Sessions is scheduled to speak in Mission Hills to P.E.O. members. San Diego Union and Daily Bee, May 11, 1921
1922
A biographical sketch of Sessions is published in Clarence Alan McGrew’s The City of San Diego and San Diego County . . . vol. 2 (Chicago & N.Y.: American Historical Society, 1922).
1922
Sessions finds the twisted juniper (Juniperus chinensis var. torulosa) at a Japanese nursery in Los Angeles, the new plant is named by Alice Eastwood and becomes one of Sessions’ favorite landscape plants. MacPhail, 89.
1923
Sessions residence listed in City Directory as 1406 Plumosa Way.
Aug. 1923
Sessions’ friend Alice Eastwood, botanist at the California Academy of Science, visited San Diego. She is mentioned in California Garden Sept. 1923.
Dec. 1, 1923
Sessions was a guest of the prominent Bay Area doctor, Annie G. Lyle, at Hillside Avenue in Mill Valley. “The Passing Throng,” Mill Valley Record, December 1 1923, 8.
1924
Kate Session resides on Plumosa Street in Mission Hills from 1924-25.
1924
Sessions purchases seven acres of land later used as the site of her Pacific Beach Nursery (area of today’s Garnet Avenue and Pico Street).
Feb. - Sept. 1925
Tours Europe, visiting botanical gardens and collecting plants. In England, lunches with the famous gardener, writer, and publisher William Robinson, and tours his estate at Gravetye Manor. From Robinson purchases the full 52 volumes of Garden Illustrated (which he founded and edited) for the San Diego Floral Association Library. “Miss Sessions Visits William Robinson.” California Garden 17:5 (Nov. 1925), 3.
Feb. 21, 1925
Sessions departs for Chicago on the first leg of her trip to Europe.
Mar. 3, 1925
Sails from New York on an Italian liner, the S.S. Dante Alighieri, destined for Naples, arriving March 18.
April 1925
Sessions wrote to Alice Rainford: “This Italy is wondrous.”
May 14, 1925
An article in the Boston Globe ascribes the beautiful landscape of San Diego and Balboa Park to Sessions, claiming her as a New Englander (her parents moved to California from Connecticut).
May 15, 1925
Sessions wrote a postcard to Alice Rainford from the Victoria Hotel, Amsterdam.
May 23, 1925
Sessions wrote to Alice Rainford from 42 Holland Park where she was staying in London.
July 31, 1925
Sessions wrote from the Park Hotel in Munich.
Sept. 5, 1925
Sessions arrives in New York on the Pittsburg, sailing from Cherbourg.
“New York Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1822-1957,” Ansestry.com.
Nov. 4, 1925
Date of a letter from Alice Eastwood responding to Sessions’ inquiry about the best month to visit Hawaii and commenting on the new Marloth work on South African plants.
1926
Moves nursery business to Pacific Beach.
Is acknowledged for her preeminent influence on the floral development of Southern California and contributions to Charles Francis Saunders’ Trees and Shrubs of California Gardens (New York: Robert M. McBride, 1926).
c. 1926
Max Matousek hired as foreman of Sessions nursery.
June 1926
With a visit recorded in the records of Volcano House on June 15, Sessions was in Hawaii to collect plants, traveling with Mrs. Ellen Williams, Miss L. S. Brewster, Mrs. J. B. Brewster, and other San Diegans.
1927
Builds herself a new house on Los Altos Drive in Pacific Beach, near Mt. Soledad.
Original address 5090 Los Altos Road; renumbered to 1686 Los Altos.
Mar. 1927
E. H. Wilson of Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum reports to Sessions on the growth of a juniper cutting she sent in an effort to definitively identify a twisted juniper she introduced in San Diego (Juniperus chinensis var. ‘torulosa’).
May 15, 1927
A report on Sessions’ talk at the Santa Anna Flower Show is printed in the Los Angeles Times.
1928
Sessions residence listed in City Directory as 5090 Los Altos Road (Pacific Beach).
1928
Sessions is included in the publication Women of the West . . . Biographical Sketches of Living Eminent Women . . . edited by Max Binhelm (Los Angeles: Publishers Press, 1928).
1928
Sessions is elected a member of the American Forestry Association.
Jan. 1, 1928
Sessions invites friends and neighbors to her new home in Pacific Beach on Los Altos Road.
Jan. 8, 1928
Sessions hosted a Sunday reception and tea at her new home on Mount Soledad. “North Shore Notes,” San Diego Union, Jan. 11, 1928, 14.
Jan. 24, 1928
Sessions is notified of her election as a member of the American Forestry Association.
Apr. 30, 1928
Sessions is scheduled to speak at the next meeting of the La Jolla Floral Association.
Aug. 23, 1928
Sessions is named an honorary member of the San Diego Business and Professional Woman’s Club.
Feb. 24, 1929
Sessions entertained Jessie Gunn (Mrs. J. W.), visiting from Montana and her house guest for a week, at an Aqua Caliente luncheon, including her brother Frank, Mrs. Thomas Kneale and Mrs. L. E. Neen.
Mar. 22, 1929
Sessions is elected a fellow of the San Diego Natural History Society.
Apr. 13, 1930
Sessions spoke to the Shakespeare Club of Pasadena about the ideal setting in east San Diego County for a world-class rock garden.
May 1930
Sessions attends, with Alice Eastwood, a meeting of the American Fuchsia Society in Berkeley.
May 29, 1930
Sessions is the opening day speaker at the Cactus and Succulent Society show in Pasadena. Her exhibits at the show win prizes.
Mar. - Apr. 1931
Sessions is hospitalized and has an operation. California Garden (Apr. 1931) reports that Sessions is convalescing at home “after a severe siege of illness” at Scripps Memorial hospital.
Apr. 15, 1931
Frank Sessions, brother of Kate, dies. “Sessions Rites Set for Today,” San Diego Union, April 18, 1931, 10.
May 1931
California Garden (May 1931) reports “Miss Sessions is improving” from her serious illness.
June 1931
Reporting on the Third Annual Cactus and Succulent Society show, the Los Angeles Times notes the absence of Sessions and describes her disappointment at being required to continue her recovery from illness.
June 7, 1931
Reporting on the Third Annual Cactus and Succulent Society show, the Los Angeles Times notes the absence of Sessions and describes her disappointment at being required to continue her recovery from illness.
Aug. 23, 1931
A new aloe and agave garden in Balboa Park will honor Kate Sessions who is currently in Mercy Hospital recovering from surgery. Nelda Perry, “Unique Garden to be Tribute to Local Leader,” San Diego Union, Aug. 23, 1931, 7.
Oct. 1931
At urging of Sessions, the Balboa Park board votes to set aside land to accommodate “the West coast’s more complete collection of aloes and agaves.” Nelda Perry: “Miss Kate Sessions is Inspiration of Prospective Balboa Park Plant Project.” California Garden 23, no. 4 (Oct. 1931), 15.
Winter 1931
The winter of 1931-32 was wet.
1932
Sessions urges the planting of Pride of Maderia (Echium fastuosum)and ice plant to beautify city and county highways around San Diego. “Highway Beautification.” California Garden 23, no. 7 (Jan. 1932), 6.
Sessions landscaped the new Zlac Rowing Club House and was made an honorary member of the Club.
Apr. 15, 1932
Sessions speaks at Gertrude Evan’s garden party in Mission Hills, a fundraising event for San Diego Floral’s planned tribute to Sessions, an aloe and agave garden in Balboa Park.
July 4, 1932
Sessions is profiled in the San Diego Sun newspaper and pictured in her well-developed home garden on Los Altos Road in Pacific Beach.
Aug 12, 1932
“Sessions Tells History of Trees at Lions meeting,” San Diego Union, 6:1, Aug. 12, 1932.
Oct. 1932
Visits Santa Maria Inn.
Nov. 1932
Sessions elected to honorary membership in the California Garden Club Federation for outstanding contributions to California gardens.
1933
Sessions hosts the San Diego Floral Association for a garden viewing at her home on Los Altos Road.
Named an Honorary Vice President of the Cactus and Succulent Society of America.
Jan. 1933
In a letter to Alice Eastwood, Sessions rejoices at the bountiful rains and reports “my crippled back continues to grumble & pain me & make me feel like an old woman who can’t carry much or pull weeds or use a hoe or ride long in the auto or walk too long.”
Feb. 17, 1933
In a letter to Alice Eastwood, reports that the Superintendent of the Cape Town Botanical Gardens in South Africa has written of success in growing from seed Sessions had supplied, the San Diego native lilac, Ceanothus cyanens.
Spring 1933
Attends Pasadena Flower show and remains for the annual meeting of the Federation of Garden Clubs at Pasadena.
Oct. 1933
Writes to Alice Eastwood, reporting her disappointment at not being healthy enough to travel to the Bay Area and that she lacked travel money besides. “I miss a lot being so far away” [from horticultural meetings and related activities in San Francisco].
Oct. 1933
Writes to Alice Eastwood, reporting her disappointment at not being healthy enough to travel to the Bay Area and that she lacked travel money besides. “I miss a lot being so far away” [from horticultural meetings and related activities in San Francisco].
1934
Sessions chairs the San Diego Floral Association involvement in creating a permanent cactus and succulent garden as part of the 1935 California-Pacific International Exposition. Donations from succulent growers in other states are solicited and sent to Sessions.
Mar. 1934
Writes to Alice Eastwood that “my poor back is very rebellious of action” and that business conditions so terrible that she could not afford to travel, pay taxes, or sell any land. “My age keeps increasing! . . . I wish I were 20 years younger!”
June 1934
New succulent garden completed in Balboa Park. “Succulent Garden Dedicated in Balboa Park,” San Diego Union II 5:3 June 10, 1934.
Oct. 8, 1934
Sessions is the speaker at the Bel-Air Garden Club’s “first meeting of the season” in Los Angeles.
“Gardeners Plan to Open Season,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 7, 1934, C4.
1935
Sessions landscapes the grounds of the old Point Loma lighthouse.
1935
Sessions introduced as “Dean of California Horticulturists” at the California Federation of Garden Clubs meeting in Fresno and spoke on the importance of planting native trees, flowers, and shrubs along the state’s highways. MacPhail, 122.
Mar. 23, 1935
Dedication of the Kate Sessions Aloe and Agave Garden in Balboa Park.
June 1935
Sessions recounts the botanical naming and publication (by Alice Eastwood) of a San Diego native plant, Ceanothus cyaneus. California Garden 26, no. 12 (June 1935), 4.
Sept. 22, 1935
“K. O. Sessions Day” at the California-Pacific International Exposition in Balboa Park, San Diego. She is honored as “The Mother of Balboa Park” and a portrait painted by Mary Bell Williams is unveiled.
Oct. 11, 1935
The El Cajon Valley News reports on a Sessions visit to Moorehaven, home of Major and Mrs. E.W. Moore, to see plantings she had done at the home 15 years earlier.
Nov. 1935
Sessions honored as former teacher and special guest at San Diego High School homecoming, with alumnus Art Linkletter as Master of Ceremonies
1936
Contributes section on “Horticulture” to editor Carl H. Heilbron’s History of San Diego (San Diego: San Diego Press Club, 1936).
1936
Corresponds and exchanges seeds with Robert Harold Compton at the National Botanic Gardens, Kirstenbosch, Newlands, Near Cape Town.
Spring 1936
Golden Gate Park arboretum director Eric Walther, a protégé of park superintendent John McLaren and botanist Alice Eastwood, photographs unusual plants in Sessions’ garden and takes cuttings for the new arboretum in San Francisco.
April 1936
Sessions is the honored guest and speaker at the Arizona Federation of Garden Clubs convention at the Hotel Westward Ho in Phoenix. MacPhail, page 122; “Garden Clubs’ Guest of Honor,” Arizona Republic, April 17, 1936.
April 25, 1936
Sessions travels with 50 members of the San Diego Floral Association to a meeting and picnic at Amy Strong’s home near Ramona taking University of California botanist Katherine Jones as her guest. She writes about the healthy appearance of the plants she selected for Strong’s landscaping in the June 1936 issue of California Garden.
May 1936
Sessions attends cactus and succulent show in Los Angeles.
June 1936
Botanist Katherine Jones of the University of California (Berkeley) horticultural department visits San Diego and Sessions.
June 1936
Dr. Liberty Hyde Bailey of Cornell University visits San Diego and Sessions.
Sept. 1936
Visits San Francisco and is given a private tour around Golden Gate Park by Superintendent McLaren and separately by her friend Belle Hagerty. She sees construction of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge.
1937
Sessions is chosen to head the advisory board of the new Pacific Beach Garden Club.
1937
A rare San Diego frost kills many plants in the Sessions Nursery growing fields.
1937
Propounding the economic potential of commercial flower growing, Sessions states: “San Diego needs to get busy in this interesting trade . . . .” “Geralton [Geraldton] Wax Flower.” California Garden 28: 7-8 (Jan.-Feb. 1937): 4.
April 31, 1937
Sessions addresses the Friday Morning Club in Los Angeles, encouraging the planting of South African heather.
“Octogenarian Founder of San Diego’s Balboa Park Reveals Garden Secrets,” Los Angeles Times, May 1, 1937.
Oct. 1937
Sessions, described as age 80 but having the “enthusiasm and energy” of a younger person, speaks to 150 Whittier Woman’s Club members. “Kate O. Sessions Speaks at Woman’s Club Luncheon,” Whittier Star Review, October 22, 1937.
Sessions is among a selection of California gardeners past the age of 80 who are celebrated in “Sunset Salutes Them,” Sunset 79 (October 1937), 18-19).
Dec. 14, 1937
Sessions addressed 100 attendees at a Kiwanis Ladies Night meeting, speaking on “Yule Foliage,” “Noted Horticulture Expert is Speaker at Kiwanis Meeting," National City Star-News, December 17, 1937, 1.
1938
Corresponds with William Henry Judd, Propagator, Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University, discussing an exchange of plants. Judd assures her that a plant she supplied has survived “four winters” in Massachusetts.
Mar. 1938
Sessions addresses 100 attendees of a Lemon Grove Chamber of Commerce meeting on beautifying their city. San Diego Union, Mar. 11, 1938.
May 1938?
Writes to Alice Eastwood of damage to her nursery by the past savage cold winter. “I am not as well as formerly and it looks as tho I must be planning to quit before long–and the prospect of so doing is not pleasing . . . .”
July 1938
Sessions encourages the placement of native plants along highways and on bare hillsides. California Garden 30:1-2 (July-Aug. 1938): 1.
July 1938
Writes to Alice Eastwood: “How I wish I lived nearer to you . . . [the professional climate in San Francisco is livelier] “than in this corner of Calif.”
August 28, 1938
Sessions interviewed by San Diego Union.
Fall 1938
Teaches eight-week ‘Practical Gardening and Landscape Design” class for the University of California Extension Division. MacPhail, page 122.
Nov. 8, 1938
Sessions addresses the opening meeting of the garden department of the Los Angeles Ebell Society. “Ebell’s Garden Group Planning First Meeting,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 6, 1938, 74.
Nov. 17, 1938
Sessions receives a telegram from the Citizens Advisory Committee for Floriculture of the California Commission for the Golden Gate International Exposition inviting her to “turn first soil” for the exposition’s Floriculture Building.
Nov. 26, 1938
Attends San Francisco luncheon hosted by the former president of the San Francisco Garden Club, along with Alice Eastwood, Mrs. Luther Burbank and others preceding the preceding the groundbreaking for the Floriculture Building on Treasure Island. “Mrs. DuVal Moore Will Give Luncheon,” San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 26, 1938, 7:6.
Participates, with Alice Eastwood, and John McLaren in a ceremony breaking ground for the Floriculture Building on Treasure Island, San Francisco, for the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939-1940.
1938-39
Works with Marie M. Frechette to edit the letters Sessions wrote from Europe for possible publication. [unclear as to whether Franchette initiated this project but it seems she did].
Considerable correspondence on editing and fact checking the records – projects nears an end in late 1939 with Franchette’s plan to submit manuscript to a publisher. The typescript Kate Sessions, Pioneer Gardener and Her Letters Home from Europe is found at the SDHS.
1939
Sessions reinvigorates her public project, “Color Park” intended as a patriotic red, white, and blue garden in Pacific Beach. Incomplete at her death, the park is neglected.
Mar. 23, 1939
Sessions spoke at a meeting of the La Jolla Woman’s Club.
March 31, 1939
Awarded the Frank N. Meyer Memorial Medal by the Council of the American Genetics Association for distinguished service in plant introduction at a Pasadena ceremony.
May 10, 1939
Sessions is photographed with Oakland nursery owner and expert in azaleas and camelias, T. K. Domoto in the Hayward nursery of Domoto’s son.
June 23, 1939
Sessions participates in the first planting in the Mary A. Greer Native Plant Garden in Balboa Park (corner of Pershing and Arizona Street).
July 1939
Upon the San Diego Floral Association’s 30th anniversary, Sessions urges its greater involvement in civic improvements. California Garden 31, no.1 (July 1939), 8.
July 6, 1939
Sessions spoke at the La Jolla Garden Club on new plants.
Sept. 1939
Sessions and Marie M. Frechette have a final editorial meeting before the manuscript of Sessions’ travel letters is submitted to a publisher. Travels to San Francisco and Sacramento at the end of the month.
Oct. 1939
California Garden magazine reports that Sessions is teaching classes in practical gardening for the University of California Extension Division at Florence School, First and University Avenues, San Diego.
Nov. 6, 1939
The San Diego Rose Society makes Sessions an Honorary Life Member and calls her “the state’s leading horticulturist” at a dinner meeting at the Hotel San Diego celebrating her 82nd on Nov. 8. birthday. San Diego Union, Nov. 5, 1939, B12.
Nov. 8, 1939
San Diego Floral Association honors Sessions on her 82nd birthday with a luncheon, followed by a tree planting. At the luncheon she discussed the need to plant more oak trees in San Diego to beautify the region.
The La Jolla Garden Club planted a New Zealand Christmas Tree in honor of Sessions’ birthday in Scripps Park. MacPhail, 128.
Dec. 3, 1939
Sessions suffers a fall while watering her garden. Admitted to La Jolla’s Scripps Memorial Hospital for treatment of a broken hip, she never leaves the hospital.
Jan. 13, 1940
Sessions writes a holographic will, bequeathing her shares of Milton P. Sessions Incorporated to her nephew, Milton, and all other possessions, land and personal property of every kind to her cousin, Alice C. Carroll. Raymond I. Carroll was appointed executor.
Mar. 24, 1940
Sessions dies at age 82 from complications of pneumonia. Milton P. Sessions, a nephew, survives her.
Mar. 28, 1940
Sessions funeral with pallbearers George Marston, Julius Wangenheim, Pfefferkorn, Rhodes, Matt Heller, Hugh Evans. Her body is cremated, and the ashes buried at Mt. Hope Cemetery. All San Diego nurseries closed at 1:00 p.m. on the day of Sessions’ funeral.
Mar. 29, 1940
Petition for probate of Sessions’ will is filed.
Apr. 2, 1940
The San Diego City Council adopts a resolution acknowledging Sessions’ contributions to making San Diego a “beauty spot” of California. San Diego Union, Apr. 3, 1940. City official proposes renaming Lamont Street in Pacific Beach to “Sessions Drive.”
May 1940
Sessions is memorialized as one of the “best friends of Pacific coast gardeners” and someone who changed the whole of San Diego through her horticultural work. Sunset 84, no. 5 (May 1940), 24.
In a resolution, the San Diego Floral Association remembers her as “an intelligent and civic minded citizen.” California Garden 31:10 (May 1940): 2.
A white garden is created at the La Jolla Flower Show to honor the recently deceased Sessions. M’Garvey, Julia T. “La Jolla Flower Show Honors Work of Kate Sessions.” San Diego Union, May 5, 1940, 20A.
Marie M. Franchette contacts Sessions’ cousin, Alice Carroll, thinking she is the executor of the estate (probably in regard to the Sessions travel letters she spent so much time editing).
February 8, 1941
An incense cedar tree is planted, and a memorial plaque dedicated in Balboa Park to the memory of Sessions by the San Diego Floral Association. California Garden 31, no. 7-8 (Feb.-Mar. 1941), 2-3, 9.
1949
Artist Anni Baldaugh’s memorial portrait of Sessions is presented to the San Diego Floral Association. California Garden 40, no. 2 (Summer 1949), 6.
Nov. 8, 1953
On the anniversary of her birth, a privately sponsored carillon concert under the auspices of the San Diego Floral Association was held “In Memory of Miss Kate O. Sessions 1857-1940” in Balboa Park.
Autumn 1953
“The Kate Sessions Issue,” with nine articles about her and several reprints of her writing is published by California Garden 44:3 (Autumn 1953).
Jan. 3, 1956
Kate O. Sessions Elementary School opens in Pacific Beach and is formally dedicated on May 10, 1956. Plants introduced and promoted by Sessions were incorporated into the school yard landscape.
Nov. 8, 1957
On the anniversary of her birth, Kate O. Sessions Memorial Park is dedicated near Lamont and Soledad Roads in Pacific Beach.
Nov. 8, 1959
A tea by women’s organizations in Pacific Beach commemorates the anniversary of Sessions’ birth. San Diego Union, Nov. 9, 1959.
1961
Scott O’Dell includes descriptions of Sessions’ contributions to the development of Balboa Park in his book on Southern California: Country of the Sun (New York: Crowell, 1957).
Victoria Padilla publishes Southern California Gardens: An Illustrated History (Univ. Of California Press) and names Sessions among the prominent horticulturists who contributed to the botanical development of Southern California.
July 7, 1961
California State Historical Landmark No. 764 is dedicated at Pico and Balboa Streets in Pacific Beach, San Diego, to commemorate the site of Kate Sessions’ last nursery. It is placed near a large Tipuana tipu tree planted by Sessions at her sales office.
Nov. 1964
107th anniversary of Sessions’ birth is celebrated by San Diego City Beautiful and various groups in Pacific Beach. California Garden 55:5 (Oct.- Nov. 1964: 15.
Nov. 7, 1965
Scholarships are awarded during the annual Pacific Beach Woman’s Club tea honoring Kate O. Sessions.
1966
Sessions is lauded for her many accomplishments and for early discouragement of planting of thirsty grass lawns in the San Diego landscape. Carol Olten, “Kate Sessions . . . .” San Diego Union, Apr. 24, 1966.
Nov. 8, 1966
Kate Sessions Day in San Diego marks the 109th anniversary of her birth.
Nov. 8, 1968
A mayoral proclamation remembers Sessions’ contributions to Balboa Park on the 111th anniversary of her birth. San Diego Union, Nov. 9, 1968. The Union editorialized on the leadership and vision of Sessions.
1969
Sessions is credited for her early recognition of the value of native plants by H. M. Butterflield in “Horticulture in the San Diego Area.” California Horticulture Journal 30 (Apr. 1969): 62-63.
Nov. 8-14, 1970
San Diego mayor Frank Curran proclaims “Kate Olivia Sessions Week.”
1971
Sessions is profiled by Professor Mildred Mathias, UCLA botanist, in Notable American Women, 1607-1950 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971).
1976
San Diego Historical Society publishes a biography, Kate Sessions: Pioneer Horticulturist by Elizabeth C. MacPhail.
Apr. 2, 1981
A County of San Diego proclamation honors the contributions of Sessions in beautifying the region.
1982
A commemorative tribute on the 125th anniversary of her birth identifies Sessions as the single most influential person in the beautification of San Diego. San Diego Home and Garden 4:3 (Nov. 1982): 28-29.
1985
The 100th anniversary of Sessions’ entering the nursery business is marked with an article in the San Diego Union by Patrea Post (June 2, 1985, p. F-50).
Mar. 1991
Pasquale Antonicelli, nursery foreman for Sessions from 1913 through 1936, dies at age 79.
1994
San Diego links the Hillcrest and University Heights neighborhoods with the Vermont Street Bridge, a pedestrian way decorated with quotations, including this from Kate Sessions: “I am thankful that I wear sensible shoes and can walk with comfort all day long.”
1996
The “Kate O. Sessions Memorial Trophy” is to be awarded annually to the sweepstakes winner at the floriculture division of the District Agriculture Association.
1995
A garden designed by Sessions for the A. H. Sweet home is one of three designs analyzed in a graduate thesis. It is found to be historically significant and worthy of restoration. Bulkley, William. Cal-Andaluz: New California Landscapes Rooted in Andalusia, Thesis (M.A. Fine Arts). San Diego State University, 1995. [Kate Sessions provided a simple plan for trees in a walled garden. The rest of the Sweet garden design was designed by Paul G. Thiene.]
1996
San Diego Floral Association replaces a Kate Sessions memorial stone and plaque near the Hall of Nations in Balboa Park (the 1941 original had been stolen or misplaced).
Nov. 1966
November 8 is proclaimed Kate O. Sessions Day in honor of the 109th anniversary of her birth; a ceremony is held at Kate Sessions Memorial Park.
1997
A generous profile of Sessions is published in Notable Women in the Life Sciences: A Biographical Dictionary, edited by Benjamin F. And Barbara S. Shearer (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997).
1998
Kate Sessions is the subject of a graduate thesis: Michele Lee Martinez, Kate Olivia Sessions: Plant Scientist. Thesis (M.A. History). University of San Diego, 1998.
1998
A statue of Kate Sessions is unveiled in Balboa Park.
San Diego Historical Society mounts a major exhibit on Kate Sessions.
Hundreds of Sessions’ articles are reprinted in The Complete Writings of Kate Sessions in California Garden, 1909-1939, ed., Barbara Schillreff Jones [San Diego, CA]: San Diego Floral Association, 1998.
1998
An in-depth article in San Diego’s Weekly Reader (Apr. 13, 1998) by Phyllis Orrick generates controversy by raising questions about the never-married Sessions’ sexual orientation and the nature of some of her long-term friendships with women.
1999
Sessions is lauded for almost singlehandedly transforming the landscape of San Diego and acknowledged for natural plantings and advocacy of low-water landscaping in Paul Duchscherer’s Outside the Bungalow: America’s Arts & Crafts Garden (New York: Penguin Studio, 1999).
2017
The San Diego Linares Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution named Sessions as a “Notable Woman in American History.” A framed commemorative medal and certificate of the honor were presented to the San Diego Floral Association.
2020
San Diego Floral Association publishes a new edition of in The Complete Writings of Kate Sessions in California Garden, a collection of her writings from 1909 to her death in 1940.
Nov. 13, 2021
San Diego Floral Association and Save Our Heritage Organisation celebrate Sessions’ birthday and the publication of the new edition of her writings at Marston House and Gardens, Balboa Park.
2021
San Diego Parks and Recreation Board renames Balboa Park’s Cactus Garden as the “Kate O. Sessions Cactus Garden,” in recognition of her central role in advocating for and creating the 1935 garden. An interpretive sign using the new name marks the garden.
2025
San Diego Parks and Recreation Board recognizes the 1914 “Sessions-Brandegee Hesper Palm Grove” as an official, named garden of Balboa Park. It is to be added to park maps and lists and will be marked with an interpretive sign.