The idea sprouted during a spring 2024 City Council meeting, at which Mary Kelley of the Healdsburg Garden Club suggested the city select its own plant—a city flower, shrub or tree. It took root in the Fiscal Year 2024-25 Goals the city adopted a couple of months later as an agreed-upon goal for the fiscal year, which ends this month.
Just in time, then, the City Council heard from the Healdsburg Garden Club about its recommended plants for council consideration. Theresa Wistrom and Wendy Smit presented arguments for six choices, not recommendations per se, but some options that met an agreed-upon list of qualifications: It would be recognized for its beauty and native value; its historical, economic or environmental significance; and/ or its status as potentially threatened or endangered.
In the Club’s May 19 presentation to the City Council, Wistrom said that “choosing a favorite plant is like choosing a favorite child. They’re all good; they have their good sides and their not-so-good sides.”
Now the idea is flowering into a public survey of which of six plants—four flowers, a tree and the wild grape itself—would best represent the City of Healdsburg in an arboretum of jurisdictional flora…