Sometimes, if you’re lucky and prepared, serendipity comes calling in a career. For San Diego horticulturist and landscape designer Nan Sterman, serendipity arrived in 2022 when she was asked to create a plant list for the first phase of the soon-to-be transformed Botanical Building in Balboa Park. Unlike projects for her residential clients, where a plant list is a part of a full design and installation, this plant list was the sum of the assignment. Until it wasn’t.

You can read about how Sterman became the project’s designer—truly the project of a career—and how she approached the project in my story in the new edition of Pacific Horticulture. It’s an amazing tale. And you can see photos of the transition into a magnificent Botanical Garden for our times.