New Year 2025 has arrived and spring is coming soon! What’s your New Year’s Resolution? One of many great ideas on my mind is to learn more about native ecosystems and take action by planting native plants in my garden this spring. This was inspired by a walk with friends at the end of summer in 2024. We visited two adjacent parks on the same day: Guadalupe Oak Grove Park and Jeffrey Fontana Park. The Guadalupe Oak Grove Park is home to many native oak species. It is one of the last remaining large tracts of deciduous oak savanna and oak woodland in Santa Clara Valley. Jeffrey Fontana Park has a native plant garden with five islands. We learned so much about native plants and ecosystems after exploring these two parks.
Also, there is a very interesting upcoming event hosted by Friends of Guadalupe Oak Grove Park on January 25th, 2025. This event would be a great opportunity to learn the importance and spread the awareness of preserving native plants and ecosystems and sustaining wildlife including butterflies and bees. (RSVP link)
“We’ll be planting milkweed, the host plant used by monarch butterfly caterpillars, and other young shrubs and wildflowers that will provide the nectar rich habitat that adult butterflies and native bees depend on. The beautiful Guadalupe Oak Grove park has preserved some of the last valley floor oak woodlands in the Santa Clara Valley and the meadow restoration will enhance its beauty and value to wildlife.“
Location & Access Info
Both parks are located in a residential neighborhood in Almaden Valley of San Jose. Parking areas and restrooms are available at Guadalupe Oak Grove Park with 62.7 acres of land, but not at Jeffrey Fontana Park with only 10 acres. We found street parking easily around the park official address: 5982 Thorntree Drive, San Jose, CA 95002. Also, both parks allow dogs on leash on all trails. Jeffrey Fontana Park even offers two dog parks, one for small dogs and the other for large dogs. The dog parks allow two dogs per person. Note that the park is open from 8am to sunset, and bicycles and motorcycles are not allowed inside the park. Please read all the rules posted on the fence before entering the park.
What to do at Guadalupe Oak Grove Park?
We walked on trails, enjoyed the views, and explored the trees. (Photo Credits: Glenda Chang)
In addition to walking, two wonderful activities are highly recommended at this park.
Birding
The Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance (SCVBA) posted a very detailed blog on how to navigate the trails to see birds, plants and trees along the way.
“The wide, crushed-granite, flat Meadow Loop Trail meanders through the Valley, Blue and Coast Live Oak habitat. More challenging trails traverse the hills of Blue Oak, California Buckeye, and Sagebrush Scrub.”
The Open Space Authority organizes “Drop In Birding” events at this park. Their next guided birding event has been posted for Jan 5th, 2025.
Learning about Oaks
Under a large oak tree, we noticed a learning circle named after “Pat” or Patrick Pizzo, a San Jose community leader in education and conservation, who personally planted more than 100 Blue Oak trees along Guadalupe Creek and supported many preservation projects in the valley. It’s so fascinating to know that oak trees are the kings of biodiversity. They can live up to hundreds and thousands of years, grow to a height of 40 to 80 feet with a spread of 60 to 100 feet, and provide food and shelter for many wildlife. Sadly, one third of the world’s oak species are threatened with extinction. To engage the community to discover and protect oak trees, California Native Plant Society (CNPS) has created the California OakWatch Project, a community driven science project that collects data and follows up with protection plans. You can also use this guide to identify California’s native oak species.
What to do at Jeffrey Fontana Park?
The park is named after San Jose Police Officer Jeffrey Fontana, who died while serving the people of San Jose on patrol duty in Almaden Valley on Oct 28, 2001. “Officer Fontana was the eleventh San Jose Police Officer killed in the line of duty.” Highly recommend you to visit this memorial statue, read about this tragedy, and honor all the sacrifices of police officers.
Another recommended activity is to visit California Native Plant Islands. CNPS shared a wonderful blog about this garden project, which was one of many projects led by “Pat” Patrick Pizzo. If you encounter site access issues at CNPS, please read a different blog written by Pat’s friend here or you can learn all the plantings from Pat in this video.
You may start to wonder why it matters to have native plants instead of any plants in the garden? The National Audubon Society answers this question very well here.
“Native plants are those that occur naturally in a region in which they evolved. They are the ecological basis upon which life depends, including birds and people. Without them and the insects that co-evolved with them, local birds cannot survive. For example, research by the entomologist Doug Tallamy has shown that native oak trees support over 500 species of caterpillars whereas ginkgos, a commonly planted landscape tree from Asia, host only 5 species of caterpillars. When it takes over 6,000 caterpillars to raise one brood of chickadees, that is a significant difference.”
What’s more, they also built a native plant database by zip codes. What a convenient way to look up native plants for gardening! Great to see 18 options for Cupertino 95014.
Let Us Know
Thank you for reading this long blog about two parks! Hope you will find time to visit both Guadalupe Oak Grove and Jeffrey Fontana Parks, and learn about native plants and oak species. The next step is to join the efforts to protect the native ecosystems. Looking forward to hearing more stories of preservation and conservation. Let’s make the positive changes together for our community and the world. Email info@walkbikecupertino.org with your impact stories.