Construction - St. Clare Garden - Santa Clara University

The garden was constructed in July, 2003, from construction plans drawn up by Susan Landry, at Sugimura & Associates Architects, Campbell, California. The planting design was by Nancy Lucid. Installation was done by Andre Vargas, California Green Landscaping & Maintenance, San Jose, California.

The garden, measuring approximately 70 feet by 70 feet, is in the heart of the campus next to DeSaisset Museum. It was designed to tell the life and spirituality of St. Clare of Assisi (died 1253), the patron saint and namesake of the university. It is open to the public with no admission charge.

This garden replaced about 5184 square feet of water-thirsty high maintenance lawn with a mixture of well-mulched drought-tolerant Mediterranean plants and a much smaller area of lawn (694 sq. ft), an 87% reduction in turf. Two unattractive trees were also removed (an ailing, heavily-pruned Gingko and a shrub cypress).

The surrounding mature trees (Redwood, California Bay, California Live Oak) were protected during construction. All trenching was done by hand because of the possibility of unearthing archaeological and human remains of Ohlone Indians and early settlers (this part of campus was once a cemetery near the Mission Church).

This web site was written and designed by Nancy Lucid whose research was supported by a generous grant from the Bannan Institute for Jesuit Educational Mission at Santa Clara University.