The landscape of La Jolla’s Coast Walk Trail has changed a lot in recent years, with volunteers adding and removing vegetation in select areas.
For example, invasive arundo grass that once filled the area next to the trail’s bridge has been removed, as have weeds that were taken out during the Friends of Coast Walk Trail spring weed-pulling party, most recently in April. In their place, native plants and trees have been added.
But some locals are concerned that the vegetation being planted — despite being native — is disrupting the naturally occurring ecosystems that can develop when plants propagate and grow there seasonally.
James Hudnall, a part-time La Jolla resident who has been visiting Coast Walk Trail for decades, said the initiative to put native plants on the bluffs that surround the trail “turns the trail into a garden instead of being undisturbed and wild in nature.”
He opined that the chosen plants are “ugly” and less colorful than the plants he has seen in the past.
“My impression has always been until recently that [Coast Walk Trail] is a wilderness area in urban La Jolla. That’s why people enjoyed walking it — they could see the vegetation on the bluffs and whatever happened to be in season,” Hudnall said. “It’s urban nature to think about native plants without thinking about ecosystems that form when plants can come and go on their own.
“Ecosystem and habitat should take precedence over remodeling. When you leave it be, there are wildflowers of all kinds and species that use those habitats.”
He added concerns about “unintended consequences,” such as erosion.
“I can’t imagine what the definition of a native plant is in our changing environment,” Hudnall said. “What grew in the 1920s might not do well in today’s climate. I would like to see [Friends of Coast Walk Trail] … stop disturbing the soil [and] let the vegetation grow and die with the seasons.”
-But Friends of Coast Walk Trail President Brenda Fake said the choices of plant removal and addition are in the best interest of the trail as a whole.
Some 1,500 native plants have been put in and managed since the group started maintaining the trail in 2010.
“The soil is extremely rich and has been looked at by an expert gardener,” Fake said. “The stuff we have taken out is invasive, hazardous to humans or animals, flammable or harmful to the native plants.”
Not all invasive plants are removed, depending on the maturity of the plant or whether removing it would negatively affect the soil or surrounding plants, she said. In those cases, some of the vegetation is cut back.
Jason Allen, president of Black Sage Environmental, a San Diego-based natural-resources consulting company, said “The reason we use native vegetation is because that is the vegetation that should be there in the coastal zone.”
He added that the city of San Diego requires any new plantings to be native.
“A lot of species that are invasive and/or annual plants will flower and go to seed, then dry and become a hazard and don’t serve a greater purpose,” Allen said. “They don’t have strong roots like the native plants. Native plants are drought-tolerant and designed to survive without watering and provide habitat for the native wildlife birds, lizards, [insects] and small mammals that should be there, that use those plants to forage off of and pollinate.”
Hudnall, however, said “I wish they would just leave it alone. … In doing so, they would be considering the enjoyment of visitors and locals, because it is a wilderness.” ♦
Originally Published: May 9, 2025 at 7:07 PM PDT
