2023 John Hammerschmidt

Our Founder’s Award for 2023 fittingly goes to an individual with very deep gardening roots. Those deep roots started growing when still a teenager with mowing lawns, taking care of a mother’s HUGE hybrid tea rose garden, doing landscaping jobs and installing and repairing home irrigation in California’s Fruit Basket.

John Hammerschmidt was born in Fresno and growing up on the family’s 20-acre peach farm, the San Francisco Farmer’s Market was a round trip undertaken weekly to sell old-world Italian grape varieties to the winemakers and peaches and persimmons to the public. Many of the peach trees were replaced with persimmons as peaches became a crop dominated by large farm corporations and persimmons emerged as a popular Asian boutique crop and proved to be more profitable.

The oldest of six children, John majored in Horticulture and Landscaping at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Upon graduation, a job path opened in irrigation equipment sales to wineries. One of the deliveries of irrigation equipment was to an address on Lucas Valley Road. After a long conversation with the owner about irrigation, John viewed the owner’s Star Wars collection. The owner was none other than George Lucas, director of the Star Wars movies!

In the 1980’s John built an independent landscaping business. In the 1990’s, following in the footsteps of two Grandfathers and father who were builders as well as farmers, he earned a General Contractor’s license moving into traditional construction during the drought and recession. John is currently the CEO of Hammerschmidt Construction, a design-build residential remodeling company founded more than 25 years ago.

While still primarily a landscaper, John was introduced to WHS by a past member and colleague, landscape architect, Don Brandeau, (“he was like a salesman for WHS, he can be obsessed”) joining in 1988. He is also a member of CNPS, California Rare Fruit Growers, National Organization of the Remodeling Industry (NARI), the Los Altos Rotary and is rebuilding a 1956 Ford F100 truck he had in college. Sunday mornings may find him teaching Sunday School kids about plants and at other times teaching a 4 year old grandson about gardening.

Today, this married father of two and grandfather of one grows fruit trees and vegetables in a large organic garden, starting many plants in his greenhouse. He is always seeking the Holy Grail of a better, tastier and more productive tomato! He is known to have grafted up to 20 varieties of fruit onto one tree because “you can’t eat that many fruits of a single variety, this way you can try a lot of varieties!” At one time, John had 151 mostly David Austin and heirloom rose varieties. His garden is also filled with CA native plants, succulents and perennials. His wife Lynn, sons Alex and “V” benefit from his love of cooking and gardening!

After joining WHS in 1988, John has contributed in many ways including as Vice President, 1998-1999, announcing at monthly meetings and memorably as “the booming voice” announcing raffle numbers. He regularly shares plants, books and fruit tree cuttings, is our audio-visual tech guy (even though he says he is not tech savvy) including storing WHS AV equipment in his garage, he has schlepped materials for our SFFGS garden vignettes and volunteered at WHS Hot Plant Picks display at the show. He is ever helpful and supportive of WHS and always with a smile!

A previous WHS president, Janice Gillmore had this to say, “John Hammerschmidt: Not actually on the Board but our beloved Perennial Favorite. He is the mainstay of monthly meetings both in setting up for the evening and taking care of Raffle Tickets. Remember his trek with Scott Medbury to buy a Power Pointer an hour before his lecture? And still in good spirits! Amazing Person.”

The Western Horticultural Society established the Founders’ Award to honor those who have contributed time, talents and devotion to the high standards Western Horticultural Society wishes to promote. We wish to express our profound gratitude for your continuing contributions over the past 30 plus years.

It is with great pleasure that I present the 2023 Western Horticultural Society’s Founders’ Award to John Hammerschmidt.

— Judy Wong, Dec. 2023