Other Garden Attractions
• Bring your children! Children can create their own native plant guide.
• The transformed garden has been a real water savings for the park. The water-consuming lawn is gone, and the natives are watered only occasionally in the summer.
• Designer Greg Wolford of Californica Landscaping will be on hand to answer questions from 3:30 – 5:00.
• Restrooms are available!

Gardening for Wildlife
Where natives bloom, wildlife follows! Native bees, butterflies, and ladybugs are at home here. Berry-bearing trees and shrubs, such as toyon, elderberry, and manzanita, attract birds.

Garden Talk: 12:00 and 2 :00 “Tour the garden: Easy-to-grow natives that will do well in your garden” by Ranger Tad Shay. 3:30 “Tour the garden, learn about the process of designing it and it’s (short!) history” by Greg Wolford

Showcase feature:

This small, charming garden, designed and installed by Debbie, is a riot of color in the spring.  Milkweed, clarkias, buckwheat and yarrow reseed and move about the garden at will, creating changes the gardener hadn’t expected.  This pleases Debbie, who “didn’t want a lawn, and did want plants that would grow with little attention paid to them.” A lush California grape climbs gracefully up the porch rail and across the front of the house.

Other garden attractions:

• Wondering what to do with your parking strip?  Take a gander at this gorgeous one.
• Removed lawn, built up a small berm, and planted with 100% natives.
• Great “before“ photos.
• Sacrificial milkweed plants are left for the aphids (which bring in birds).
• Check out the fragrant sage in this garden.

Gardening for Wildlife:

Deborah reports an invasion of butterflies—buckeye, monarch, skipper, West coast and painted lady; they are attracted to the abundance of flowers in her vibrantly flower-filled front garden. Hummingbirds love the many fuschias, penstamens, and monkeyflowers.  In the morning, flocks of sparrows chatter in in the sages. Leaf cutter bees visit the parking strip to gnosh on the redbud leaves. Doves began to visit the garden once the lawn was removed, and they nested in an orange tree in the back garden.  Deborah saw their fledgling resting on the recycling bin after its first flight.

Other garden attractions
• Plants receive no summer water.
• The original garden—lawn, juniper and ivy—was demolished. Check out the “before“ photos.
• A dandy binder of information on the native plants in the garden has been compiled by Anne; ask her if you are interested in seeing this.
• The mulch, which keeps weeds under control, is bark made from recycled pallets.

Gardening for Wildlife:
Native nectar, pollen, fruit, nut and seed producing plants, such as monkeyflower, coyote mint, manzanita, California fuchsia, wooly blue curls, sage, and buckwheat provide food, shelter, and nesting areas for wildlife. Quail stroll through the garden with their chicks. Butterflies and bumblebees adore the coyote mint, sage, and wooly blue curls. Hummingbirds are attracted to the sage, monkeyflower, fuchsia, and Keckelia. Songbirds and spiders are among the other happy residents in this garden.

Other garden attractions:
• The garden contains more than 20 kinds of fruit.
• Broom, blackberry, and poison oak once covered much of this property, which was cleared of invasive exotics without the use of pesticides.
• Stop by the Consultants Corner, check out the suite of garden chemicals on display, and ask what products you can use instead that will help protect children’s health and wildlife.

Gardening for Wildlife:
Bush tits, finches, chicadees, hummingbirds and flocks of cedar waxwings find food and shelter in this garden. Naturally-occurring patches of Dutchman’s pipevine provide food for the larval form of the pipevine swallowtail butterfly. Pacific chorus frogs came into the garden on their own when the waterfall and pond were installed. Habitat is provided by thickets, local native plants, and a diversity of plant type and height. Parts of the garden are left unkempt in order to provide wildlife with shelter and nesting areas.

Garden Talk: 11:00 and 2:00 “Honeybees in the garden: see how honey is extraction from the hives, and enjoy a sample!” by Tom and Shirley Butt

Created and planted by Idell to provide food for people, and food, shelter and nesting areas for insects and wildlife, this garden  has succeeded admirably on all counts. Near the house is an astonishing variety of fruits and other edibles.  A large selection of native plants is found near the oak woodland at the bottom of the property.  Idell has had to overcome a steep slope, very shallow soil, a lot of wind, and a plague of gophers.

Other garden attractions:

• Idell creates experimental ‘lizard homes’ of various sizes and shapes to test which makes the best habitat.
• Go to the www.BringingBackTheNatives.net to check out the fabulous reference lists of mammals, birds, butterflies, reptiles, amphibians and mushrooms in this garden.

Gardening for Wildlife:

Trays of water attract birds, as do brush piles, bird houses, fruit, nuts, berries and insects, which provide shelter and food for more than fifty species of birds. A succession of flowering plants attracts hummingbirds, bees, and twenty-five species of butterflies. The beautiful pipevine swallowtail butterfly is a common sight, both fluttering through the garden and caterpillaring about in a large patch of Dutchman’s pipevine.  Seasonal frog ponds are home to Pacific chorus frogs. Nine species of amphibians and reptiles have been seen in the garden.

Garden Talk: 11:00 and 2:00 “How to attract birds, butterflies, reptiles, and amphibians to your garden”, and 4:15 “How to grow organic fruit and flowers for birds, butterflies, and people” by Idell Weydemeyer

A high diversity of local native plants, mixed with natives from throughout California, can be found in this large, sunny garden.  Jeff, interested in what the landscape was like prior to the arrival of Europeans, wanted a native garden that would provide habitat for wildlife.  The garden was designed by Glen Schneider and installed by Glen and Jeff.

Other Garden Attractions

• The front and back gardens consisted of lawn, ivy, and juniper prior to the conversion.
• Only new plants receive supplemental water in the spring and summer; the rest of the garden (except for plants near the pond) receives no water.
• Jeff and Kim own The Pedaler, in El Sobrante—don’t miss the native plant garden at the store!

Gardening for Wildlife

The local native plants provide a haven for wildlife, as do the pond and birdbath, and rocks that provide shelter for the smaller creatures.  Pacific chorus frogs, fence and alligator lizards, salamanders, ring-neck, gopher and king snakes, bats, kestrels, and foxes are occasionally seen in or around the garden. More commonly seen are a plethora of bees and butterflies, finches, and hummingbirds.

Garden Talk 12:00 “Native Gardening—fun for the whole family” by Jeff Jerge

Other Garden Attractions

• An original bathroom sink (from 1926) is now a burbling fountain and bird bath; a set of glass doors rescued from the dump add a vibrant dash of color and whimsy; interesting twisted juniper remnants are placed about the garden.
• The open design of the entryway provides privacy, while keeping an airy feel.
• Kate harvests elderberries and rose hips and makes jam, jelly, elderberry tincture, and elderberry liqueur.
• Bring your questions for designer Greg Wolford, who will be at this garden from 10:00 – 2:30.

Gardening for Wildlife
A variety of berries—twin, coffee, elder, snow, and goose—and colorful flowering plants attract winged visitors of all kinds. The backyard fountain has become a popular bathing site for both local and migrating birds.

Seeking beauty and privacy, John transformed this corner lot.  The crabgrass lawn that covered most of the garden was dug out by hand; with 95% of the lawn gone, only one small, remnant patch of grass remains.  In place of the lawn John designed and installed a series of artful, interesting, and inviting spaces for people and wildlife alike.  Plan to linger; you won’t want to hurry away from the serenity of this garden with its variety of welcoming seating areas. While he began planting with Mediterranean species, now John chooses only natives. Ice plant in the parking strip was removed in the last year and replaced with native bunchgrasses and other low-water native species.

Other Garden Attractions:

• Weeds are pulled by hand.
• Raised beds provide drainage for the natives, while water drains naturally through the Sierra Gold fines and Golden Pathways gravel paths.
• The neighbor’s redwood fence was recycled and now surrounds the small vegetable garden.  Check out the espaliered Fuji apples!

Gardening for Wildlife: Hummingbirds, bushtits, song sparrows, Wilson’s warblers, downy woodpeckers, and hooded orioles love both the garden and the water-filled terra cotta saucers John thoughtfully puts out for them. Lizards, snakes and bees are also comfy here.  Last year a swarm of honeybees called the garden home for a short while, nestling in the white sage before settling elsewhere.

John Conry’s Plant List

Other garden attractions:
• A diversity of native plants stabilize these slopes.
• A plethora of Douglas iris bloom in the spring.
• Look for the oaks and toyon growing from the cracks in the boulders.
• Seven foot long lying Buddha rests among plants from the oak woodland plant community. All of the plants in this area of the garden come from the local gene pool; Kensington, Pt. Molate, Oakland, and Berkeley.
• Splendid view of Mount Tamalpais from the upper deck.

Gardening for Wildlife:
Shade-loving native shrubs attract wildlife. Birds seen in the garden include chickadees, titmice, bushtits, juncos, brown towhees, Allen’s hummingbirds, downy woodpeckers, stellar and scrub jays, mourning doves, nuthatches, and Townsend or other western warblers. After rains, flocks of cedar waxwings stop by to visit. Deer, raccoon, skunk. opossum and salamanders also call this garden home.

Other Garden Attractions
• Plants were chosen for their tolerance of local clay soil.
• Prostrate manzanita functions as a ground-cover, providing flowers in spring, berries in fall, and greenery throughout the year.
• Buckeyes, toyon, and redbuds will soften the fence line, and valley oaks will shade the house and conserve energy, when mature.
• Mulch out-competes weeds, and conserves water.
•Valley oaks will shade the house and conserve energy when mature.

Gardening for Wildlife
Leafcutter bees take moon-shaped bites out of the redbud leaves; bumblee-bees and honeybees also frequent the garden. Quail dart about the garden. In summer and early fall the native fuchsia attracts hummingbirds.

Garden Talk

Meet the designer, Michael Thilgen of Four Dimensions Landscape, from 2:30-5:00.

Talk at 3:00. “The New Garden: Transforming a 50’s Style Front Yard Into an Exciting Water Conserving Landscape.” There are many alternatives to the traditional juniper and front lawn plantings. Michael will discuss how to select native plants for ecological health and curbside appeal.

Plant list

Russ Plant list