Lot size: 800 sq. ft. front, 75 sq. ft side, and 2,000 sq. ft. back garden, 80% native
Garden Age: Garden was installed in 2017
Years on the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour: 3
Showcase Feature
This delightful garden, designed and installed by Dave and Jennifer, is a riot of color in spring and summer, with nearly a hundred different types of natives blooming in a bountiful succession. The profuse blossoms of more than forty monkeyflower plants in this garden delights winged and two-legged visitors alike.
This horticultural haven, with its exuberant blend of textures, shapes, varieties, and colors. includes ten varieties of buckwheat, and seven types of sage (Pozo blue, California, pitcher, black, white, Sonoma, and hummingbird), which mingle with five types of buckwheats (Santa Cruz, Conejo, St. Catherine’s lace, naked, rosy), and they rub shoulders with a plethora of berry-bearing shrubs (pink flowering and golden currants, Nevin’s barberry, coffee berry, ninebark, toyon, thimbleberry, twinberry, and spice bush).
Drop down into one of the beautiful teak chairs in the back garden and enjoy this peaceful oasis; you won’t want to leave!
Other Garden Attractions
• The charming, rustic, picket fence adds to the ambience.
• Fragrant yerba buena and sages line the paths.
• Dense plants help out-compete weeds; those that get through are pulled by hand; no herbicides are used in this—or any—Tour garden.
• Honeybees are comfy in their back yard bee hives.
• Fruit lover alert! this garden contains a kumquat, plum, pluot, Asian pear, persimmon, fig, numerous apple trees and nine blueberry bushes.
• Dave is an avid propagator—check out what he’s got in his compact, working nursery.
• Enjoy the charming plant labels, with their tips for growing natives.
Gardening for Wildlife
Butterflies, bees and hummingbirds adore the variety of pollen and nectar-bearing natives; people are attracted to the diversity of beautiful flowers. Yampah, the native host plant for the anise swallowtail butterfly, and our evergreen and hardy coyote brush, which is a great habitat plant, have been included in the garden to attract our small winged friends.
Keystone species in this garden! (watch this talk by Doug Tallamy!)
Keystone species—our own, local ecological powerhouse plants— in this garden include oak, currants, California lilac, lupines, sages, gooseberry, thimbleberry, snowberry, coyote brush, buckwheats, fuchsia, cream bush, coyote brush, and penstemon.
Green Home Features
Dave and Jennifer have solar panels and a Tesla Powerwall battery; they are delighted to be generating energy from their roof, and to have a lower PG&E bill. (They are also happy to be freed of having to contend with power outages.) They have purchased an electric car, and are no longer paying for gas, as their car is powered by the sun.
At least partially wheelchair accessible? No
