Lot size: 1070 sq. ft. front and 1840 sq. ft. back garden, 95% native
Garden Age: Garden was installed in 2024
Years on the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour: New this year!
Showcase Feature
After reading “Nature’s Best Hope” by best-selling author Doug Tallamy, Jenny and Craig knew their lawn had to go. They got off to a false start when they initially chose someone who drew them a garden design consisting mostly of ornamentals from the Mediterranean, Australia, and South Africa. Later, realizing that these plants have little-to-no ecological value to our birds, butterflies and bees here in California, they went looking for help from designers who specialized in creating gardens for wildlife, using California native plants.
In 2024, a design created by Sallie Bryan of 4B Garden Design turned both front and back gardens into beautiful and inviting spaces. With meandering paths around low mounds, the gardens are anchored by numerous keystone plants, along with other natives. Craig and Jenny also filled in gaps with several non-natives.
Delighted with the overall garden design, Jenny and Craig nevertheless wanted to make some changes after the first year, having seen which plants flourished and which did not. Their goals were to increase the overall percentage of native plants, transplant or replace plants that had failed to thrive, and remove a few natives that had proved more invasive than expected (Hooker’s evening primrose, aster, and golden top).
So, in January 2025, they embarked on the project of updating both the front and back yards. On the advice of Kelly Marshall of Kelly Marshall Garden Design, they planted more California lilacs, manzanitas, buckwheat, and penstemons. Pete Veilleux and Henry Peters of East Bay Wilds suggested adding El Dorado bush sunflowers, golden lupines, cobweb thistles, and Plumas purple asters to the mix. Most of these newbies are still quite small.
In addition, existing clumps of clarkia and baby blue eyes were broken up and transplanted to other parts of the garden. Initial plantings of California poppies have re-seeded and are now growing… pretty much everywhere! Cliff maids were replanted in clusters, which now provide larger bright spots of pink, orange, and white throughout the yard.
This colorful garden invites both people and wildlife to stop in and linger. The path through the front garden is bordered by a cheerful array of pink clarkia, red rosy buckwheat, cream-colored yarrow, and the sweetly-scented magenta hummingbird sage; plantings of purple seaside daisies border the sidewalk. Year-round greenery is provided by ‘Louis Edmunds’ manzanita, ‘Ray Hartman’ and ‘Anchor Bay’ California lilac, ‘Dara’s Choice’ and ‘Cleveland’ sages, hollyleaf cherry, and California sagebrush.
In the back garden, mallow, toyon, and coffeeberry function as year-round privacy screens, while spectacular native sunflowers rise up ten feet or more in the summertime. Bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds love the blue flowers of the woolly bluecurls and lacy phacelia, the orange monkeyflowers, and the red-flowering currants.
Together, the front and back gardens now boast more than 75 species of California native plants. Craig and Jenny love the many kinds of bees, butterflies, dragonflies and other creatures they now see in their garden, and they are delighted to be bringing nature home themselves.
Other Garden Attractions
• Shona sculptures from Zimbabwe have been integrated into the garden design. Honeysuckle and island morning glory twine over two of the statues.
• Gentle mounds create visual interest, and provide the drainage most natives need.
• Branches and sculptural wood pieces have been placed about the garden to create places where small creatures can shelter.
• In the spring of 2025, a water feature with a stream, pond, and water-filtering bog was added to the back garden. Jenny and Craig are looking forward to the arrival of dragonflies — and maybe even frogs!
Gardening for Wildlife
The sound of water falling into the glazed ceramic fountain in the front garden and the large water feature in the back attracts birds (and people!). Flocks of lesser goldfinches chatter in the native sunflowers as they glean seeds. Anna’s hummingbirds sip nectar from California fuchsias and other colorful flowers. Brilliant blue- and rust-colored Western bluebirds, graceful black phoebes, chestnut-backed chickadees, and oak titmice – with that adorable tuft of feathers on their heads — are just some of the birds that visit the garden to feed on insects, seeds, and berries.
Monarch butterflies are drawn to the large patches of narrow leaf milkweed — the only plant on which this imperiled butterfly can lay its eggs — that have been planted in the front and back gardens. A patch of goldenrod offers nectar for newly-emerged adults.
Jenny and Craig’s garden is a terrific place to see small flying creatures: how many kinds can you spot? Watch for the native bees of all sizes, stripes and colors —including the diminutive metallic green sweat bee — which sip nectar and gather pollen from the wide variety of native plants available to them.
Keystone species (watch this talk by Doug Tallamy!)
Keystone species—our own, local ecological powerhouse plants— in this garden include hollyleaf cherry, currant, California lilac, lupine, manzanita, mountain mahogany, sage, ocean spray, honeysuckle, aster, snowberry, sunflower, serviceberry, thimbleberry, coyote brush, buckwheat, goldenrod, coffeeberry, and penstemon.
At least partially wheelchair accessible? yes
