Jim and Laurie Ulrick’s garden 🐦

Orinda

Lot size: 6,000 sq. ft. front, 400 sq. ft. parking strip, 500 sq. ft. side, 4,000 sq. ft. back garden, 80% native

Garden Age: Garden was installed in stages, beginning in 2006

Years on the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour: New this year!

Showcase Feature
Jim, who has been gardening with California native plants for more than forty years, has combined native trees, shrubs, and perennials with edibles and wildflowers to create a beautiful and productive garden. In the large front yard mature manzanita, toyon, California lilac, and Pacific wax myrtle planted adjacent to the attractive open board fence create a living privacy screen, while delighting birds and bees.

Repetition of plants creates a calming effect, while providing visual interest: note the two kinds of flowering currant (pink and red), three types of manzanita (‘Howard McMinn,’ ‘Sentinel,’ ‘Dr. Hurd,’) and buckwheat (naked, rosy, sulphur) and five kinds of California lilac (‘Point Sierra,’ ‘Dark Star,’ ‘Frosty Blue,’’ ‘Julia Phelps,” and ‘Island’).

The garden was designed by Buena Luna/Cummings Landscape Architecture, and installed by Jim and the Cummings team.

Other Garden Attractions
• Check out the orchard in the front garden: among the sixteen fruit trees are the sweet-tart Ashmead’s Kernal russet apple, which originated in the 1700s: Winter Nellis pear, which arrived in the States from England in 1823: three varieties of pluot – flavor grenade, flavor king, pluerry; and more.
• The fence, gates, raised garden beds, and benches were made from two large redwoods that were taken down and milled onsite. Jim designed the fences, the Japanese style gate that leads to the front door, and the Maybeck-influenced side gate. A woodcarver, Jim also carved the floral design on the top of the gate adjacent to the orchard.
• The outdoor shower drains into the garden.
• Cement board siding has been installed on the house and garage for fire protection.
• The back garden contains a meadow created from Larner Seeds’ “Hills of California” wildflower mix.

Gardening for Wildlife
Acorn woodpeckers gather acorns and catch insects on the wing: the smaller Nuttall’s woodpeckers search for insects in the crevices of tree trunks, branches, and twigs, while Downy woodpeckers forage for insects from the stems of plants, or from galls. Cedar waxwings, pine siskins, and golden crowned sparrows have been seen in the garden, as have migrating hermit thrushes, which stop in to forage for insects on the ground, and to search for berries. Diminutive oak titmice, which mate for life, have nested in the bird houses Jim has set out for them.

Hummingbirds sip water from the shallow fountain in the back garden, and nectar from the cream-to-pink urn-shaped manzanita flowers: this winter-blooming plant provides food when hummingbirds, and native bumblebees, need it. Hummingbirds are also attracted to the tubular, fire-engine red blossoms of our native fuchsia and penstemon.

Red-shouldered hawks watch the avian action from above, and occasionally, from nearby.

Monarch, swallowtail butterflies and skippers sip nectar from the many native blossoms available to them. A rambunctious Dutchman’s pipevine climbs up the fire-resistant open mesh fence in the back garden; the pipevine has attracted the beautiful iridescent blue-black pipevine swallowtail butterfly, which can only lay eggs on this plant. See if you can spot any caterpillars in the garden.

About ten kinds of native bees, including yellow-faced bumblebees flat-tailed leafcutter, and carpenter bees, buzz the plants in this garden.

Salamanders find shelter in moist, shady places, and a bat house waits hopefully for inhabitants.

Keystone species (watch this talk by Doug Tallamy!)
Keystone species—our own, local ecological powerhouse plants— in this garden include coast live oak, huckleberry, pink and red flowering currant, snowberry, California lilac, aster, buckwheat, manzanita, sage, coffeeberry, and penstemon.

Green Home Features
Solar panels reduce the household’s PG&E bill. A whole-house fan keeps the house cool (no air conditioner is needed). Solar hot water panels heat the water in the swimming pool.