Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour

Shop in-person Saturday, April 12, 2025 from 10:00-4:00, or online any time on Sat. or Sun. April 12 or 13

Shop in-person!

Shop in-person at Oaktown in Berkeley, East Bay Wilds in Oakland, or at The Watershed Nursery in Richmond on Saturday, April 12 from 10:00-4:00 and a percentage of your purchases will go to support the Tour. See below for addresses, talk titles and times, and other details.

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Or… shop online

Order online from Green Thumb Works on either Sat. or Sun. April 12 or 13, and a percentage of your purchase will go to support the Tour.

Now available from Green Thumb are Hummingbird Hangout and Beneficial Insect Haven plant bundles, consisting of hardy, beneficial one gallon plants for full to part-sunny areas. Browse Green Thumb’s online list of available plants here. 

Save water, lower the amount of time you spend working in your garden (or the amount you pay for maintenance), invite birds, butterflies, and beneficial insects to your garden, support local ecology, and reflect the natural splendor for which California is known by gardening with California native plants from Green Thumb Works. 

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Be sure to include our own, local keystone plants in your garden; they are the best for wildlife, and include:

Best plants for shady areas: currant, huckleberry, wild rose, thimbleberry, ocean spray, woodland strawberry, goldenrod, aster, honeysuckle.

Shop in-person

Shop for native plants and garden art at these fundraisers for the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour on Saturday April 12, from 10:00-4:00.

Oaktown Native Plant Nursery, 702 Channing Way, Berkeley

Oaktown Native Plant Nursery’s mission is to grow and provide quality California native plants for home gardeners, landscapers, local re-vegetation and habitat enhancement projects.

Specializing in growing natives specific to local habitats and micro-climates, Oaktown does in-house propagation as well as selectively buying native plants for resale. Custom plants are grown from permitted, site-specific seeds and cuttings.

Talks in the Nursery
10:00 Join Birch Starr-Reid, Nicole Barratt and other staff for a detailed native plant propagation demonstration. Our skilled staffers will show you how to split overgrown containers of plants into many, how to select and prepare hard- and softwood cuttings, and how to plant larger seeds like oaks.

• Oakland – East Bay Wilds is located at 2777 Foothill Blvd., Oakland; note that the entrance is on 28th Ave. This nursery is normally only open to the public on Fridays, so don’t miss this chance to shop on a weekend! Owner Pete Veilleux grows more than five hundred kinds of natives that are particularly beautiful, reliable, and hard to find; he specializes in manzanitas, California lilacs, and natives that do well in pots. Ask about natives useful for specific landscape problem areas.
  

  While at East Bay Wilds, browse Pete’s extensive, eclectic collection of garden benches, tables, chairs, statues, planters, antiques, and tchotchkes available at great prices – a percentage of these purchases will also go to support the Tour. See the plant list here and see photos of gardens that Pete has designed and planted with natives here. (If you are interested in a consult, design, installation or maintenance for a California native landscape, email Pete at pete@eastbaywilds.com or call (510) 409-5858.

  Talks in the Nursery
  12:00 “Planting for insects = planting for birds” by Pete Veilleux, owner of East Bay Wilds

  

• Richmond –The Watershed Nursery, 601 A Canal Blvd. Richmond, (510) 234-2222. The Watershed Nursery, located in Point Richmond, offers hundreds of species of California native plants, and is dedicated to improving habitat from your backyard to the Bay. Use the nursery’s Plant Finder to match plants to your garden conditions, or ask their expert staff for help with choosing plants to suit your specific goals. You can see the list of available plants here.

  Talks in the Nursery
  Title and time are coming soon!