Lot size: 500 sq. ft. front garden , 99% native

Garden Age: Garden was installed in 2004

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

Showcase Feature

This small garden, initially designed and installed by Pete Veilleux of East Bay Wilds, and reimagined over the years by Nita, consisted of pyracantha, sculpted junipers, and crabgrass before its transformation. Nita wanted the garden to provide food, habitat, and shelter for wildlife, and to evoke the ecological history of the site. (While still including natives from other places that she loved.) The outcome was two small meadows, one the native bunchgrass Festuca californica and the other Carex pansa, that flank either side of the walkway. A potpourri of trees and tall shrubs—elderberry, coast silk tassel, mountain mahogany, California lilac and dogwood—soften the lines of the house. Rogers Red grape flourishes on the porch trellis.

Other Garden Attractions

• Large moss rock boulders provide structure; inside a cluster of them manzanita, rosy buckwheat, and fuchsia nestle comfortably.

Gardening for Wildlife

Titmice, chickadees, woodpeckers and blue birds are seen in the garden. House and gold finches flock to the salt bush. Hummingbirds are attracted to the white and Sonoma sages. Birds love the elderberry.