Lot size: 5,000 sq. ft. front garden, 350 sq. ft. interior garden, 100% native
Garden Age: Garden was installed in stages, beginning in 2013
Years on the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour: New this year!
Showcase Feature
Teachers Melody, Jessica, and Genie, all long-time Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour participants, viewed the large, sometimes brown, ecological wasteland of a lawn at the entrance to the school as potential habitat for birds, bees, and butterflies, and a potential inviting and attractive outdoor learning lab for the children. With support from the facilities director, who wanted to reduce water use, the turf was replaced with beautiful, sun-loving, low water-consuming natives that attract wildlife, as well as children. The native plant garden in the front of the school was such a success that a series of garden beds inside the school grounds have also been transformed; don’t miss this opportunity to see how school grounds can be turned into colorful, sustainable, and inviting spaces for wildlife of the winged and the two legged varieties!
Other Garden Attractions
• Calling all children! They can participate in monarch butterfly crafts, color butterfly pages, take pictures (with you!) in the butterfly wings photo area, and go on the storywalk— a native plant trail lined with the pages of a children’s book on signs.
• Calling the artistically inclined! Come participate in the first Native Plant and Wildlife Chalk Art event. Draw native birds, bees, butterflies and plants in the school’s courtyard any time between 10:00 and 5:00: chalk will be provided.
• Visit with bunnies Sunset and Midnight.
• Enter the free raffle to win a butterfly meadow for your own garden! A mélange of butterfly-friendly plants will be raffled at 3:00; the winner need not be present to win.
• This garden is watered deeply once a month in the dry season.
• Restrooms will be available!
Gardening for Wildlife
Furry bumble, iridescent green sweat, shiny black carpenter, and busy honeybees gather pollen and nectar from the six types of manzanitas and five types of sages. Monarchs sip nectar from our local native milkweed (grown just for them!). Songbirds and hummingbirds are drawn to the toyon and fuchsia. The front garden is open to grazing by deer.
Talks in the Garden
11:00 “How to attract and raise monarch butterflies”
12:00 and 2:00 “How and why to change a school lawn into a beautiful native plant garden” by Facilities Director Steve Harrington (noon) and teacher Genie Barrie at 2:00
Music in the Garden
11:00-12:00 and 1:00-2:00 Bret Turner will play acoustic guitar
12:00-1:00 A duo of woodwinds, with Fern Burch on clarinet and Kara Koffron on flute, will play classical music.
Art in the Garden
See the Chalk Art description, above! Purchase garden art here – ceramic student-made kiln-fired birds and butterflies will be available for sale; cash and check only.
