Stefanie Pruegel’s garden ♿️ 🐦 Come on in this fully-electrified home! #33

San Leandro

Lot size: 730 sq. ft. front, 800 sq. ft. side, 4,500 sq. ft. back garden and 280 sq. ft. parking strip, 80% native

Garden Age: Garden was installed in stages, beginning in 2016

Years on the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour:

Showcase Feature
This large corner lot contained an enormous lawn when Stefanie bought it, and this was exactly what she wanted. Stefanie, who has been attending the Tour since its inception in 2005, yearned to buy a home where she could turn an ecological wasteland of a lawn into an oasis for wildlife. In 2016 both of her dreams came true; she bought the house, sheetmulched the lawn away, and in its place installed a selection of plants that delight people and wildlife alike (and inspired a neighbor to remove his lawn as well!).

Other Garden Attractions

• Three 1,000-gallon cisterns collect rainwater from the roof.
• Free mulch was provided by Chip Drop. (“Helping arborists get rid of wood chips. Helping gardeners get cheap mulch.”)
• $1,500 in lawn removal rebates from Save Our Water and EBMUD helped to fund this lawn-to-garden conversion.
• Parking strips that used to be rutted dirt are planted with hardy native trees and groundcovers.
• A water feature near Stefanie’s window provides excellent bird watching.
• Don’t miss the before and after photos.

Gardening for Wildlife
More than 100 species of natives, plants of varying heights, a fountain, and a plethora of seed- and berry-bearing plants, as well as nectar- and pollen-providing flowers, have attracted dozens of species of birds, including orioles, warblers, bushtits, wrens, and goldfinches. Bumblebees, skippers, monarch, pipeline swallowtail, hairstreaks, Acmon blue, and orange sulfur butterflies buzz and flit through the garden. Stefanie reports that coyote brush and buckwheats are great pollinator attractors.

Keystone species in this garden (watch this talk by Doug Tallamy!)
Keystone species — our own, local ecological powerhouse plants — in this garden include oak, Catalina cherry, California lilac, wild rose, currants, manzanita, sage, lupines, goldenrod, buckwheat, aster, woodland and beach strawberry, mountain mahogany, cream bush, elderberry, and penstemon.

Green Home Features
Stefanie’s San Leandro Home features insulation in the attic, walls, and under the floor, rooftop solar, a back-up battery, SPAN smart panel, a ductless heat pump HVAC system, a heat pump water heater, induction stove, 3,000 gallon rainwater catchment system,a “solar” clothes dryer (aka air drying), and more. It was featured on the 2021 East Bay Green Home Tour.