© Saxon Holt Photography
Anni Jensen and Carol Manahan’s Garden
Richmond
Gardening experience: 25 years
Years gardened at this location: 7 years
Size: 5,000 square feet
Showcase feature: A riot of spring color and a delightful mixture of California natives, ornamentals, fruits and vegetables. Designed and installed by the gardeners, Anni and Carol's garden offers visual pleasure throughout the year. This diverse garden, which has been featured in Sunset Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, and photographed for EBMUD's Plants and Landscapes for Summer-Dry Climates, contains 130 species of native plants, and hundreds more species of ornamentals and edibles. The parking strip, front, and side gardens receive no summer water (except for first-year plants and a young redbud). Bunchgrasses, wildflowers and some perennials occupy the parking strip. These coastal prairie plants were selected because they might have grown on this site when the Huichiun Indians lived in their nearby village along Wildcat Creek.
© Saxon Holt Photography
Other garden attractions:
- Browse the lists of the "Top 20 Butterfly, Hummingbird and Bee Plants in Our Garden."
- Take the time to read Anni's essay "The Garden Before Us" which describes the history of the garden site since 1750.
- Don't miss the display boards with the ”before” and “garden through the seasons” photos.
© Saxon Holt Photography
Gardening for Wildlife: Seeds, butterfly larval and nectar plants, bramble thickets, and a birdbath and mister make this garden as attractive to wildlife as it is to people. Pesticides (apart from a little soap and dormant oil) are never used. Hummingbirds love the "hummingbird buffet," and spend their days flying back and forth between the buffet and the native grassland. Butterflies seen in the garden are the admiral, anise swallowtail, various blues, buckeye, cabbage white, duskywings, checkered skipper, common checkerspot, common hairstreak, fiery skipper, gulf fritillary, monarch, pipevine swallowtail, sulphur, and the west coast lady. The garden has the larval plants for each of these butterflies (or they are found nearby), and more than twenty species of nectar plants. Native bees and wasps are attracted to the California lilac, sunflower, buckwheats, and gum plants, among others. The gardeners pride themselves of having created a ‘bug paradise" and many birds come to feed and nest there.