Idell Weydemeyer’s Garden
El Sobrante
Gardening experience: 25 years
Years gardened at this location: 25 years
Size: 0.75 acre
Showcase feature: Created and planted by Idell to provide food for people, and food, shelter, and nesting areas for insects and wildlife, this garden has succeeded admirably on all counts. Near the house is an astonishing variety of fruits and other edibles. A large selection of native plants become more numerous near the oak woodland at the bottom of the property. This gardener has had to overcome a steep slope, very shallow soil, a lot of wind, and a plague of gophers.
Other garden attractions:
- The gardener can pick fresh vegetables and fruit every day of the year, and no wonder, with 35 varieties of pears and 9 of pomegranates, as well as Chilean guavas and Saskatoons, just to name a few.
- A former horse pasture, there was nothing in the lot when the gardener moved in.
- Recycled cement was used as a retaining wall; raised beds were built with 40-year-old recycled fencing.
- The attractive entrance steps are Trex decking.
- Experiments with 'lizard homes' of various sizes and shapes test which makes the best habitat.
- Plantings are contoured around the hill to use water twice: once at the top from the drip system, then a second time when it slides over the shallow underground rock layer to water plants further down the hill.
- Go to the website to check out the fabulous reference lists of mammals, birds, butterflies, reptiles/amphibians, and mushrooms in her garden that Idell prepared for this tour.
Gardening for Wildlife: Natives are clustered and intermixed with openings to provide edges between the woodlands, thickets, and grasslands in order to attract the greatest variety of wildlife. Numerous kinds of plants are grown to test which do best in this garden and will attract the most “critters”. The human “critters” appreciate the scents, colors, textures, fruit and vistas as well as the shelter out of the wind. The creatures attracted to the garden probably read the welcome sign certifying this area as a "Backyard Wildlife Habitat" by the National Wildlife Federation.
Brush piles and bird houses are provided for a variety of birds. Wild turkeys have recently been spotted and fruit, nuts, berries, and insects provide food for more than thirty-five species of birds seen in the garden. A succession of flowering plants attract hummingbirds, bees, butterflies, and other beneficial insects. Twenty-five species of butterflies frequent this garden. The beautiful pipevine swallowtail butterfly is a common sight, both fluttering through the garden and caterpillaring about in a large patch of Dutchman's pipevine.
Deer, raccoons, squirrels, and opossums are unwanted visitors at times but the skunks are welcomed to eat the nests of ground-dwelling yellow jackets. Seasonal frog ponds are home to Pacific chorus frogs. Nine species of amphibians and reptiles have been seen in the garden.