Jonathon Lee's garden
Oakland
Garden Lot size: 70 x 25 sq. ft. front garden only on tour, 90% native
Years gardened at this location (Gardening Experience): 20 years since native garden was started (note the old manzanita); 5 since it was revamped.
Years on the "Bringing Back the Natives" Garden Tour: New this year!
Showcase feature: This steep hillside garden, which offers magnificent views of San Francisco Bay, was started twenty years ago by the previous owner. In 2002 Chantelise Pells was hired to help address erosion problems and to increase the number of locally appropriate natives in a newly cleared area. (The garden was a solid mass of Matilija poppy; you can still see a sea of them below the house.) Chantelise built swales, mulched heavily, put in irrigation lines, and planted bunchgrasses and other natives, including sages, manzanita, coyote bush, deer grass, oaks and coast silk tassel.
Other garden attractions:
- The steep flight of stairs (did we say this garden is steep?), with its charming manzanita branch rail, leads one through the garden.
- Selecting appropriate plants for the soil and climate mean that limited water is used.
- Dense plantings help control weeds and help protect plants from being browsed by deer.
- Urbanite (used cement chunks) was brought into the garden to build a retaining wall.
Gardening for Wildlife: Quail, hummingbirds, native bees and butterflies, lizards, and newts call this garden home. Hawks soar overhead. Deer browse this garden freely; left are what the deer won’t eat. (OK, new plants are protected with pokey stick structures to discourage nibbling until the plant is established, and strategically-placed larger branches discourage deer from making trails where they shouldn’t.)
Garden Talks: 11:00 and 2:00 “How to control erosion and manage deer predation” by Chantelise Pells