Native Gardens on the 2012 Tour
Download the printable garden map »
1. Josiah Clark's at 1628 Lake Street2. 349C 25th Avenue
3. Rod Rougelot's at 542 46th Avenue
4. Anna Schopp's at 635 9th Avenue #2
5. Bob Hall's at 1946 Grove St. Apt. 3
6. Warner Graves's at 156 Beulah Street
7. The Bors's at 785 Carolina Street
8. The Hirts's at 4256 22nd Street
9. Doug Tom's at 2217 Ninth Ave. at Mesa*
10. Louis Webb's at 206 Castenada Avenue
11. Susan Floore's at 3984 26th Street
12. Robert Oreglia's at 158 27th Street
13. Jeanne Halpern's at 34 Valletta Court*
14. Georgia Fie's at 4 Valletta Court
15. Greg Gaar's at 440 Hazelwood Avenue
16. Casey Allen's at 455 Hazelwood Avenue
17. Carlin Ellison's 16 Stillings Avenue
18. Ted Kipping's at 257 Joost Avenue*
19. 42 Westwood Street
Featured Public Gardens:
20. 1745 Folsom Street
21. 50 Phelan Avenue
* Denotes gardens that include steep trails, uneven paths or other challenging terrain.
SAVE THE DATE for the Native Plant Garden Tour organized by CNPS Yerba Buena Chapter.The purpose of the tour is to expose gardeners to native plants, their charms in a garden and the benefits and possibilities of their inclusion in an attractive, wildlife-friendly garden.To this end we include an array of private gardens: mature gardens featuring 100% natives (focusing on compatible plantings), mixed gardens, professionally designed and maintained artistic gardens, gardens focusing on habitat for wildlife (for example, the chorus frog), gardens integrating food production with native plantings, gardens in transition to include more natives. We also feature public gardens dedicated to local flora and fauna or similar gardens not usually open to the public.
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Josiah Clark's at 1628 Lake Street
1628 Lake St, Habitat Garden with Natives Built in 1896, this house is the oldest on the block and was featured in Sunset Magazine back in the 80’s. The front yard features maturing Coast Live Oaks and the Toyon is the only known one growing in a street tree cell. The sunnier front garden features a dozen or so native species alongside ornamentals. The back courtyard has a a water feature with native wetland plants and processes infused with artistic elements. Native Wild Cucumber vines are usually eradicated as a pest, but here they have been encouraged and trained to grow into elegant, climbing vines, and set the flowers and tendrils from Manzanita wood. The far backyard features another dozen or so native plants that can survive in the sandy, shaded backyards typical of much of SF. A series of bird feeders are arranged to exclude more aggressive, larger, messier species like squirrels, jays and blackbirds. Visitors can observe how this means more opportunities for our smaller, less common and more sensitive native birds including chickadees, goldfinches and native sparrows. Over 100 species of birds and nearly a dozen species of butterfly have been observed from this yard. Informational cards will be placed on various plants to give interpretive information. Native plants from Nature's Acres Nursery will also be available on-site and on sale at a discount.
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349C 25th Avenue
Frank Eddy designed and maintains this simple elegant garden of natives and drought tolerant plants. The garden is in the sunny sandy Richmond. There was no soil amendment when the garden was planted 3 years ago. The goal was to create a private space for the client that was low maintenance as well.
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Rod Rougelot's at 542 46th Avenue
An historic house in the Outer Richmond originally built by Adolf Sutro for his gardener. This double lot is home to coastal sage scrub and woodland plant communities, as well as a few non-native species. The garden was initially installed by the homeowner in 2001 with plants mostly from Yerba Buena Nursery. Wild Natives was hired in 2006 to clean up the weedy disarray the garden had fallen into and redesign areas that were not working. Ongoing maintenance has been challenged by gopher, skunk, raccoon, sand, fence, and weed issues. This year's garden highlights are the reestablished meadow, newly blooming wildflowers, and a 15' Ceanothus 'Ray Hartman'. The owner of Wild Natives, Julie Swift, will be on site to answer any questions and a plant list will be available with a limited number of copies for visitors to take home.
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Anna Schopp's at 635 9th Avenue #2
This Richmond District garden displays a love of native trees, shrubs and perennials that form the backbone of a drought-tolerant, habitat garden. The plants enclose and protect this backyard and provide shelter and food for a wide variety of birds and animals. The competition includes Heteromeles, Ceanothus, Coast Silk Tassel, Rhododendron, Red-stemmed Dogwood, Black Twinberry, Bush Island Snapdragon, Buckwheat, Tree Lupine, and California Poppies that thrive in the sandy-soil endemic to this neighborhood. Drought-tolerant herbs such as rosemary, lavender, and geranium add their flower color, leaf textures and scents to the garden. Douglas Iris have naturalized and reproduced unique flower colors and forms. Beach strawberry is a well-established ground cover. Anna’s Hummingbirds drink the nectar from Salvia flowers and myriad native birds find plenty to eat and places to shelter and raise their young.
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Bob Hall's at 1946 Grove St. Apt. 3 Download a plant list »
The yard was suffering from neglect and hosted an array of invasive weeds. But after a lot of hard work and many trips to nine different native plant nurseries, the yard is turning around. Local natives from HANC as well as some homegrown coast buckwheat and seaside daisy liven up the mix of other California natives such as Cleveland sage, heuchera maxima, Lewesia and manzanita.
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Warner Graves's at 156 Beulah Street
This garden features a variety of California natives beginning at the entrance with ferns, spicebush, rushes and other shade and moisture loving plants. Crossing a small pond and wetland area you enter a meadow with native bunch grasses and wildflowers. Bordering the meadow are several types of manzanita, ceanothus and other native or decorative shrubs. Most of the structural features of the garden are made from recycled bricks, logs and rocks taken from construction sites here in SF. This colorful garden delights year round and reflects the home owners passion for the outdoors.
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The Bors's at 785 Carolina Street Download a plant list »
This is a largely shade garden with ferns, trillium, and other shade plants. It also has a coast live oak, pink flowering currant and more than 30 native plants that insure a steady stream of birds, bees, and other beneficial insect visitors. The plants and various creatures are enjoyed and sometimes drawn or photographed by artist Margo Bors from her studio that looks out on the garden.
The Hirts's at 4256 22nd Street Download a plant list »
In two years' time, a barren solid-concrete sidewalk has been transformed into a welcoming natives oasis, bursting with life. Nectar and host plants offer sustenance to a variety of insects including the endangered Mission Blue and Green Hairstreak butterflies. (Visitors are welcome to visit this garden any day, any time). The back yard is a work-in-progress. Designed as an allegory and an urban haven, this tiny space features winding paths; a frog pond; plum, apple, lemon, and tangerine trees; A variety of berries, herbs, and vegetables; and complementary natives including flowering insectiaries, grasses and vines.
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Doug Tom's at 2217 Ninth Ave. at Mesa Download a plant list »
"At times," owner Douglas Tom said of this garden, "it's like being at the coast, alone." To others, this steep, terraced, completely native back garden feels like you're taking a short hike among the giant rush, wax myrtle, and sword fern on Mt. Tam. Created three years ago by Alrie Middlebrook, co-author of "Designing California Native Gardens," this hanging garden in Forest Hill is virtually maintenance-free and hasn't depended on its irrigation system for the last year-and-a-half. Even people who'd enjoy climbing the 60-foot rise will find a walking stick helpful,and all visitors will be asked to sign a liability waiver before starting up the Sierra granite stepping stones.
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Louis Webb's at 206 Castenada Avenue
The back yard consists of shaded and non-shaded areas. Plants were selected for each environment. The front yard includes both native and non-native plants. The sidewalk bed includes grasses, wildflowers and native shrubs. The upper bed is seeded with a hills of California mix.
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Susan Floore's at 3984 26th Street Download a plant list »
From disastrous, major plant deaths came an opportunity for this north-facing, shady garden to grow a new look. The owner filled recently empty flowerbeds with cheerful natives such as Douglas iris, fringe cups, monkey flower and heuchera. In a deep shade area under the deck she created a native fern garden with wild ginger, redwood sorrel, and bleeding hearts wandering here and there among the ferns. Surviving from earlier years, mature birch trees tower over newer plantings of western azalea, huckleberry, hazelnut and a young silk tassel tree. In less than a year, thanks to carefully chosen natives, the garden has undergone a delightful transformation.
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Robert Oreglia's at 158 27th Street Download a plant list »
A small backyard garden has gradually been planted with over 60 species of natives with particular attention to San Francisco native plants. The backyard lawn was replaced a year ago with native wildflowers, shrubs, and a small fountain. In the front a concrete parking island has been removed and the area planted exclusively with SF natives including three endemics: Franciscan manzanita and wallflower and Ceanothus thyrsiflorus presidio.
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Jeanne Halpern's at 34 Valletta Court Download a plant list »
Lush and sensuous, Jeanne's 13-year-old garden cascades across O'Shaughnessy cliffs toward Glen Canyon. New this year is the Big Rock Trail that frames a triangular minigarden planted with seedlings from the rest of this large garden sch as red buckwheat, sticky monkey flower, blue dicks and dudleya. Throughout the garden, you'll find 18 red flags that identify "native natives," that is, plants that lived on this hillside long before road and home construction separated the cliff from the canyon. You'll see soap plant the Ohlone Indians may have gathered here for brushes and soap and also coyote mint used for medicinal tea. Since this is also a habitat garden, you may be lucky enough to see native moths, butterflies, bees, birds and the occasional coyote. Several of the 8 trails are rough, so be prepared with good shoes; a walking stick could be helpful.
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Georgia Fie's at 4 Valletta Court Download a plant list »
Don't blink or you'll miss the smallest, newest, cutest garden on the tour. Located just down the hill from Jeanne Halpern's beautiful hillside garden (my inspiration)is a newly installed mostly native garden to become my retreat. The bees have found it and so can you. Installed in January with drip irrigation for the babies, it has plenty of growing room. Start this year and watch it grow. Local area Mimulus and soap plants are a feature.
Greg Gaar's at 440 Hazelwood Avenue
This very large garden includes an adjacent public walkway (Globe Alley) that is also landscaped with native plants. Greg Gaar converted this garden from lawn to a very colorful and attractive garden of San Francisco natives in just under a year and has now grown into a feast for the eyes. For more information on this ambitious undertaking, visit Greg at the HANC Recycling Center. In addition to the 15-step public stairway into the back garden, there is a more accessible walkway to the left with gradual stepping stones.
Casey Allen's at 455 Hazelwood Avenue
We have a mix of local Natives and Natives from other parts of the State. Shaded by a flowering plum tree the front garden includes Huckleberry, Ribes and Hummingbird Sage. A small living roof that hides the greenbin is alive with miner\'s lettuce. Cool and foggy is common and the North facing garden makes it a good place to rest on that rare hot day. Around back we have a vegetable garden with a table and chairs (so bring a lunch) and a great view to the South.
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Carlin Ellison's at 16 Stillings Avenue
The garden is on a very steep slope, whioch we've planted with grasses, Salvia apianas, Manzanitas, and a few others. It looks good year-round, with regular light maintenance. The garden is accessed down the hill next to 89 Martha Avenue.
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Ted Kipping's at 257 Joost Avenue Download a plant list »
The theme of this garden is a rocky outcrop in a cloud forest. We prfoundly changed the flattish grade into berms, ponds, waterfall, bogs, screen, woodland, etc. There are seven soil types. I have lost count of the total number of varieties but would guess between 1,500-2,000 varieties. There are well over 100 kinds of plants from the California Floristic Province. See if you can spot them.
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42 Westwood Street Download a plant list »
The garden is on a very steep slope, whioch we've planted with grasses, Salvia apianas, Manzanitas, and a few others. It looks good year-round, with regular light maintenance.
Featured Public Garden:
1745 Folsom Street Download a plant list »
This decade-old native garden at Rainbow Grocery is a tiny island of exclusively San Francisco area natives featuring well established Buckeye, Silk Tassel, Currant, Elder, and Coastal Live Oak. Native plants will be available for sale in front of Rainbow from 11am-5pm on Sunday, April 15.
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50 Phelan Avenue
City College of San Francisco hosts a nearly 1400 square foot native plant garden whose primary goal is to serve both as a hands-on educational tool for student participants and as an exhibit to showcase how native plants are beautiful, conserve water, and help sustain local fauna populations. The garden is now in its second season and includes a wide range of native flowers, grasses, and shrubs. Come see this evolving project at its current stage and visit again whenever you like to see how it changes! Plant list will be provided to assist you in your own garden design. The garden is located on the east side of the science building at the Ocean Avenue campus; signs will direct you to the garden.
- Publicity Assistant
Our Publicity Chair does a great job of contacting local news media, but this event is too much for one person. We need a couple of additional helpers to work with her. Major publications like Sunset, Via, and Bay Nature should be notified well before Thanksgiving as to the date of the tour. It would be nice to have someone who could write brief stories that we could make available electronically with photographs as needed to publicize the tour. - Publicity in Your Neighborhood
Could you contact your neighborhood newspaper; distribute posters to local libraries and businesses; post flyers on bulletin boards? - Broader-Based Publicity
Distribute posters, post flyers, etc. to areas or neighborhoods not adopted by residents. Post notices to your web site or email groups, or ask appropriate organizations to publicize our free native plant garden tour. Email posters or articles to friends, personal groups, etc., and ask them to further distribute. - Last-Minute Help
People are needed near the time of the event to take maps, handouts, signs, and other materials to the garden hosts. And, as you know, every project has unexpected needs. These are good jobs for people who can get around town with ease, and have the flexibility to volunteer brief time periods on short notice. - Co-Hosts
On the day of the tour, we need people willing to help co-host at a garden site. No, you don't need to know anything about plants or gardening. You do need to be friendly and welcoming, to ask people to sign the sign-up sheet, to offer maps or other free handouts, and to facilitate guiding guests to the person/people showing the garden. - Interested? Respond to Susan Floore at sfloore@att.net or 415-285-4692 (email preferred). We will see that the information gets to the appropriate people.