Lot size: 5,000 square feet
Garden Age: Native garden was installed in stages, beginning in 1997
Years on the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour: 3
Showcase feature This well-known garden is in transition; moving away from its previous focus on teting plant, native as well as non-native, for their suitability to summer-dry conditions. The focus is now on habitat gardening, and the street-side garden is planted with 90% natives, with a particular emphasis on plants that attract native bees. The parking strips, and front and side gardens, still do not receive summer (except for first-year plants.) The grassland plants in the parking strip honor the original plant community of the area; the coastal prairie. Many natives can also be found in the back garden, now dedicated to edibles and plants attractive to birds and insects. In the process of change, this has also become a lower-maintenance garden.
Other garden attractions
- Browse the lists of the Top food plants in our garden for beneficial insects.
- Read Anni’s essay The Garden Before Us which describes the history of the garden site since 1750.
- Peruse the list of “Butterflies seen in our garden – and their food sources” and “Top twenty hummingbird plants in our garden”
- Enjoy the gallery of native plant identification photos.
- See how the garden was created at: http://picasaweb.google.com/annijensenplants/GardenHistory go to “Garden History (the brick was made by the Richmond Brickworks).”
Gardening for Wildlife Seeds, rose and berry, thickets, and a birdbath make this garden as attractive to wildlife as it is to people. Hummers love the “hummingbird buffet,” and spend their days flitting back and forth between the buffet and the native grassland. Sixteen species of butterflies have been seen in the garden, which contains numerous butterfly larval plants and more than twenty species of nectar plants. Carol and Anni pride themselves on having created a “bug paradise.”
