Lot size: 432 sq. ft. front, 100 sq. ft. parking strip, 160 sq. ft. side, and 20 sq. ft. back garden, 97% native
Garden Age: Garden was installed in 2022
Years on the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour: New this year!
Showcase Feature
This garden has something for everyone; beauty for the homeowners and neighbors to enjoy, color throughout the year, habitat for wildlife—and it is also water-conserving and pesticide-free.
Chris Garcia and Shanna Mahan from Four Dimensions Landscape designed and installed this diminutive garden, including the gracefully curving paths of decomposed granite that wrap around wide garden beds, and a delicious suite of the “must-have” keystone plants that are the best at attracting birds, butterflies, and bees.
Happily, these are also the plants that provide great color in the garden. The show starts in January when the manzanitas produce their delicate, urn-like creamy-pink blossoms (which delight hummingbirds and native bees), continues with the purple-blue flowers on the California lilac and sages (which attract bees and butterflies), and ends in the fall with displays of cheerful yellow goldenrod, fire-engine red fuchsia, and lavender seaside daisies.
Other Garden Attractions
• Manzanitas frame the entry to the house.
• Swales planted with water-loving vine maple, rushes, spicebush, yerba buena, and snowberry retain rainwater on-site, keeping the garden green longer, and cleaning the water before it enters the Bay.
• Warm afternoon breezes carry the fragrance of hummingbird sage, currants, yerba buena, and spice bush across the garden.
• The parking strip is planted with fuchsia, buckwheats, yarrow, milkweed, and goldenrod.
• The wooden gates and stairs were built by Sebastian Francese, General Contractor (Richmond). The open design of the gate creates a welcoming and open feeling, and allows the sun to shine through to the small veggie garden in the side yard, while still providing security.
• Chris Garcia from Four Dimensions Landscape will be at this garden from 10:00-12:00 to answer your questions.
Gardening for Wildlife
This new garden has already attracted monarch butterflies, which laid eggs on the masses of local narrow-leaf milkweed (Asclepius fasicularis) provided for them; caterpillars can be seen noshing on the leaves. Skippers frolic about the garden, sipping nectar from the smorgasbord of blossoming natives. Solitary-living, ground-nesting sweat bees flit about the garden, collecting nectar and pollen.
The family’s cats are kept indoors to keep both the cats and birds safe.
Garden talk
11:00 “Choosing native plants for garden microclimates: How to design a successful native plant palette that responds to the microclimates created in small residential lots” by Chris Garcia
Keystone species (watch this talk by Doug Tallamy!)
Keystone species—our own, local ecological powerhouse plants—in this garden include the sun-loving holly leaf cherry, California lilac, manzanita, buckwheat, beach strawberry, sages, and aster, and the shade-loving vine maple, currants, huckleberry, and snowberry.
