Showcase Feature
It’s all about the birds, butterflies, and bees in this charming, wildlife-friendly garden, which was designed and installed by Erin and Keith.
Starting from a base of basically zero, they have enjoyed watching the evolution of the garden, learning through successes and failures over ten plus years of DIY native plant gardening.
The garden was designed to attract butterflies. Keith and Erin prioritized planting native “larval (caterpillar) host plants” to provide habitat for native butterfly caterpillars which can only reproduce on a few, very specific plants (“their plant”).
Butterflies seen in the garden include the stunning iridescent blue pipevine swallowtail, which can only lay its eggs on the Dutchman’s pipevine plant (found in several places throughout the garden), and the diminutive Acmon blue butterfly, which lays its eggs on buckwheat and lupine, both of which were included in the garden just for this butterfly.
The beautiful painted lady butterfly flutters about the garden in search of thistle, which it needs in order to reproduce. The buckeye butterfly is attracted to this garden because it contains bee plant and monkeyflower in the back and the groundcover Lippia, which borders the walkway on the south side of the house.
Over time Keith and Erin discovered that gardening for butterflies is also gardening for birds. Check out the photos of the birds that have been seen in the garden, including Bewick’s wrens, nuthatches, oak titmice, Northern flicker, chickadees, and flycatchers, to name a few. In previous years, Bewick’s wrens nested in a bird box in the garden, and in 2026 a female Northern flicker has been a daily visitor on spring mornings.
Take a seat and enjoy this tranquil garden; you won’t want to leave.
Other Garden Attractions
• Plan on spending some time viewing the photo gallery of butterflies that have been photographed in the garden.
• A 3,000-gallon rain water tank behind the garage provides supplemental water for the garden especially in dry years.
• A dead apple tree was left as a snag; carpenter bees drill nest holes in it and fallen branches provide perches for birds.
• Seeds from the sunflowers, asters and melic grass that flourish in the meadow are gleaned by finches and other songbirds.
Gardening for Wildlife
This garden is a haven for wildlife: 25 species of birds and a dozen species of butterflies have been seen in the garden.
The birdbath, located in a shady corner under oak and coyote brush that provides birds with easy escape routes into nearby trees, is a “magical” spot. The adjacent back door features a photo of a Nuttall’s woodpecker printed on CollidEscape perforated bird-safe film – making it possible to observe the birds from inside the home without disturbing them. (The water in the birdbath is changed daily to provide clean drinking water for the birds.)
The dense planting of tall natives that create the privacy screen along the fenceline, such as hollyleaf cherry, California lilac, toyon, pink-flowering currant, and elderberry, attracts birds, which are drawn to the caterpillars found on these shrubs, as well as the berries and seeds they produce.
A plethora of native bees visit the garden, including bumble, long-horned, carder, leaf-cutter, and more. In late summer, male long-horned bees huddle together for the night on the spent Buckwheat flowers. Female leaf-cutters have even been observed (and timed!) bringing cut-out bits of leaves to build the “nurseries” for their larvae in tube-like nests in the ground. As the pupa of many butterflies and moths overwinter in leaf litter, leaves are left on the ground.
How to Prevent Bird-Glass Collisions from Happening at Your House or Office
Did you know that bird-glass collisions are responsible for more than 1 billion bird fatalities per year in the United States? And almost half occur at one-to-three story buildings.
Have you ever heard that “thunk!” on a window – a bird striking the glass – and wanted to prevent it from happening again but didn’t know what to do? Well, the exhibit Keith and Erin have created for this year’s Tour is for you!
After witnessing bird collisions on one of their windows, Keith and Erin took action to prevent a collision from happening again. They initially applied a treatment to just one particularly dangerous window but have now treated most of them, testing out different products for ease of application, cost, view impacts, and beauty.
To help acquaint Tour visitors with ways to protect birds, demonstration windows with seven different kinds of treatments will be displayed on the front porch of Keith and Erin’s home. This display includes Acopian blinds, oil pen drawings, and various kinds of dots and film. Visitors will be able to look through the windows from the inside looking out toward the street, as well as see their appearance from the outside.
Feather Friendly has offered a 10% discount on its bird-safe window markers to Tour fans. Just use the discount code BBNG2026, and help prevent this #2 direct cause of bird mortality.
An expert will be on hand all day to answer questions about bird-safe windows.
For additional resources and information see:
American Bird Conservancy
Acopian Bird Savers
CollidEscape
FeatherFriendly
Keystone species (watch this talk by Doug Tallamy!)
Keystone species—our own, local ecological powerhouse plants— in this garden include hollyleaf cherry, coast live oak, pink flowering currant, California lilac, lupine, buckwheat, aster, goldenrod, California sunflower, and penstemon.
Green Home Features
The Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association honored Keith and Erin an award for remodeling their 100-year-old home in an environmentally sensitive way, while preserving the character of the house and neighborhood. Instead of adding a second story by building up, the living space was doubled by going down.
In addition to remaining true to the design of the original bungalow, the new living space is easier to heat and cool than a second story would have been. Solar panels generate the energy needed to heat the water in their radiant system, which warms the floor and house.
During the remodel, insulation was blown into the walls; this family now has almost no PG&E bill.
Videos
“How you can make your windows safe for birds” by Erin Diehm
“Making Windows Safe For Birds: Why it’s Important and How to Apply Feather Friendly Markers” by Erin Diehm
At least partially wheelchair accessible? yes
Photos
Click to see as a slideshow:
