Lot size: 1,400 sq. ft. front garden
Garden Age: garden was installed in 2019
Years on the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour: New this year!
Showcase Feature
Lois Simonds and the team at Gardening by Nature’s Design designed and installed this lovely hillside garden using a permaculture approach. The goals were to prevent erosion, protect the existing oak, provide safe and abundant habitat for birds, butterflies, and lizards, and connect Lauren and her family with their land and the nature that would surround them in their transformed landscape. The creation of swales, a dry creek bed, and two wetlands areas allow rainwater to be kept on-site—making water available to the garden’s plants for a longer period of time, while also protecting nearby Sausal Creek from scouring.
Other Garden Attractions
• This garden was planted with plants from the coastal sage scrub and mixed evergreen and redwood forest plant communities.
• Shade plants include currants, snowberries, ferns, columbine, and Douglas iris.
• Plants in the sunnier areas of the garden include manzanita, California lilac, coffeeberry, Island snapdragon, penstemon, goldenrod, and asters.
• Dry-stacked stone retaining walls follow the slope and form an integral part of the hillside. By moderating the slope of the hillside, the stone walls slow & break the flow of rainwater.
Gardening for Wildlife
The native plants provide berries (coffeeberry plants, manzanitas, snowberry plant, native currants, etc.) and seeds (from sedges, grasses and reeds) for birds, as well as habitat. The plants are arranged so that birds can safely travel from trees to shrubs to perennials and grasses. As the western monarch butterfly population is moving closer to extinction, our local native, narrow-leafed milkweed was planted to provide a place for the monarch butterflies to lay its eggs—as it can only reproduce on milkweed—and it has!
Permaculture Oakland Hillside Garden – following the 12 principles of Permaculture
Video
“Permaculture & California native plant gardens” by Lois Simonds
