Louann Tung’s garden

Livermore

Lot size: 1,500 sq. ft. back garden, 70% native

Garden Age: Garden was installed in October of 2010

Years on the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour: 2

Showcase Feature In the front garden the reduced lawn creates space for wide garden beds that contain a mixture of natives and other drought-tolerant plants. In the back garden, a curving path leads past Buckwheat Island and Monkey Island—berms planted respectively with Santa Cruz Island, rosy, coastal, and Shasta buckwheats, and with orange, pink-yellow, and azalea-flowered monkeyflowers. Kat Weiss designed this attractive garden; Kat and Louann selected the more than eighty species of native plants, which were chosen for their tolerance of Livermore’s blistering summer heat.

Other Garden Attractions

• Are you interested in learning more about natives? Louann is the volunteer coordinator for Granada Native Gardens, a 1/3 acre native plant demonstration garden located near Stanley and Murietta in Livermore. She also teaches the spring Landscaping with Native Plants class at Los Positas College. Ask her for work party or class schedules.

• Take a gander at the two desert tortoises and koi pond.

• Mountain mahogany, lemonadeberry, elderberry, Pacific bayberry, and desert willow will form privacy screens when mature.

• Moss rocks provide visual interest.

Gardening for Wildlife Western fence lizards bask on the boulders. A potpourri of sages (Bee’s Bliss, Los Angeles and Las Pilatas hummingbird, and Sonoma creeping) attract bees. Hummingbirds are drawn to the penstemons.