Tour Plant Lists

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Alameda and Santa Clara county Bay-Friendly tours. Here are plants lists from some of the gardens that were on the tours:

• Garden 5:  Marie Kitajima
• Garden 7:  Ute Engelke
• Garden 20:  Susan Zaslaw
• Garden 24:  Nadja Adolf
• Garden 27:  Ann Morrison
• Garden 35:  Stefani Leto
• Garden 38:  Keith Stover
• Garden 45:  Laura Allen

Tour Picks of the Week: Plant Sales & Garden Talks

This weekend kicks off the first of this spring’s Bay-Friendly Garden Tours. In addition to visiting home gardens tour participants will be able to purchase plants or attend garden talks that will be held throughout the day. Special day-of plant sales will offer everything from natives, to succulents, and veggie starts. Local experts and experienced backyard gardeners will provide practical tips during scheduled garden talks.

Following is a sample of the plant sales and talks.

Tour Picks of the Week: One Style Doesn't Fit All

Phil Stob’s home nursery overflows with several hundred pots of California natives including buckeyes, Catalina ironwood, and fuchsia. His Fremont yard is surrounded by native trees and shrubs that provide shade and privacy. Since his own lot is fully planted he has switched to guerilla gardening and planted out a derelict curb strip that is two blocks long and 10 feet wide.

Let’s Clear the Air: Compost Shouldn’t Stink!

Bay Area soil scientist Stephen Andrews is enthusiastic about compost, for example he typically signs off his emails: “Compost! Compost! Compost!”. Stephen recently shared some opinions and facts about the nature of compost with WM EarthCare’s “The Scoop”. Stephen will be giving garden talks on this year’s Bay-Friendly Garden Tours in Newark on April 29 and in Larkspur on May 19. –Jennifer Ketring

A question frequently asked at Bay-Friendly Landscape Maintenance qualification classes is, “How is compost supposed to smell?” While “smell” is a nebulous measure of odors that can be both bad and good, the underlying question here concerns compost quality.

Tour Picks of the Week: Community Connections

Barbara Jerabek and 240 K-5th grade students at the Redwood Day School in Oakland have chosen an organic approach to their school garden. The whole project is kid-driven; kids decide how to use the space, what to plant and when to do it. Grown-ups help with heavy lifting, keeping the kids focused, and by making strong connections with classroom learning.

It is a good example of how teachers can use gardens to educate kids, how kids can have fun learning at school, how parents can be gainfully involved in their kid’s schooling, and how gardening can help build community connections.

Executive Director Position

The Bay-Friendly Landscaping & Gardening Coalition seeks an Executive Director to assist in building a dynamic and economically sustainable organization, to educate about the need for sustainable landscapes, to create better brand awareness, and assist in securing broad adoption of sustainable landscape practices. The position is full-time and located in Oakland, California. Please carefully review the job description and requirements before applying.

Tour Picks of the Week: Rainwater Catchment & Greywater

When Eric Woodhouse and Jill Thomas bought their Mill Valley property there was a small older home and an overgrown landscape in the steep backyard. Now a new Greenpoint-rated home and terraces have transformed the site. Artistic stonework steps and shot concrete retaining walls make the whole site accessible. The landscape, designed by landscape architect Jim Catlin, includes a driveway with permeable pavers and decorative drainage grill that captures stormwater runoff, channeling it through a stone creek bed to an area that slows, spreads and sinks the flow. Two 1500 gallon rain catchment tanks were installed underground below a patio and provide rainwater irrigation to a “no mow” turf meadow and native plants on lower terraces.