East Bay Home and Gardens

East Bay Then and Now: Hillside Club Has Left Mark on Berkeley’s Northside

By Daniella Thompson
Friday December 01, 2006
Few Berkeley landmarks are as repeatedly and unjustly maligned as the Hillside Club Street Improvements in the Daley’s Scenic Park Tract. Designated in 1983, this system of public improvements forms a continuous line that stretches over at least six blocks of Berkeley’s Northside. -more-

Garden Variety: Brooklyn Botanical Garden Book is a Good Passalong

By Ron Sullivan
Friday December 01, 2006
Joe found an interesting book over at the Mechanics’ Institute Library: a Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s “All-Region Guide,” Native Alternatives to Invasive Plants by C. Colston Burrell. The BBG puts out lots of informative short books; this one is a double-sized volume, with lots of color photographs. -more-

About the House: Choosing Among Three Contractor Bids

By Matt Cantor
Friday December 01, 2006
My friend Lisa seems to be the Maven Plus Grande de Berkeley. Everybody’s query-girl (although she’s happily married to a fella). She even gets calls about contractors, which she confesses isn’t exactly her area of greatest expertise. So we’re hanging out and she plays me a message from her friend (We’ll call her Mildred) and it goes something like this: -more-

You Write The Daily Planet

Friday December 01, 2006
It’s time to submit your essays, poems, stories and photographs for the Daily Planet’s annual holiday reader contribution issue, which will be published on Dec. 29. Send your submissions, up to 1,000 words, to holiday@berkeleydailyplanet.com. The deadline is 5 p.m. on Dec. 20. -more-

Osage Orange Trees — A Transplant in Time

By Ron Sullivan, Special to the Planet
Tuesday November 28, 2006
I’m stretching the boundaries of “East Bay” because I just like this odd tree. I first encountered it a few years back, along a dirt road east of Fairfield, where we look for mountain plovers. I spotted a number of unlikely objects on the grassy shoulder: Osage oranges, hedgeballs, Indiana brains, Maclura pomifera fruit. They were strewn along the roadside for yards, under a row of little deciduous trees. -more-