Home & Garden Columns

Some promising plant sales and garden events will happen over the next couple of weeks. One thing to remember about plant sales: Most of them accept payment by cash or check only, as it’s not feasible for them to set up a credit-card facility for such infrequent events. So remember your checkbook along with your walking shoes and some cartons or recycling boxes to tote your plants.  

Someday one of these outfits will offer caddy service and will therefore profit immensely. Maybe some local football team will work on commission. In uniform! Advertising! Tight pants!  

Merritt College Landscape Horticulture Department’s monthly sale is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 13 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Kiamara has lots of plants there including native Californians and veggie starts, plus some exotics I’ve never heard of. That’s the sort of thing some of us find irresistible. Get on up there and take a stroll around the department grounds while you’re at it.  

The Santa Clara Valley Chapter of the California Native Plant Society has its native (natch) plant sale Saturday, Oct. 13 too, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. “Scores of species of hard-to-find native plants, seeds, and bulbs suitable for California gardens. Native plant books, posters, and note cards.” Expert advice too, as always, including alternatives to lawns. I guess someone in the South Bay still has a lawn. Scandalous. 

Closer to—in fact, in—Berkeley, The Watershed Nursery will have its Fall Open House also on Saturday, Oct. 13, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Along with “thousands of beautifully lush native plants” and experts to help you choose from them, this one features advice from the Bay-Friendly Garden folks and a workshop with Alrie Middlebrook, co-author of Designing California Native Gardens: The Plant Community Approach to Artful, Ecological Gardens ($45; $25/California Native Garden Foundation members): 13 Ways to Stop Global Warming and Have a Beautiful Garden. Call (510) 548-4714 quick-like-a-bunny to register if there’s space left; maximum is 25 people.  

Friday, Oct. 19, 7:30 to 8:30 p.m., Alrie Middlebrook (busy lady!) and co-author Glenn Keator will sign the above book and talk about “Designing California native gardens with a focus on Bay Area plant communities” at Builder’s Booksource. That one’s free. 

And apparently in celebration of various deserving birthdays, the East Bay Chapter of CNPS will throw its second annual Native Plant Fair at Tilden Park’s Native Here Nursery on Saturday, Oct. 20, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 21, noon to 3 p.m.  

The fair will feature local plants grown at Native Here plus other California natives including hundreds of Douglas iris ready for planting; bulbs grown from locally collected seeds (this patient practice increases the stock of some rare plants); and Californian seeds from the Regional Parks Botanic Garden’s Seedy Friends; books, art by Dianne Lake, Gregg Weber, and Yu-Lan Tong, and Heidi Rand; and crafts including pots by Ginger Markley and Tina Cheung.  

David Bigham, David Margolies, Lyn Talkovsky, and other experts will speak, and a silent auction of special plants, books, and other items culminates on Sunday, Oct. 21 at 2:30 p.m. Volunteers needed! Leave a message at (510) 549-0211, nativehere@ebcnps.org or Elainejx@mindspring.com or just show up any Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday.