Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour • April 25, May 2, May 16, May 23, 2021, 10am - 3pm

Join the 2021 Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour free online this year via Zoom and YouTube!

Spend four Sundays in the Gardens — April 25, May 2, May 16 and May 23 — with passionate garden owners and the talented designers of the Bay Area’s most beautiful and inspiring landscapes will show us what’s happening in the garden now, feature their favorite natives, describe their favorite native plant gardening resources, and more.

This year’s Tour features 25 Alameda and Contra Costa county gardens, which can be seen on the Tour’s website. You can view photos of each of these gardens, read a description of the garden and print out its plant list at View the 2021 Gardens. You will be able to meet the homeowners and view about half of these gardens live online through Sundays in the Gardens.

This program will be hosted on Zoom, and live-streamed on YouTube. Registration is required. Click here to register for the online tour. Your registration email will contain links to join the live events.

The exemplary landscapes on the Tour hope to inform, inspire and motivate you to incorporate native plants into your own gardens. They contain at least 60% native plants, are pesticide-free, water-conserving, and provide habitat for wildlife.

Renowned ecologist and best-selling author Douglas Tallamy will open this event on Sunday, April 25, at 10:00, after which each garden owner will host a 25 minute long live visit.

Douglas Tallamy is the author of “Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens” and the New York Times bestseller “Nature’s Best Hope”.

Sunday, April 25, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm PST

Gardening for Wildlife

• 10:00 – 10:10 Welcome
• 10:10 – 11:10 Douglas Tallamy will kick off this event with the talk “Nature’s best hope”.
• 11:10 – 11:30 ”Garden as if life depended on it: top Bay Area native plants for wildlife” by Stefanie Pruegel
• 11:30 – 1200 “Ask the Experts” Q and A with Doug Tallamy and local native plant experts Bob Sorenson, Glen Schneider, Kelly Marshall, and Stefanie Pruegel
• 12:00 -12:30 Bob Sorenson’s garden, Orinda: “Bringing nature home” by Bob Sorenson
• 12:30 – 1:00 Nancy Wenninger’s garden, Walnut Creek: “Gardening for birds” by Nancy Wenninger
• 1:00 -1:30 Jen Hurley and Dan Gaff’s garden, Alameda: “Gardening for Wildlife in a Small Garden” by Jen Hurley and Dan Gaff
• 1:30 -2:00 Tour of the Native Here Native Plant Nursery, located in Tilden Regional Park: Gardening with our own, local keystone plants”
• 2:00 – 2:30 “Bridgeview Pollinator Garden:  our own, local ‘Tiny World,'” Oakland: created by May Chen and narrated by Clytia Curley
• 2:30 – 3:00 Pat Rudebusch’s garden, Orinda: “Gardening for birds and bees” by Pat Rudebusch

Sunday, May 2, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm PST

Native Plant Garden Design and Plant Selection

• 10:00 – 10:10 Welcome with Tour Coordinator Kathy Kramer. Details on the day’s schedule
• 10:10 – 10:40 Nancy Niemeyer’s garden, Clayton:  “Practical tips for gardening with California native plants” by Nancy Niemeyer
• 10:40 – 11:00 Kathy Kramer and Mike May’s garden, San Pablo:  “How to use CalScape to select native plants for your own garden” by Ann-Marie Benz, California Native Plant Society
• 11:00 – 11:30  Kelly Marshall’s garden, Clayton: “How to design a native plant meadow” by Kelly Marshall, Kelly Marshall Garden Design
• 11:30 – 12:00 Al Kyte’s garden, Moraga: “Designing for beauty” by Al Kyte
• 12:00 – 12:30  Robin Heyden’s garden, Alameda: “Redesigning a small garden with native plants” by Robin Heyden
• 12:30 – 1:00 “Ground cover manzanitas:  Beautiful, evergreen, low maintenance and water-conserving” by Pete Veilleux, East Bay Wilds
• 1:00 – 1:30 Richmond Museum’ of History’s Cultural Garden, Richmond: “Cultural uses of California native plants” by Melinda McCrary, Richmond Museum of History 
• 1:30 – 2:00 Lauren Webster’s garden, Oakland: “A permaculture approach to California native plants and hillside erosion: retaining rainwater on site, creating a wetland and dry creek bed, and plant selection” by Lois Simonds, Gardening by Nature’s Design
• 2:00 – 2:30  Donna Bodine’s garden, El Cerrito: “Combining natives and edibles” by Donna Bodine, BeeLand Farms
• 2:30 – 3:00 Susan Billings’ garden, El Cerrito:  “From weeds to wildlife: getting started with a native plant garden” by Susan Billings and Sallie Bryan, 4B Garden Design

Sunday, May 16, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm PST

A Potpourri of Inspirational Native Plant Gardens

• 10:00 – 10:10 Welcome with Tour Coordinator Kathy Kramer. Details on the day’s schedule.
• 10:10 – 10:40 Al Kyte’s garden, Moraga: “The dry beauty at summer’s end” by Al Kyte
• 10:40 – 11:00
• 11:00 – 11:30 Wendy Tokuda’s garden, Oakland
• 11:30 – 12:00 Eugene Shabelyanau and Danny Galindo’s garden, Castro Valley: “Showcasing the early bloomer: California lilacs and manzanitas, currants, wildflowers” by Eugene Shabelyanau and Danny Galindo
• 12:00 – 12:30 “Upright manzanitas:  Beautiful, evergreen, low maintenance and water-conserving” by Pete Veilleux, East Bay Wilds
• 12:30 – 1:00 Edible native plants for the home garden” by Rick Flores, U.C. Santa Cruz Arboretum
• 1:00 – 1:30 Ed Ellebracht’s garden, Fremont
• 1:30 – 2:00 Susan and Bill Teefy’s garden, Castro Valley
• 2:00 – 2:30 Jamie Marantz’ garden, Oakland: ” Flatlands makeover: conquering concrete, and creating places for pollinators, people and Paloma (the dog)” by Jamie Marantz
• 2:30 – 3:00 Mardi Sicular-Mertens’ garden, Berkeley: “Gardening for Wildlife” by Mardi Mertens

Sunday, May 23, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm PST

A Potpourri of Inspirational Native Plant Gardens

• 10:00 – 10:10 Welcome with Tour Coordinator Kathy Kramer. Details on the day’s schedule.
• 10:10 – 10:40 – Al Kyte’s garden, Moraga: “Beauty beyond the bloom” by Al Kyte
• 10:40 – 11:10 Dan Wanket’s garden, Concord
• 11:10 – 11:40  Susan Friedman’s garden, San Ramon: “Native plant garden design” by Susan Friedman, Susan Friedman Landscape Architecture
• 11:40 – 12:10 Melissa Feudi’s garden, El Cerrito
• 12:10 – 1:00 “Making Nature’s City: using historical ecology and urban ecology to bring biodiversity back to our cities” by Robin Grossinger from the San Francisco Estuary Institute
• 1:00 – 1:30 Cindy Simons’ garden, Castro Valley
• 1:30 – 2:00  Kat Weiss’ garden, Livermore: “Transitioning from non-native ornamentals to natives” by Kat Weiss of Kat Weiss Landscape Design
• 2:00 – 2:30 – Carol Hardesty’s garden, Livermore: “Still have that 80’s lawn surrounded by mature non-native plantings? Time to re-envision and sheet mulch to a new native garden” by Kat Weiss
• 2:30 – 3:00 Bridgeview Pollinator Garden, Oakland: “Life and Death on Milkweed” created by May Chen and narrated by Clytia Curley

Since 2005, the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour, together with passionate native plant gardeners located throughout Alameda and Contra Costa counties, has set the standard for sustainable landscaping in Northern California. The Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour shows that native gardens are beautiful, can be designed on any budget—and conveys the idea that each of us plays a critical role in supporting biodiversity.

Since the Tour’s inception more than 200,000 garden visits have been made to native plant gardens showcased on the Tour. If you can help support the Tour, please make a donation on the Tour’s website or on GoFundMe.

A very special thank you to the garden hosts and designers for opening their wonderful gardens to the public, and to volunteers for sharing their knowledge and enthusiasm with visitors. We are deeply grateful for the support of sponsors, including local businesses, agencies, and non-profits and individuals.