Jeanne Santangelo
Must see! The Bay-Friendly Garden Tour in Marin showcases 11 home gardens in Mill Valley, San Anselmo, Larkspur and Novato May 19, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., with plant sales and garden talks. Diverse microclimates and garden styles are represented. Host gardeners include do-it-yourselfers, native plant enthusiasts, permaculturists and landscape professionals.
Registration by May 11 is required to receive guidebook with directions, detailed garden descriptions and entrance tickets; cost is $10 per guidebook with 36 tickets to share with friends and plant nursery discount coupons up to 20 percent. Register at bayfriendlygardentour.org. Clear driving maps group the gardens for easy travel. Contact info@bayfriendlycoalition.org.
Here are a few highlights of these inspiring and delightful gardens.
Mill Valley
Michael Painter’s garden is one of three Mill Valley gardens featured on the Bay-Friendly Garden Tour. The Painter garden’s five outdoor rooms include 1,000 species of plants: 40-year-old trees, perennials, grasses, vegetable garden, fruit trees, herb garden and trellised grapes, fire-resistant hillside plantings of succulents, and a pond and waterfall that collect rainwater from roof runoff.
Barbara Merino’s lawn conversion by Kathleen Slattery of Gardens and Gables is planted with Australian, New Zealand and California native plants, succulents and grasses. Features a dry creek, flagstone semi-permeable patio and path.
Eric Woodhouse and Jill Thomas’ garden is terraced with stonework steps and shot concrete retaining walls and includes permeable paver driveway, restored stream bank, rain catchment tanks and a “no mow” meadow. Denise Muscarella of Gardenscape Design featured many native habitat plants.
Novato
Charlotte Torgovitsky’s garden next to an oak woodland and open space is alive with birds, butterflies, lizards and Pacific tree frogs. California and Mediterranean shrubs, perennials and grasses bloom year-round. Plant Sale on tour day, Garden talk 1 p.m. Charlotte will talk on propagating plants for a home garden.
Stuart Bunting’s garden features oaks, meandering pathways and views of the wetlands, swales and native plants, including California grapes, Dutchman’s pipe, buckwheat and Cape Mendocino reedgrass.
Lynn von der Werth and Bené da Silva’s cottage garden includes a pervious flagstone patio and deck of sustainably harvested redwood, rain barrels and bio‐swales, drip irrigation, water features and drought-resistant plants that attract wildlife.
San Anselmo
Burr and Jane Purnell, graduates of the Regenerative Design Institute’s permaculture program, created a family-friendly urban permaculture model in their own backyard with playhouse, sandbox, bees, chickens, vegetables, berries, fruit trees, graywater system, worm and compost bins, raised beds, rain catchment and a native plant rain garden, woven willow fence, a cob oven in progress, a solar oven and a chicken tractor (movable coop).
Robin Brandes’ garden features a deck overlooking a rehabilitated creek bank, owl box, perennial and native habitat species. Friend and next-door neighbor Sarah’s garden has a stone patio and low terraces with planters. Succulent beds on the public pathway run along the side.
Larkspur
Iris Gold and Steven Katz’ mini-organic farm borders Larkspur Lagoon with Mount Tam in the background. Containers raise plants above saltwater intrusion, including flowers grown for Ikebana. Featured in Better Homes and Gardens: Small Gardens and Paths. Garden talk 11 a.m., “Edible Landscaping Made Easy” by Avis Licht of Sweetbriar Landscape Design.
Betsy McGee’s lawn was sheet-mulched and planted with cover crops, and is now a mostly native habitat garden with salvaged concrete and woodchip paths. Water use here is extremely low, yet the garden is lush and full.
Marin Brain Injury Network’s large garden features espaliered fruit trees, rainwater retention, owl house, raised beds with edibles, a garden therapy area and a native demonstration garden bordering the Corte Madera Creek Marsh bike path. Plant sale on tour day will benefit MBIN. Garden talks at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. At 11 a.m.: “Soil Testing: You Need to Do It!” by scientist Stephen Andrews. At 1 p.m.: “OK, I Tested. Now What?” Learn how to turn test results into action and build living soil. Local author Annie Spiegelman will sign her book “Talking Dirt.”
Contact Jeanne at
Jeanne@lazygardener.org.
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