We just bought a 1926 house in North Oakland (near Emeryville). The sellers flipped it and did a quick landscaping job. I've mapped what's there and have a pretty clear idea of what I want, but I'd love a reality check from people who've done this in the Bay Area.

What's planted now (all young, planted within the last year or so, except the pear):

1. Backyard: big established pear, ​NEW - apricot, plum, olive, lime, blackberry in a planter, Japanese maple, some lavender, dwarf fountain grass, dwarf olives
2. Side street strip : 3 ​Japanese strawberry trees (Arbutus 'Marina'), ​an old established smoke bush, and a tree I think is an ornamental pear
3. Corner bed: olive, crape myrtle, NZ flax, fountain grass, monkeyflower, lavender
4. Front planter by the steps: coral bark maple, hebes, dwarf olives, lavender
5. Street trees​ on sidewalk : 2 purple-leaf plums

What I want:

1. More food: avocado, persimmon, pomegranate, Meyer lemon, blueberries, curry leaf, herbs, a couple of veggie beds and a gourd arch
2. Privacy for upper-floor windows facing the side street and a neighbouring apartment building, without losing winter sun
3. A tidy, low-water front that helps resale
4. Low maintenance: drip on a smart timer, groundcover instead of bare dirt
5. ​Avoid messey trees along the street, like Arbutus 'Marina'​ , which I know drop fruit that create a mess.

Constraints:

1. Power lines along both streets and a utility pole right outside the side fence
2. Some beds are tiny (one by the pole is maybe 18" wide)
3. The side-street shoulder is bare dirt, no sidewalk

My questions:

1. Old house, ​- is a soil test needed before planting edibles in the ground
2. Do I need a landscape designer, or is a good gardener/landscape contractor enough if I've already picked the plants?
3.  If you already know what you want, what's the best approach? Pay a designer for a one-time site consult, then hire a contractor to install? Or go straight to contractors with my plan?
4. What's your take on keeping the flipper's plantings? Things like olives (fruit drop), strawberry trees (messy fruit, under power lines), and purple-leaf plum street trees. Keep what's healthy, or start fresh while everything's still young?
5. Any East Bay designers, contractors or nurseries you'd recommend for edible gardens?

I've attached a layout of the current garden. Thanks in advance!

Just moved into a new spot with a small dirt patch in the front (about 15’x8). Its currently dirt, a fire cactus and some Jade, and I’d really like to cover it with something so my dog isn’t constantly walking in the dirt.

I‘ve read that frogfruit needs some heavy watering at the start and from there you can kind of let it do its thing; so should I wait until the wet season gets closer? Seems like it’s almost a good time for this.

Sad report on a community garden/native plant nursery in San Jose... more info on their Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/p/DeihXAeDsYx

Hey everyone, there is a very large hellstrip in my neighborhood that borders a large church. The church is on a hill and has a large paved lot that drains rainwater into the hellstrip which goes directly into the street.

It doesn’t necessarily cause major flooding but it’s a lot of wasted opportunity to catch rainwater, is currently filled with crabgrass, and is a huge eyesore in our community. Put nicely, it has a LOT of potential. Also, the church doesn’t want anything to do with maintaining or improving the hellstrip.

The thing is, it needs to be regraded (the soil is higher than the sidewalk so soil gets washed out into the sidewalk during even a light rain), probably should become more of a swale or rain garden, and is so large that I myself don’t have the money or woman power to do this on my own.

I guess I’m wondering if anyone has embarked on getting their city’s public works department involved in improving a hellstrip, what that process looks like, and if there are any programs I could apply to to help fund this project.

Thank you!!

I'm planting lots of native trees/shrubs etc, but I also need a grassy area for kids to run around in semi-coastal SoCal, to replace what's currently plastic turf. It doesn't need to tolerate soccer, but needs to be ok with being walked on and not need tons of fertilizer or water.

I've tried several different native seeds and plugs, including Agrostis pallens, Carex praegracilis, native fescues, etc. So far what's done best of what I've planted is UC Verde buffalograss; pretty much everything else got fried in the full sun with 1-2x/week water.

However, the most consistently green grass was what the iNaturalist app identified as Elymus triticoides, or native wild rye, which popped up in my test plots as a volunteer, or maybe interloping in my seed mixes. Unfortunately it's too tall to make a good play area.

Greenlee sells what's supposed to be a smaller, neater version of this called Leymus triticoides "Lagunita", but I can't find any to test with a reasonable minimum order size. Has anyone tried this version? How is it with moderate foot traffic and low water? How's it look?

Open to any types of native plants really. Have a few barren areas in my yards that I can use. Located in Anaheim and have very fast draining soil.

Makes me so happy to see all the potential new plans nestled together like aliens coming to earth in their space pod

I’m always amazed at how many pepper trees I see around. They have got to be the messiest trees. My neighbor has one that hangs over my yard and my poor lippia is being smothered. I clean this weekly and it’s never enough. I had a bunch of yarrow that also was smothered to death. Any ideas?

I saw that it seems like it's going to rain this week, so I'm curious as to whether I should sow some native wildflower seeds that I got just before the storm or whether it's too early in the season. I'm mainly concerned that they'll dry out before the next rainstorm since I haven't got any way to irrigate them if I sowed them in the front yard. At the same time, I'm worried that some of the non-native grasses may start popping up after the rain and make it difficult to get these native seeds established if I planted them later in the season (like around rain in Halloween or Thanksgiving, which seem to be the more typically recommended times). I am located in the South Bay in the Bay Area. Native plant gardening is something that I'm a bit new too (somewhat ironic, since I studied environmental sciences in college), so I'd appreciate any advice or help. Thanks!

So excited to see temps getting cooler and even some rain on the horizon in the SF East Bay. Went wild at East Bay Wilds as part of the Bring Back the Natives Tour Native Plant Extravaganza—my first time there. Fantastic selection and great prices. And they finally have a searchable inventory online!

Plant list (started my top priories so I grabbed them first LOL):

* Ceanothus thyrsiflorus variety ‘Snow flurry’
* Heteromeles arbutifolia 'Toyon'
* Holodiscus discolor ‘Ocean Spray’
* Garrya elliptica 'Evie'
* Sambucas mexicana ‘Blue Elderberry’
* St. Catherine’s lace buckwheat
* Physocarpus capitatus 'Pacific ninebark' (1 gal)
* Philadelphus lewisii ‘Mock Orange’
- Heuchera 'Maxima'
* Ribes aureum 'golden currant'
- Aristolochia californica Dutchman's Pipe
- Solidago velutina ssp. Californica 'California goldenrod'
- Symphoricarpos albus Snowberry
- Frangula californica Eve Case Coffeeberry
- PCH Iris Surprise Colors
- Salvia 'Dara's Choice' Dara's Choice Sage
- Eriogonum crocatum Conejo Buckwheat
- A1k Eriogonum fasciculatum California Buckwheat
- Eriogonum arborescens ‘Santa Cruz Island buckwheat’
- Monardella villosa 'Coyote Mint'
- Compact white sage
- Verbena lilacina 'De La Mina'
- Salvia 'Pozo Blue'
- Salvia spathacea Hummingbird sage
- Penstemon 'Margarita BOP’
- Symphyotrichum chilense 'Plumas Purple' Plumas Purple Aster
- Epilobium canum 'Calistoga' Calistoga California Fuchsia

I planted a populus fremontii in my yard (about 30 feet from the house) in order to get some fast shade. It's been about 2 or 3 years and the tree appears more collumnar, (about 15-18 ft tall) than spreading or round. Is this just because it's still young, or should it be trimmed/trained into a round shape? The spouse is wondering if we should trim the leader so it bushes out more, but I don't want to do anything that will endanger the long term health of the tree.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Going to plant these on Tuesday but just want to make sure they are healthy.

Located in Pasadena with clay-ish soil. Planted the first round in January 2026. Lost a Bee’s Bliss salvia in this area, and a mirabilis laevis. I’m planning the second year of planting now—what would you suggest for this area?

Edit: currently planted
Terra Seca sage
San Bruno Lady and Twin Peaks coyote brush
One yarrow
Fiesta marigold monkeyflower
Canyon gray sagebrush
A crape myrtle tree
Bahiopsis laciniata
Bush anemone (not a lot of growth this year TBD)
Apricot mallow
Palmer’s penstemon (grew a bunch but didn’t flower last season)
Dark Star ceanothus
Ghostly manzanita

Are these ants going to kill my Daras Choice Salvia? Anything I can do about it?

What tall, narrow-ish plant could I grow along this wall that would be appreciated by birds and pollinators?

Hiding the view of the new neighbor’s shed would be a plus.

I have a 15x20 foot space in Los Angeles. It’s zone 10b full-sun and bad dirt (compacted, 50% clay, 40% sand, 10% silt.) I’m looking for some non-rhizome-spreading natives that are easy for a first time gardener to play with as I learn what I really want from my space. I’d love some color in the yellow, red, and purple categories.

Thank you for any ideas on specific plants I might buy and learn about!

Hi everyone! I’m in La Mesa (Zone 10b - loamy soil that doesn’t drain great but not any clay here) and recently removed about half my grass to make room for California native plants. I’m excited about creating a beautiful garden that supports local wildlife and pollinators, but I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of researching plants and have officially arrived at decision paralysis. 😂

I’ve been looking through native plant websites (CalScape, moose creek etc), but I’m having a hard time figuring out what will actually thrive in my space. Information about plant height, water needs, and shade tolerance seems to vary quite a bit depending on where I look!

My biggest challenge is that this area gets about six hours of sun in the summer but is mostly shaded in the winter because of the deck. Unfortunately, I don’t have the budget to hire a landscape designer, so I’m hoping some local gardeners might be willing to help a neighbor and share recommendations based on their own experience growing natives here!

I know every garden is different, but hearing what’s actually worked for you would be SO helpful! TIA so much for any suggestions or advice! I’d really appreciate the help. 💚

EDIT: I wanted to say thank you to all the native plant fans who made suggestions for my difficult spot! I’m encouraged and excited to “experiment” even if a few plants don’t make it - I know the local pollinators and birds really appreciate it too!!! 🙏🪴

First time pruning my bush poppy since I planted it 4 years ago. I mostly cut back the branches that were low to the ground since those looked like they had some fugal growth on the leaves. Nice to get more airflow around the base.

I have another one (D. rigida) on the other side that I will be pruning back too. That plant ended up being more of a mounded shape.

All the Eriogonum nudum - robust form that I seeded last year are finally (kind of) starting to wind down their flowering and on the nodes of the inflorescence there are sometimes little plantlets between them!

This is happening on both my front yard ones and back yard ones so wanted to know if anyone thought this could be false vivipary? Sort of a cool way this species or form can reproduce and clone itself?

Their stems were around 5-6 feet from being sown last September-October so rapid growth! Maybe the long stems can arch down and these guys can root in the wild? Food for thought :D

First time I've had this happen, just got this plant from the nursery in early september and threw it in a giant pot, super gritty mix. Haven't touched it since and it seems super happy.

Just planted on Day 1 of rain (and some on day 2) so trying to keep those alive. My dog already dug up 2 plants so she could lay in the cool dirt of the planter bed.

Just introducing myself! Long time lurker, first time poster. My wife and I are avid amateur gardeners in the North Bay (9b) and have a native garden that we've built from the ground up over the last 4+ years. It's finally filling out (our toyons have absolutely taken off) and we're looking forward to learning from and sharing with the community! For fun, photo is of my wife's design of a California poppy plush, part of a group of plushies of seeds and flowers.