The sale will feature many unusual California native plants from the Botanic Garden’s collection. Bart O’Brien, Garden Director, has written descriptions of a few plants that we’re certain to have in good quantities:
Widely adapted to Bay Area gardens:
Quercus tomentella – our island oak is highly prized broadleaved evergreen tree.
Viburnum ellipticum – deciduous shrub for semi-shaded conditions inland and full sun coast-side with white flowers and showy jet-black shiny fruits in September.
Arctostaphylos edmundsii var. parvifolia ‘Bert Johnson’ – simply the best of the fine-textured low growing manzanitas for smaller gardens and its white winter blooms are blushed pink.
Asclepias species – local milkweeds for our local monarch butterflies.
Mahonia (Berberis) species – wonderful evergreen plants with golden-yellow fragrant flowers that can take difficult garden conditions, including competition from tree roots.
Salvia ‘Celestial Blue’ – full sun, smaller in size that most of our native sage hybrids and equally drought tolerant when established, but with a super-abundance of showy blue flowers and fragrant gray foliage.
Diplacus (Mimulus) species and hybrids – deer-proof, always notable for their colorful flowers produced over a long period of time, full sun near the coast, light shade in hot inland gardens.
For hotter inland gardens:
Arctostaphylos glauca – the best of the larger species of manzanitas, and it features smooth blue-grey foliage.
Chilopsis linearis – the best and showiest summer-flowering small tree to large shrub California has to offer; it is deciduous and we have many cultivars to choose from.
Arctostaphylos canescens – grey leaves are densely covered with short white hairs on this beautiful shrub.
Arctostaphylos pallida – our local rare and endangered manzanita species, propagated from plants in the Botanic Garden’s collection.
Comarostaphylis diversifolia – manzanita relative with attractive racemes of white urn-shaped flowers and bright red fruits in summer that are prized by many birds.
Heterotheca – local native grown from seed from Albany Hill.
Adiantum aleuticum – one of our most beautiful and desirable ferns, with its shiny black stipes and divided foliage, it’s the definition of sophisticated lushness.
New to us: Thuja plicata ‘Whipcord’ – this unusual dwarf mutation of the Canoe Cedar produces a mound of string-like branches to about three feet in height. We grew these as an experiment and it was successful!
And also: Arbutus menziesii – a most beautiful tree for the right conditions, though it’s often fussy to get established.
Natural History Wanderings 
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