Save the date!
The Botanic Garden is holding an in-person plant sale on Saturday October 7, 2023.
The final plant sale list with many Botanic Garden introductions is available here.
A map showing where different plant categories will be staged is here.
Fall is the best time to plant many California natives.
Choose from a huge selection of California native plants at our annual fall sale to benefit the Garden.
9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Friends of RPBG members only.
Memberships may be purchased starting at 8:30 a.m. at the Botanic Garden on October 7th.
Save time and join now here.
Credit cards accepted.
10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Open to the public.
Sale held at Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Regional Park.
Entrance to the sale will be at the Botanic Garden’s west gate on Anza View Road via Wildcat Canyon Road.
Free parking and no entrance fee
Bring your own small wagon or boxes
Plenty of fun and expert advice!
Credit cards accepted.
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.
