In the News

Bart O'Brien, our director, is the 2022 recipient of AHS highest honor (American Horticultural Society) 2022

The American Horticultural Society’s highest award, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Award is given to an individual who has made significant lifetime contributions to at least three of the following horticultural fields: teaching, research, communications, plant exploration, administration, art, business, and leadership. Named after Liberty Hyde Bailey (1858–1954), horticulturist, educator, author. First awarded in 1958.

The winner of this year’s Liberty Hyde Bailey Award, Bart O’Brien, has been a leading figure in Western horticultural circles for more than four decades. “He has tirelessly promoted California native plant horticulture in particular as well as helped to conserve the state’s incredible biodiversity,” says Carol Bornstein, former director of the Nature Garden at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum. “He also is an extraordinary plantsman, with extensive knowledge of plants from California as well as other Mediterranean climate regions and beyond.”

New rock garden opens in Tilden (Berkeleyside) 2022

A new rock garden inspired by natural rock outcrops in the high eastern Sierras and crevice gardens in Colorado opened Saturday in Tilden Regional Parks Botanic Garden.

The Crevice Garden, measuring just 50 feet by 40 feet, is the newest addition to the 82-year-old, 10-acre botanic garden, which prides itself on maintaining an extensive collection of rare, threatened and endangered California native plants. The new rock garden highlights native alpine plants from the high Sierra Nevada region of California.

Bart O'Brien, our director, has received CNPS highest honor (California Native Plant Society) 2018

In recognition of exceptional contributions to California’s native plants, CNPS has named three long-standing members as the newest CNPS Fellows: Larry Levine, Bart O’Brien, and Dieter Wilken. CNPS Fellow is the highest honor CNPS awards its members.

“I used to bash on California native plants until I went on a tour with Bart O’Brien. Welcome me to the nunnery as your newest convert,” a Yelp reviewer as captured in Pacific Horticulture Magazine. One of California’s leading experts in native plant horticulture, Bart’s impact is felt statewide. A long-time member and former president of the CNPS Santa Clara Valley Chapter, he is the current director of the the Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Berkeley.

Protecting California’s Flora (Pacific Horticulture)

It was a stormy March afternoon, but the rain had temporarily let up. As Michael Uhler knelt down next to a small plant and gently pulled the foliage back to show off several silky yellow flowers he said, “It just started blooming this week.” The unusual blooms, with petals curling back like bird feathers, belonged to a rare and endangered plant called Tuolumne fawn lily (Erythronium tuolumnense). In the wild, the plant grows in a single part of the Sierra Nevada and can be found nowhere else in the world. Michael, the gardener who manages the Sierran collection at the Regional Parks Botanic Garden, says that for many people, visiting this garden may be the only opportunity they will ever have to see rare California plants like the Tuolumne fawn lily.

Sex and shrubbery: Presidio biologists seek mates for SF’s loneliest plant (SF Chronicle) 2018

Somewhere in the Presidio — exactly where, the National Park Service isn’t saying — a life-and-death struggle is playing itself out. It’s a tale of secrecy and of survival. It’s also a tale of sex. Just because the sex is between plants doesn’t make it dull. The struggle is over nothing less than the fate of an entire species, in this case a rare plant called the Franciscan manzanita. That’s a plant so rare that it was long thought to be extinct in the wild. There’s only one surviving specimen of it in the wild, and it lives a lonely life in a corner of the Presidio, in a sort of botanical witness-protection program.

Botanical Gardens Bloom around the Bay (Napa Valley Register) 2018

Whether you’re an avid all-round gardener, strictly an orchid enthusiast or simply someone who embraces “green therapy” and gets out into nature for the health of it, botanical gardens are great sources for new plants or gardening supplies, educational materials and inspiration for garden design. Plus, most offer lovely walking paths and places for quiet reflection. Napa is situated amid a bevy of botanical gardens large and small, and spring is the perfect time to visit those you’ve enjoyed before or discover new ones. Most gardens offer seasonal exhibits, special events, tours and workshops. A bonus: Many of the gardens mentioned here hold spring plant sales. Check with those that interest you for hours and admission fees.

A Tour of the Tilden Park Botanical Garden or The Flora of California Condensed (In Defense of Plants) 2017

In this episode, In Defense of Plants is going back in time a bit to my visit to San Francisco. What you are about to hear is a tour of Tilden Park's wonderful botanical garden whose purpose is the collection, growth, display, and preservation of the native plants of California. This was easily one of the most impressive living collections I have ever seen.

Native Plant Sale proves timely in Changing Climate (East Bay Times subscription required) 2016

The Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park knows that lots of people are planting natives for any number of reasons, whether for providing habitat, creating pollinator or show gardens, or replacing a lawn and reducing water use.Whatever the reason, the garden's Spring Native Plant Sale on April 16 is a source of low-growing plants and perennials, grasses and ferns, bulbs and annuals, trees and shrubs, evergreens, and deciduous plants; pretty much the full range of anything a gardener might need. Meeting the growing demand for native plants is one reason behind the sale, another is the opportunity to get people to visit the Garden and realize what's there."

After 50 years, a rare desert plant blooms in Tilden Park (Berkeleyside) 2016

After 50 years of quietly minding its own business at the Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park, a rare desert plant by the name of “giant nolina” has started flowering — probably for the first time ever. The giant nolina, also known as giant beargrass, is a California native plant found only in the Kingston Mountains of the eastern Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County, according to the Botanic Garden. There are in fact two nolina plants at the garden, and they were collected by the Garden’s founding director, James Roof, and a Garden staff member, Walter Knight, from the area near Beck Springs in the Kingston Mountains back in 1966.

Berkeley Hills Site a Haven for Endangered Plants (East Bay Times subscription required) 2014

It was like stumbling across a California condor in the wild, only this rare find was an extinct shrub, and it sent shoots of excitement through the native plant community. California native plant champion Bart O'Brien was new as director of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden in the Berkeley hills when he got a chance to weigh in on discovery of the last wild Franciscan manzanita. Thought to be extinct, the Franciscan manzanita plant got the TV news cameras rolling which, in turn, put a spotlight on the garden itself. Rediscovered during a highway construction project near the Golden Gate Bridge, the shrub has also put a light on all things native plant. And the need is urgent to save California's native plants, as one-quarter to one-third are endangered in some fashion, O'Brien has said. The Regional Parks Botanic Garden, within Tilden Regional Park's Wildcat Canyon in the Berkeley hills, is one place of refuge for them." The garden has many rare native specimens, such as the Santa Lucia fir, the pine hill flannelbush, and the Antioch dunes evening-primrose. The garden is devoted to the collection, growth and display of native plants, including the Franciscan manzanita, which has grown there (outside of its wild habitat) for seven decades.

All aflutter: Berkeley insect lovers celebrate 40th year counting butterflies (Berkeleyside) 2014

A hummingbird whirrs by, as a squirrel flicks its tail, flirting. A robin fluffs its feathers after bathing in the stream. Leopard lilies, columbines, even the cacti are in full summery bloom. But today, at the Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park, we’re here for the butterflies. Alan Kaplan, an entomologist, educator, and retired Tilden Park ranger, meets me at the garden’s gate, where, already, I have spotted maybe five different types of butterfly, from a teensy so-called “blue” to a glamorous pipevine swallowtail. Still, there are rules for counting butterflies in nature. So Kaplan gives me the rundown of the day’s event — the Fourth of July Butterfly Count (currently run by the North American Butterfly Association (NABA) — held for its fortieth continuous year in Berkeley.

Botanic Garden a Resource for Drought Gardening (East Bay Times subscription required) 2014

As winter heads toward spring with little sign of rain, gardeners' thoughts turn to how to cope with drought conditions and how California native plants can be used in light of water-challenged seasons. A good place to turn for suggestions and advice is the Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Regional Park in the Berkeley hills, where new manager Bart O'Brien has ideas for East Bay gardeners.

Botanic Magic (Bay Nature) 2007

From a speeding car, the Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park is a quick blur of green surrounded by a chain-link fence with a single sign bearing its cumbersome, dryly bureaucratic name. But there is concentrated, elemental magic in this place that can’t be sensed from a drive-by or a Google Earth flyover, a photo or a written description. Its ten acres, nestled in the canyon of Wildcat Creek, hold much of the plant diversity of California’s wild landscapes and can charm even the first-time visitor with a wonderful and mysterious spell.