Botanic Garden Newsletter June 2025

THE BOTANIC GARDEN NEWSLETTER
June 2025

Park District Survey and Botanic Garden Priorities - Make Your Voice Heard!
Botanic Garden’s 85th Anniversary Celebration: Saturday, August 23!
Butterfly Walks: Saturday, June 21
New Class: Creating Cordage and Knots
Garden Greeter Gatherings
Weekly and Monthly Plant Sales
Tours and June Blooms

Share Your Vision for the Botanic Garden

The East Bay Regional Park District wants your ideas! The Park District is conducting a public survey in preparation for developing a new overall plan. We know you care about the Botanic Garden. Let the District know what a special place this is and how you would like to see it grow into an even more valuable resource for all of us. Survey question #4 directly applies to Botanic Garden interests.

Here are some ideas people are talking about:

• A New and Larger Visitor Center: A welcoming space with modern exhibits illustrating all you can learn from this world-class, native-plant Botanic Garden, as well as room for more classrooms to serve the public and other space to support the work of the Botanic Garden, including research.

• Improved Access and Parking: A larger parking area, restrooms, and a beautiful new entrance to the Botanic Garden along Anza View Road to avoid the dangers of crossing Wildcat Canyon Road.

• Expanded Staff and Facilities: To properly care for the Park District’s 85-year investment in this unique and growing collection of plants and knowledge, the Garden needs more staff. New, modern offices and other workspaces will enable the Garden to further its leadership during this critical time of climate change.

• Demonstration Gardens: Horticulturally-based plantings around a new Visitor Center will demonstrate some of the many California native plants that will thrive in your own gardens or local parks. Accompanying interpretation will illustrate how native plants support a sustainable future, local pollinators, and other wildlife while requiring little water and no chemical fertilizers or toxic pest control.

• Native Plant Nursery: A large Botanic Garden native plant nursery that would supply plants for the parks throughout the District as well as for expanded public sales.

• Diverse Learning Programs: Funding to support a rich program of multi-language and multi-cultural learning that would attract even more of the diverse population of the Bay Area than already visits and enjoys this unique setting.

• Better Transportation: Improved public and/or Park District-funded transportation to the Botanic Garden and other Tilden attractions to make them more accessible to a broader audience.

• Your Ideas! What would you add to this list?

Make Your Voice Heard: How do you envision the future of the Botanic Garden? Fill out the EBRPD survey and share your ideas! Click here to take the EBRPD Survey.

Please do so before the July 31, 2025 deadline.

Celebrate the Botanic Garden’s 85th Anniversary!

On August 23, 2025, Friends of the Botanic Garden will gather to celebrate the Garden’s 85 years of existence. During these years, the Garden has served as a sanctuary for many of the state's rare and endangered plants, a research laboratory for studying the effects of climate change, a seed bank and source of propagated native plants, a classroom for children, and a tranquil place for visitors to wander surrounded by nature’s beauty.

All Friends of the Garden will be receiving invitations to attend this after-hours event in the Garden! Not a member yet? Become a member on the Garden’s website to join the festivities and enjoy all the additional benefits of a Friends membership!

Join Us for Two Butterfly Walks: Saturday, June 21

Join Sarab Seth, the Butterfly Guy, for a guided walk around the Botanic Garden in search of butterflies. Two walks are scheduled for Saturday, June 21, at 1:00 p.m. and at 2:15 p.m. Meet at the Botanic Garden Visitor Center. These walks are free, but reservations are required. Each walk is limited to 10 participants. Registration link will be posted on the Garden web page.

Sarab’s butterfly observations:

Last year there was a nice little explosion in the number of species from the end of May through June. From seeing roughly 10 species in a one-hour visit in the first three weeks of May, we increased our numbers to almost 20 in the first three weeks of June. This year, the explosion seems to be late. The most likely reason is that throughout the season we have not had more than two consecutive days of good butterfly weather (sunny, temperature at least 65 degrees, and not too windy). One or two days of such weather has alternated with longer stretches of sub-optimal weather. This pattern affects butterfly emergence, resulting in fewer butterflies flying on warm days. If days are warmer in June, the number of species should increase for our walks.

California Pipevine Swallowtail (Battus philenor hirsuta) was the star of the show last month. Adults will largely have stopped flying by the time of our June walks, but caterpillars and (possibly) eggs should still be seen.

There should be decent sightings of Acmon Blue (Icaricia acmon), Variable Checkerspot (Euphydryas chalcedona), and possibly Lorquin's Admiral (Limenitis lorquini). Umber Skippers (Lon melane) have been more numerous in our local area this May than they were last year. Their courtship is usually seen in September/October, when their numbers reach a second peak, but there is a chance there will be courting pairs on the June walks. We should also see both Field Crescent (Phyciodes pulchella) and Mylitta Crescent (Phyciodes mylitta).

All these butterflies can be checked out on the Garden website.

For those who cannot make the walks this month, the best Garden location for sighting butterflies should be the large, circular bed in the Channel Island section. Whether you join the walks or come to look for butterflies on your own, it’s helpful to have binoculars; close-focus binoculars work best. The happiest people at the end of the walk are usually the ones with binoculars.

Sarab Seth is a butterfly photographer and docent at the Botanic Garden. He is helping to finalize a new brochure highlighting butterflies found in the Botanic Garden. Sarab's monthly Garden butterfly walks will continue through October.

LEFT: Mylitta Crescent. CENTER: Acmon Blue. RIGHT: Field Crescent. Photos by Sarab Seth.

New Class: Creating Cordage and Knots

Sun Jun 29, 2025
9:30 a.m.—12:30 p.m.

The ability to twist, twine or braid fibers into cordage allowed indigenous cultures to tie their world together. Learn the various techniques of gathering, preparing, extracting and plying of plant materials to create cordage.

$35.00

We'll make a bracelet with your hand-made cordage and see examples of what can be woven with cordage.

Instructor Dino Labiste received his academic degree at California College of the Arts. Dino teaches classes on indigenous skills, Stone Age technology, and wilderness survival competence through his "Skills of the Past" workshops, which include wild plant gathering and usage, fire making, and plant fiber cordage.

Garden Greeter Gatherings

Greeters and docents gathered on a sunny May day in a home garden full of native plants. We were there for a volunteer work party assembling magnifying glasses. These are one of our most popular prizes for children who play our ISpy and Treasure Hunt games during their visit to the Botanic Garden on weekends and holidays.

The attendees had an afternoon of fun, food, lively conversation and productivity. Lanyards and Botanic Garden labels were attached to 300 magnifying glasses. This was the first of a series of potluck work parties in support of the Greeter Table. If you are interested in becoming a Garden Greeter or have questions about the program, contact the Greeter Coordinator, Holly Haugh: greeter_coordinator@nativeplants.org

Weekly and First Saturday Plant Sales

Choose plants propagated by Garden staff and volunteers. Weekly plant sales are every Wednesday, 10:00 a.m.—12:00 noon. First Saturday of the month plant sale hours are 10:00 a.m.—2:00 p.m; June 7 is the date of this month’s Saturday sale. Sales are at the potting shed; enter at the Garden’s west gate on Anza View Drive.

Featured this month: gallon-size pots of Bushrue (Cneoridium dumosum) and Bladderpod (Peritoma arborea). See photos and descriptions below.

Bushrue is an evergreen shrub in the citrus family with small fragrant flowers and reddish fruits that look like tiny oranges. It’s a southern California plant, so can take heat.

Bushrue is a fast growing plant to 4 ft. high and 5 ft wide. It is relatively easy to grow, tolerates a wide variety of soil types, and though drought tolerant, can take some summer water. Its green foliage turns golden in the summer, and will green up again after the first rain. The foliage may cause skin irritation in some people.

Photos by Neal Kramer.

According to Calscape, Bladderpod is one of the easiest California natives to grow. It’s a tough, fast growing shrub that does well in a wide variety of soil conditions, tolerates summer water but can get by with only rainfall.

Photo by Calscape.

Bladderpod is deer resistant and attracts pollinators. It can grow to 6 ft tall and wide and self seeds. Leaves are light green, flowers are yellow clusters and the fruit is a green, papery lantern-like capsule that ages to brown. Fragrant flowers stay on the plant most of the year.

Photo by Zoya Akulova.

June in the Garden

June is an especially beautiful month to visit the Garden, with so much in peak bloom. Enjoy a free docent-led tour on Saturdays at 2:00 p.m. and Sundays at 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. Tours start at the Visitor Center; no reservations needed. Admission to the Regional Parks Botanic Garden, located within Tilden Regional Park, is always free. Directions.

Our friendly volunteers at the Greeters’ Table distribute Garden maps and helpfully answer your questions. They also hand out “I Spy” and “Treasure Hunt” games for children to enjoy the Garden! Free, docent-led group tours can also be scheduled. The tour request form is on the Garden website.

Here are a few of the June sights in the Garden: