Description of the 10th Annual Gardens Gone Native Tour, a native plant garden tour converted this year into a virtual tour due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In April, the Sacramento Valley Chapter of the California Native Plant Society released on-line for your viewing pleasure a slide-show featuring 23 Central Valley gardens. I had made a mental note at the time to take the virtual garden tour, and I recently did so.
The native plant gardens on the virtual tour are located in:
- Davis (2)
- West Sacramento (1)
- Sacramento (11)
- Elk Grove (1)
- North Highlands (1)
- Carmichael (2)
- Fair Oaks (3)
- Granite Bay (1)
- Folsom (1)
A virtual garden tour is not as much fun as an in-person garden tour, but it does have some advantages as you can:
- take the tour whenever it is convenient for you
- “visit” each of the far-flung featured gardens
I personally would not have ventured out of Sacramento to see one garden in an outlying city – but that’s just me.
SacramentoRevealed.com – All Things Sacramento (from a personal perspective)
2020 Native Plant Garden Tour Slide Show
From the index (Slide 4) you can click on a region (Western, Central, Eastern) or a specific garden to skip forward to that region or garden. Each garden is identified by the first name of the owner and the city where the garden is located.
The landscaping at Bret Harte Elementary School in Sacramento is one of the featured gardens. The garden is the result of a community-initiated effort led by volunteers. The school’s landscaping is also maintained by volunteers.
The slide-show includes icons with each garden description identifying key features. Features include the plants:
- ideal growing conditions (full sun, partial shade, shade)
- attractiveness to birds, butterflies or beneficial insects
- deer resistance
- irrigation needs
Also noted are those garden’s that were professionally designed and installed.
Many of the featured gardens include before and after pictures which I found very interesting. Garden owners also provide comments on their goals for their garden i.e. low water use, low maintenance, blooms year-round, colorful, habitat for wildlife. Other data points of interest include the size of the lot and soil conditions.
If you have been thinking about adding native plants to your landscape or going completely native this is a garden tour you will want to take.
What do you do if you have both a native plant garden that attracts birds and a cat? Check out Slide #226 to see how one homeowner solved that problem – a backyard cat run!
See related blog post: Annual Gardens Gone Native Tour
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