Beyond the present green oasis and waterfall, the early sound track was the steady sound of rakes and hand shovels, saws and mallets for the development of this beautiful spot. Our Japanese style garden was originally designed by Hisaichi Harry Tsugawa. It was built in 1959 by members of the Japanese American community of Oakland and the East Bay, supported by the California Association of Nurserymen, the Oakland chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League, and various citizens and businesses.

By the mid 1980’s the garden had suffered from lack of maintenance. Then vice-mayor Frank Ogawa asked Dennis Makishima to bring his students to the garden to improve it. Makishima had initiated and taught the Aesthetic Pruning classes at Merritt College.

Merritt College’s Aesthetic Pruning Club started maintaining this garden in 1985. Now under the direction of Bill Castellon, it continues to provide maintenance and improvements. The Friends of the Japanese Garden was formed to raise funds so that the irrigation system could be installed by the Merritt College landscape irrigation class.

The stunning Japanese Garden fence and gate was made possible in 2009-2011 by a grant from the Creative Work Fund, a program of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation, and support from the Friends of the Japanese Garden. Carpenters for the project were Jay van Arsdale’s Laney College Daiku Dojo students. Van Arsdale has studied this and taught for more than 25 years. For more information about Daiku Dojo, visit, www.daikudojo.org. Construction is not your typical western style nailed fence. This is mortise and tenon work using hand tools, the crafter’s ancient way of doing this joinery work.

As lead carpenter for the project and a Daiku teacher at Laney College (perhaps the only class in the world taught outside Japan) van Arsdale understood that the new fence was an extraordinary gift to the carpenters, the Gardens and Oakland.

The Merritt College Aesthetic Pruning Club provides monthly maintenance and twice-yearly daylong pruning workshops for the garden. This is a group of
current and past students of the College’s Aesthetic Pruning classes.

To rent this garden for private functions, call the Oakland Parks and Recreation Central Reservations Unit at 510-238-3187.

For general information contact

Here’s the thing: habitat gardens are inherently messy! Seedlings are growing underfoot, so conventional weeding and mulching have to be handled with special care. The caterpillars chomp through the milkweed leaves – in a normal garden this would be an unsightly cause for alarm, but for us it’s a sign of success! If they eat here, they lay their eggs here and hatch here.

The first year of the Pollinator Posse project we had just a few butterflies – six by our count. Last year there were about 300 and this year, thanks to our fostering program, we have released about 600 butterflies into the garden.

And fostering – what is that anyway? We find lots of Monarch caterpillars in the garden. To protect them from their many predators, we gather them, and volunteers take them home in mesh cages, feed them milkweed for a few weeks till their go into chrysalis, then wait patiently for the exciting emersion when the butterflies “eclose” from the chrysalis.

Watch for workshops in the garden teaching families how to participate in this early science learning for kids.

Vireyas are a special kind of tropical rhododendron native to islands between Asia and Australia, and they flower throughout the year in coastal California.

They love a frost-free environment. So, we house them in a special sheltered environment in The Gardens at Lake Merritt, in the back of the garden near the citrus grove and the succulent garden. We highlight locally produced hybrids, and selected plants from areas generally unavailable to botanists.

Numbering over 300 species, Vireyas can be found in the wild growing across much of SE Asia, principally in New Guinea, Borneo, Sumatra and the Philippines. Although these are tropical regions, the plants grow mostly in the cool mountainous areas, either as epiphytes in the tall trees of the cloud forest, or in open ground as shrubs. These low altitude vireos are idea for our Oakland climate. As anyone who has visited the San Francisco Botanical Garden’s Cloud Forest area knows, the Bay is most hospitable to these beautiful plants.

The beauty of the vireya has long attracted hybridizers and many excellent cultivars have been developed.

BUY TICKETS HERE!

VOLUNTEER AT THE AUTUMN LIGHTS FESTIVAL HERE!

The festival welcomes over 1,000 children and adults to take a nighttime stroll through the gardens, where they encounter enchanting illuminated art installations set among the flowers and trees. The Autumn Lights Festival is a fundraiser for the Gardens at Lake Merritt, a free public garden that truly is the “Green Heart of Oakland.”

Local artists have been selected and invited to create pieces of art that incorporate light in many forms. Last year, over 1000 people attended, and it was a major fundraiser for the Gardens. People who attend get into the spirit, often creating costumes with light!

The Gardens at Lake Merritt depend on donations and volunteer help to stay open.  It has  provided gardening education and experience to generations of Oaklanders.  Here are a few photos from last year’s event:

Image courtesy of: Greg Linhares www.omnisourceimages.com

Glass Artist: Kim Webster www.kwebsterglass.com
Image courtesy of: Greg Linhares www.omnisourceimages.com