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

If you build it they will come.

The Gardens at Lake Merritt are well-known as a showcase for a plethora of species of flora.  Recently, a leaky, resource-wasting water feature– designed in a day when few questioned the constant draining, cleaning and refilling involved in maintaining decorative ponds– was transformed into a habitat for several species of  fauna– dragonflies, damselflies and tree frogs.

What started as a badge project concept for Eagle Scout, Jordan Soulman,  coalesced around Park Supervisor Tora Rocha’s long-held notion that the Gardens’ mid-20th Century water feature might be more efficiently maintained through the installation of a cutting-edge bio-filtration system.

The project came together quite quickly and took a virtual village to accomplish.

Among the contributing personnel and organizations:

April 26: Gardening 101: Get Your Hands Dirty *(90 minute workshop: 12:00-1:30)

Join us at this hands-on workshop for beginning and limited-experience gardeners. You will plant seeds, transplant seedlings, work with compost and soil in preparation for planting in the ground or a container, and learn how to plan your garden space. There will be handouts on seed starting, composting, planting recommendations and more. There will be time for questions so you learn what you need to know to get off to a successful start.

Master Gardeners Sam Foushee and David Blood, co-coordinators of the Lake Merritt Trials Garden, will lead a team of experienced Master Gardeners to guide you through the basics.

May 10: Growing Great Summer Vegetables

May is a good time to get your summer vegetables into the ground. This talk will build upon what was learned in Gardening 101 last month but focusing more on what varieties work best in our climate and when and how to plant.  Big spaces or small, containers or in the ground, you will learn which vegetables should provide a bountiful yield this summer.

Master Gardener Ann Naffziger has created a “food forest” in her Alameda front and back yards. She grows everything from apples and asparagus to dried beans and zucchini. She’s got bees and chickens too!

June 14: Edible Landscaping: Making it Beautiful and Delicious

Edible Landscaping is about adding attractive food crops into the design of your existing or new landscape. We will discuss herbs, edible flowers, fruit and nut trees, and vegetables that can be grown among ornamental plantings in your yard or in containers. Whether your space is large or small, shaded or in full sun, cement, a staircase, window box or fertile ground, growing edibles can immediately become part of your landscaped environment.

Master Gardeners Jennifer Cardozo, Nancy Litton and Kitty Mindel were all trained in how to create a  successful edible landscape and will share what they have learned with you.

July 12: Managing Pests in your Garden Safely

Want to learn more about what is eating your vegetables? Or what virus killed your tomato plants? And where to find out more when you do have a pest problem in your yard? This is the talk for you. Dennis will help you learn how to identify your bugs and manage them in the least toxic manner. Bring leaf & bug samples!

Master Gardener Dennis Brown will help you see your way through aphids, ants, snails and slugs as you learn about common pests and diseases.

August 9: Planning and Planting a Great Winter Vegetable Garden

Why should you consider growing vegetables in the fall and winter? Learn about the benefits and the wide array of vegetables you can grow in the cooler months. Learn what you need to know to be successful.

Master Gardener Sam Foushee grows beautiful vegetables during all seasons in 2 local community gardens.

Sept. 13: Fall Gardening in the Garden: cover crops, mulching, planting and more

Tips for how to put your garden to bed for winter: cleanup, composting, feeding, planting, etc. Learn how to plant and integrate a cover crop. Both vegetable and perennial gardens benefit from these practices.

Master Gardener David Blood will share knowledge gained from years of careful winter preparation in his home garden in Oakland as well as in the community gardens he has tended.

The Friends of the Gardens at Lake Merritt will be exhibiting at the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show this Wednesday, March 19th through Sunday, March 23rd at the San Mateo Event Center. We will be in Booth #1309 in the Educational Booths section of the Fiesta Hall, and would love to connect with you at the show, so please pay us a visit!

In the meantime, check out the Hot Plant Picks for 2014, the Gardens list, and the show blog which contains a wealth of behind the scenes info.

Rhododendron & Vireyas Garden -

Tucked in a back corner of the garden, under a special wooden shelter, we have the largest outdoor collection of Vireyas in the continental United States. Come visit soon, and prepared to be stunned!

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.

Come join us for a day of service in the gardens. Activities include: weeding, mulching and much MUCH more.

Come and join our community as we celebrate MLK in the Gardens at Lake Merritt.

Download our helpful MLKday Volunteer Flier or email us at gardensatlakemerritt@gmail.com for more information.

Snacks and Refreshments provided by Whole Foods Market.

With Native Bee Specialist Celeste Ets-Hokin

Early spring is the right time to rejuvenate or plant for a soon to be blooming, fragrant and buzzing native bee garden. A premier example of plant selection and pairing can be seen in the new native bee garden overseen by native bee specialist Celeste Ets-Hokin. The bee garden is located in the Pollinator Garden (across from the Edible Demonstration Gardens –look for the Pollinator signs).

“A good bee garden should include a mix of pollen- and nectar-rich annuals and perennials, offering flowers of different colors, sizes, shapes and bloom periods.  And of course you’ll want to make sure that at least some of these plants are California natives.  Native plants are generally four times more attractive than exotic varieties to our native bees,” says Celeste.

To give you a head start, here’s a look at some of the perennials and annuals she’s introduced to the bee garden. Then to learn more about native bees and the creation of their glorious garden in the Gardens at Lake merritt, be sure to read the following article by Celeste, “The BEE-UTIFUL Gardens at Lake Merritt:  We Built It and They Came!”

PERENNIALS

California Natives:

Erigeron glaucus (seaside daisy), “Bountiful” and “Wayne Roderick” cultivars

Grindelia stricta (gumplant)

Penstemon heterophyllus (beardtongue), “Margarita BOP” cultivar

Spheralcea ambigua (desert mallow),

Lupinus latifolius parishii (lupine)

Monardella villosa (coyote mint)

Solidago californica (goldenrod)

Exotics:

Agastache (giant hyssop) – there are some native species, but more difficult to locate

Bulbine frutescens (bulbine)

Coreopsis lanceolata (tickseed)

Calamintha (calamint)

Gaillardia (Arizona blanket flower) “Oranges and Lemons” cultivar

Lavandula (Spanish lavender)

Helenium (sneezeweed)

Nepeta (catmint)

Salvia melissidora (sage)

Salvia uliginosa (sage)

ANNUAL SEEDS:

Best scorpionweed species –

Phacelia tanacetifolia

Phacelia distans

Phacelia cicutaria

Phacelia campanularia

Eschscholzia (California poppy)

Lupinus succulentus arroyo (arroyo lupine)

Gilia capitata (gilia)

Cosmos bipinnatus (cosmos)

Cosmos sulphureus (cosmos)

The BEE-UTIFUL Gardens at Lake Merritt:  We Built It and They Came!

Article by Celeste Ets-Hokin, native bee expert and advocate overseeing

 the Gardens’ native bee garden

There are some 4000 species of bees that originated here in North America, and these native bees are far and away our most important pollinators.  Their pollinating services are vital to the survival of North American plant communities, which in turn provide food and shelter for the many animals in these ecosystems.  Ironically, the more familiar honey bee, an introduced species from Europe, is not included in this group of essential native pollinators.

Like the honey bee, our native bee populations are suffering steep declines nationwide, threatened by habitat loss and pesticide poisoning.   While these trends are alarming to environmental scientists, most of the rest of us aren’t even aware of the existence of native bees, let alone their astonishing diversity or their profound importance to our ecosystems and food webs.

So about four years ago I began working with the Alameda County Master Gardeners to establish a native bee demonstration garden within their section of the Gardens at Lake Merritt.  Our goal was to attract a diversity of native bees to the garden and introduce the public to this amazing and colorful cast of characters.  We hoped to educate gardeners about how easy and rewarding it is to create a bee-friendly garden and participate in the conservation of these critical species.

Beginning in February of 2009, we planted a diversity of California native and exotic plants known to offer good pollen and nectar resources for our native bees.  We added a few nesting blocks for solitary wood nesting bees, and kept much of the area free from mulch, to allow ground-nesting bees easy access to the soil substrate.  Then we waited to see who showed up.

We couldn’t have been more delighted.  Our small efforts were rewarded by a steady stream of native bee visitors from spring through fall, including mason, mining, digger, leaf-cutter, long-horn, sweat, cuckoo and bumble bees.  Our little bee garden was living proof that when you build it, they will come!

Now it’s been just over a year since we moved our demonstration bee garden from the modest section of the ACMG trials area to a larger, sunnier, triangular plot at the center of the Lake Merritt Gardens.  The new site is easily identified by a large stump at one end, drilled with holes for wood-nesting bees, as well as a sign provided by the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, designating the area as a pollinator habitat.

And within a few short months of its establishment, what a glorious pollinator habitat the new location became!  I must admit that on that cold bleak day in January of 2012, when we first transplanted our proven perennials from the old site, we had our doubts about the new garden.  There wasn’t much to see then but an expanse of muddy ground, interrupted here and there with some twiggy clumps holding on to a few sad looking leaves.

But by the end of the year we had seen roughly 80 species of native bees visit the prolific succession of spring, summer and fall blooming plants that soon blanketed the entire plot.  And on any given day there was such an abundance of bees that one visitor to the gardens declared it to be “Bumble Bee Central”! So for all you Doubting Thomas’s out there who think you can’t readily build a bee-friendly garden, think again!

I hope the story of the Lake Merritt bee garden will inspire gardeners everywhere to join us in creating habitat for our VIP (very important pollinators) native bees.  Together we can make the landscape BEE-UTIFUL!

In addition, Celeste has authored an extraordinary resource for true bee and pollinator enthusiasts “Garden Variety Native Bees of North America – Perpetual Calendar.” It is a wealth of stunning photography and pollen and nectar sources.  For more information contact: celeste.ets@comcast.net.