Bringing Back the Natives: 2026

Since 2020, the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour has been available in both in-person and online formats, in response to COVID. This year the tour returned to its original format—available only in person! This would be my first time to actually visit the beautiful gardens (up to now I've only seen them via Zoom or YouTube). I immediately thought of my Aunt Char, and invited her to experience several of the gardens with me. Bayside tours were available on Saturday, and Inland tours were available on Sunday.

Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour is back for 2026!

With 72 gardens featured on the tour, it is important to have a plan. I don't think it would be possible to visit them all over the two-day period! Luckily the Bringing Back the Natives team provides excellent resources for identifying your top priorities. Planning materials include garden descriptions, maps showing the location of gardens, a downloadable Google map with all the garden sites identified, and a matrix showing all the features for each garden and green home. Once you register, you receive the addresses for the garden. When putting together our custom tour, I selected several gardens in the Albany and El Cerrito area (Bayside). The gardens ranged from close to the coast to all the way up into the hills.

Native plants in full bloom

Dutchman's Pipevine with informative signage

Pipeline swallowtail caterpillar (black and orange)

The first gardens that we visited were close to the coast and rich with native plants that thrived in their environments. Many of the gardens posted laminated signs that identify the plant, provide habitat and host information, and often a QR code for obtaining more information. For example, we saw signs for Dutchman's Pipevine (Aristolochia californica), which indicated the vine is a host for the pipevine swallowtail butterfly.

Aunt Char studying the plants that surround a water feature

A water feature adds so much to the landscape

This yard has chickens!

Further up in the hills, we saw more native plants all with informative signage. One home had installed black-out shades that protect birds from flying into the windows.

The black-out shades mitigate birds from hitting the windows

Native plants growing in the yard ,with helpful signage

Monarch chrysalis hanging on a raised bed (what a beautiful color)!

After several gardens, Aunt Char and I retreated to Fat Apples in El Cerrito for refreshment. We each had a slice of olallieberry/raspberry pie topped with French vanilla ice cream and a big glass of water to restore our energy. We have enjoyed many garden visits together over the years (I think Filoli is our favorite), as well as excursions to the San Francisco Garden Show at the Cow Palace in Daly City and the San Mateo County Event Center in San Mateo. Neither of us are particularly good at gardening, but we are both passionate about seeing them!

Hillside garden with hardscape and paths

Shady hillside plantings provide a serene entry way

Landscape with a view (notice the Bushmallow shrub)

Once rejuvenated we headed higher up into the hills for our final garden stop. This property had commanding views of the bay, great hardscape and paths, and the most serene plantings to the home's hillside entrance. We were  quite taken with the Eastern Bewildering Bushmallow shrub with its lovely pink flowers and sage green foliage (note to self: find out where this native plant is sold).

Native plants live here!

Aunt Char and I had so much fun visiting gardens on the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour. We saw beautiful plants, innovative ways to handle challenging garden sites, and wonderful garden details. We learned a lot from this first experience visiting the gardens in person. We'll use that experience next year to visit more Bayside gardens, and expand our range out to the Inland gardens.