Gardening in San Francisco Bay Area

Do you live in or around the San Francisco Bay area? There’s plenty of great gardening resources around the area for you. In order to help you out, we’ve complied a section full of links related to gardening sites near or around San Francisco. This will help give you a jump start on your gardening, or can steer you in a proper direction if additional resources, material, or questions arise in your region.

The San Mateo & San Francisco Master Gardeners are a dedicated, trained group of gardening and horticulture volunteers. Their objective is to provide home gardeners and community organizations the knowledge and skills to create a healthy environment for the counties.

My Garden Blogs features an exhaustive blog dedicated to gardening in San Francisco Bay Area. It has listings of events related to gardening and links to other helpful gardening resources.

The Inverness Garden Club is a non-profit corporation organized exclusively for charitable and educational purposes. Their objective is to stimulate the knowledge and appreciation of gardening, provide college scholarships to qualified West Marin residents, promote the beautification of Inverness local community, and protect and preserve native plants and habitats. The organization also hosts many gardening events through out the year.

The University of California has a listing of gardening events and courses for Alameda county master gardeners.

The Oakland Tribune Gardening columnists Katheleen Cotta and Nikki Justino highlight activities organized by Sorensdale Recreation Center garden in Hayward with assistance from Alameda County Master Gardeners.

In My Bay Area Garden, a gardening expert in Sunnyvale shares her knowledge about various plants and highlights the significance of various aspects of gardening like the ubiquitous fence in creating a microclimate around plants.

The Elizabeth F. Gamble Garden is a historic urban estate with formal, woodland and demonstration gardens around a 1902 Colonial Revival house. The non-profit horticultural organization offers classes, Spring Garden Tour, and other events for Palo Alto community.

The San Francisco Botanical Garden Society is non-profit community created to actively support the Garden with fundraising, promotion and advocacy, and to provide outstanding botanical, horticultural and environmental education opportunities for people of all ages. The organization aspires to create, sustain, and interpret a distinct, documented collection of Mediterranean, mild temperate and tropical cloud-forest plants displayed in designed gardens and habitats, and to provide a place of natural sanctuary.

The objective of the non-profit University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley is to develop and maintain a diverse living collection of plants to support teaching and worldwide research in plant biology, further the conservation of plant diversity, and promote public understanding and appreciation of plants and the natural environment. It has a diverse plant collection including many rare and endangered plants.

Tony Tomeo is a professional consulting horticulturist, and International Society of Arboriculture Certified Arborist. He writes regular columns in prominent Silicon Valley newspapers. Tony shares his horticultural expertise with gardening enthusiasts through his website.

Gardens at Heather Farm is a non-profit education center in Walnut Creek, which serves as a living museum, a wildlife habitat, and an outdoor classroom. The site also includes photos, information about membership and schedule of events.

Common Ground is a non-profit nursery in Palo Alto, CA, offering classes on organic gardening, as well as organic gardening supplies including seeds, vegetable and flower seedlings, herbs, composts, mulches, fertilizers, natural pest controls, tools, books and publications.

In Mecury News, Master Gardener Rebacca Jepson answers reader’s queries on plants, trees and soil tilting.

Here you can obtain details about the Master Gardener program in San Joaquin County. The Master Gardener program includes training and developing a core of volunteers who will engage in outreach efforts directed at educating residents on gardening, landscapes, pesticides and fertilizers, water conservation and overall landscape health. Master Gardeners are also involved in the planning and preparation of school-based and community-based gardens.

Going Native Garden Tour is a community-based tour, which is free of charge to the public upon successful registration. Each tour features about 45 gardens, most of them private home gardens, which are open on tour day for viewing by the public in a do-it-yourself, open house format. The objective is to demonstrate reduced water use, reduced chemical and pesticide use, improved habitat, and the unique aesthetic appeal of gardens designed with California native plants.

DougMoran.com – This San Francisco-based website has links to local nurseries, garden stores, local gardens, arboretums, and articles on native plants. The site includes helpful resources to all aspects of gardening and management of unwanted greens.

The Santa Clara Valley Urban Runoff Pollution Prevention Program educates people in Santa Clara County about the value of using less toxic methods of pest control and provides them with resources to participate in Integrated Pest Management Program.

Stop Waste features helpful resources to Bay Area gardening, integrated pest management agencies, articles and photos on native plants and wildlife gardening, and list of recommended books on gardening.

Weekend Gardener includes advice for all levels of gardeners, with how to videos as well as how to articles for maintaining a garden. The website also offers ideas, pictures, and articles by industry professionals.

LoveToKnow Garden provides information on garden plants and everything related to the art of gardening. It is a comprehensive guide with information on growing seasons, conditions and care for the flowers, shrubs and trees. Writers associated with the site regularly add new plant profiles, gardening articles and reviews.

The Exploratorium provides interactive online exhibits and exhibitions, activities, and Webcasts, related to gardening in San Francisco.

The aim of the American Begonia Society is to encourage and promote interest in begonias and other shade-loving plants, to standardize the nomenclature of begonias, and to gather and publish information in regard to kinds, propagation, and culture of begonias and companion plants.

Bay-Friendly provides tips to gardening and landscaping specific to the natural conditions of the San Francisco Bay Area Watershed. The Bay-Friendly Gardening Program offers the home gardener tools for creating a beautiful and healthy Bay-Friendly garden.

In Gardening with Natives, a San Jose-based gardener narrates his experiences of gardening with native plants.

This webpage features links to garden centers in San Francisco, California.

SFGRO aims to address the needs of community gardeners and to enhance the experience of gardening as a source of beauty, pleasure, food and community for all San Franciscans.

Garden for the environment is spread over one-acre in San Francisco, which is used for education and demonstration using workshops, internships, and school fieldtrips.

The SFGC is a Non-Profit Organization that provides aid and benefits to horticultural activities, and aims to beautify the City of San Francisco and to preserve scenic and historic points of interest.

Golden Gate Garden is an expert gardener’s blog that gives information about growing plants specific to San Luis Obispo, and inland as far as Walnut Creek or San Jose areas.

This site features information, tickets ordering, seminars, photos, for the annual flower show to be held in San Francisco, California, at the Cow Palace.

In Western Gardeners, a master-gardener posts articles filled with environmentally-friendly tips and how-to’s for growing native plants as well as other varieties of plants.

The San Fransisco Examiner features useful articles with tips for gardening in the San Francisco area.

The Objective of The San Francisco Orchid Society is to foster the culture and cultivation of orchids and to promote education of its members and the public about orchids. SFOS offers a forum to exchange information from exhibitions, publications, and the Internet, maintenance of a reference library, and participation in worldwide orchid activities.

OBUGS is an Oakland based non profit organization which aims to strengthen families and build community through educational programs offered in a network of neighborhood gardens, green spaces and farmers markets.

Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative is composed of diverse community garden members who share a common commitment to organic, urban agriculture and access to healthy food for all residents of Berkeley. The organization assists and protects existing gardens, facilitates the formation of new gardens, and advocates food security initiatives in our local schools and city.

Bountiful Garden Foundation is a non-profit organization which promotes healthy, sustainable agriculture in the local community by raising premium produce that can be converted into fundraising for local and international humanitarian organizations.

ProgressiveGardening.org provides solutions to common garden and plant problems, with an emphasis on earth-friendly and water-wise methods. Also includes a directory of garden supply retailers.

Freemont Garden Club is a community of Freemont based gardeners who share a variety of special interests such as organic gardening, rose gardening, vegetable gardening, pool and pond gardening, and low maintenance gardening.

Garden Conservancy is an organization that has 14 US garden preservation projects. The two Bay Area projects are: Gardens of Alcatraz Project and Ruth Bancroft Garden. The Garden Conservancy, also, holds annual Open Days events and seminars with industry leaders. Seminar topics range from vegetable gardening to British garden design.