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Posted on Fri, Oct. 18, 2002

Plant sale goes native
By S.L. Wykes, Mercury News

Whenever they visited, Arvind Kumar's relatives would stare in horror at his thirsty brown lawn and water it. A few weeks later, according to the time and energy Kumar had available to tend to this chore, all that typically suburban grass would have returned to its perennially parched state.

"The landscape we had was just completely unsuited for our schedules and interests," said Kumar, a software manager. He had gone to a California Native Plant Society sale and, entranced by the possibilities, made a few purchases. But as so often happens, he never got around to planting them in the ground, so they died, too.

Then came a pivotal moment -- a tour of a patch of land at Foothill College called Native Hill.

Planted by a horticultural student with species that don't need sprinkler systems, Native Hill was "wonderful to see,'' Kumar said. And if native plants could look so good on land between a parking lot and a road, he thought, "Maybe it will look just as good in our lawn.''

So began Kumar's journey from untutored amateur to eager enthusiast, something he hopes will happen to others who go to the annual fall sale held by the California Native Plant Society's Santa Clara Valley chapter Saturday. It will be at Hidden Villa Ranch in Los Altos Hills.

Hundreds of plants, priced from $4 to $10, nurtured to one-gallon size by society volunteers on a 40-by-70-foot plot, will be available to would-be native gardeners. Some of the plants may be familiar to those who peruse roadsides or take walks in county parks. Others have been grown from rarer plants raised in home gardens by society members.

Of particular interest to some gardeners will be some deer-proof sages, said sale co-manager Jean Struthers. For those who'd like to give butterfly caterpillars a place to hang out and snack to maturity, milkweed plants will be on hand, too.

New this year are detailed labels for each plant, describing exactly the kind of care and light each requires, along with a photograph of its flowers, said Santa Clara Valley chapter newsletter editor Carol Mattson. Because natives do need regular watering to get established, fall is a good time to plant because the winter rains will help that settling along, Mattson said.

The chapter has been putting on these sales for almost 20 years, said vice president Georgia Stigall. Sending the plants out into people's backyard gardens is just another way of spreading the word that "native plants are not exotic and not hard to grow,'' she said. "In fact, they are the easiest. You don't need fertilizer and they're drought-resistant . . . California natives are dramatic and showy in a different way. People admire what's in the hills and realize they can have that in their garden.''

Some of that admiration is born on the regular wildflower walks in San Mateo County's Edgewood Nature Preserve -- and field trips such as the one Oct. 27 with two experts who'll be demonstrating the use of a global positioning system to map non-native weeds that threaten parklands.

The group also welcomes volunteers to tend to plants at its Hidden Villa nursery and at Native Hill at Foothill, to remove non-native plants at Edgewood Park and to plant grass seedlings, wildflower seeds and oaks along sections of Interstate 280.

Those with less desire to get grubby might be interested in the society's efforts to catalog and protect remarkable stands of rare and endangered native plants throughout Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.

Kumar's native garden is almost a year old now. He's taken botany classes and regularly goes on plant hikes and field trips. "I feel involved in my garden now. I know every corner,'' he said. And 20 years after he immigrated to California, he doesn't wonder any more about how to connect with his new home. "Learning about California plants has been one way to really feel grounded.''