Edgewood Native Garden :

In 2005, volunteers began transforming the area around the Bill and Jean Lane Education Center from a mass of non-native weeds and brambles into an accessible native garden. Today, the native garden covers approximately ½ acre and features over 100 native plants found at Edgewood Park and Natural Preserve.

The garden is a labor of love for Friends of Edgewood volunteers who spend hours each week weeding and tending to the trees, shrubs, grasses, and flowering perennials and annuals. Many of these plants are propagated from seed or rescued from trail clearing; some are rare and can only be seen up close in the native garden.

Visitors will find plants from three important Edgewood ecosystems: oak woodlands, grasslands, and chaparral. Many of the plants found at Edgewood can also be grown in urban gardens. These local natives are adapted to our Mediterranean climate of relatively wet winters and long, dry summers, and are attractive to pollinators and other wildlife.

The garden is a place to learn more about the role of wildlife in the garden, the importance of decomposition, and the advantages of creating your own native garden. We follow sustainable garden practices. Recycled concrete was used to create retaining walls, permeable paths use woodchips recycled from the preserve, downed branches and tree stumps are reused to create path edging, and composted plant materials are used as mulch. Rainwater from the roof of the Education Center flows into the garden, and by using native plants adapted to our climate, we also reduce our use of water in the dry season.

The Edgewood native garden is supported through donations to Friends of Edgewood. You can help support the garden by joining today.

Learn more about the Edgewood Native Garden below.

If you are inspired to create your own California native garden, check out these resources:

Interpretive signs in the native garden and the above presentation were made possible by a generous grant from the San Mateo County Office of Sustainability’s 4R’s Grant Program.