Rewilding: A Native Habitat Garden in the Making

Caroline Christman

All photos by Nita Winter and Rob Badger

Starting a garden renovation can be overwhelming; it is hard to look past what exists now towards the native habitat garden that could be. Whether starting with a blank canvas or transforming an existing garden, it is a challenge to the imagination. In some situations, it makes sense to develop a garden design and implement all the changes at once. For others, working gradually to transform a garden may be the best path: adding native species each winter, removing invasive species, and seeing how the garden adapts over time. This is a story about a gradual process of transformation and the delight in watching a habitat garden emerge.

Nita Winter and Rob Badger live in Marin City and have a 0.25-acre lot dominated by a sunny, southwest facing slope. As conservation photographers focused on California wildflowers, they have considerable experience with observing and appreciating native California plants and their habitats. Over time, this led to an interest in bringing native plants back into their garden. The change began slowly but has picked up momentum as Nita and Rob’s interest in creating a native habitat at home has grown. They think of the process as rewilding.

When Nita and Rob first moved in, the back garden was dominated by Monterey pines and Monterey cypress interspersed with plum trees. Ice plant, aloe, and other succulents covered the sunny hillside. The garden was drought-tolerant, but there was lots of room for improvement to provide habitat for native birds and insects. A California buckeye (Aesculus californica), a few small coast live oaks (Quercus agrifolia), and a scattering of blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium bellum ) showed the potential for native habitat to return.

The rewilding process began when the front steps needed to be replaced in 2002. The small construction project cleared space for the first native planting, a few California blueblossom (Ceanothus thyrsiflorus), purchased at a CNPS native plant sale. Over time the first ceanothus bushes have grown to form an evergreen hedge alongside the new stairs, with blue flower clusters that attract many native pollinators, including a variety of bees.

The next big step in the rewilding process occurred in 2015, when the retaining walls in the front yard needed work. Installing the new retaining walls created two long, flat, blank canvases. The first winter, Nita and Rob selected one of the planting areas to focus on and filled it with native bunch grasses and wildflowers, including deergrass (Muhlenbergia rigens), narrow-leaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis) to support Monarch butterflies, and California fuchsia (Epilobium canum). The second retaining wall was planted a few years later, after the couple received free plants from nearby native gardens. During this time, purple needlegrass (Stipa pulchra) volunteered in the new planting areas, probably drifting in from nearby natural areas. The purple needlegrass helped to fill in the gaps, showed what native species could be successful in the garden, and perhaps gave a glimpse of what habitat was here before the area was developed. Nita and Rob were glad to have the purple needlegrass and helped it spread by transplanting a few plants in the front yard, and then watched happily as it made its own way into the back garden.

For a small garden, one of the challenges is carefully selecting which plants to include in your limited space and thinning or removing plants if they begin to crowd out other species. For a large garden, finding enough plants to fill the space can be a challenge; this is where Nita and Rob found themselves. Nita and Rob reached out to their fellow native plant gardeners and in 2019 were gifted plants that were overcrowding the small Bay Model Pollinator Garden, a CNPS demonstration garden in nearby Sausalito. One useful species they received was Pacific asters (Symphyotrichum chilense). Asters produce a multitude of lavender blooms in the summer, which are favorites of bees and butterflies, followed by seeds favored by birds. Asters spread quickly via rhizomes and can overtake other plants, a challenge for a small garden, or an asset when there is a lot of ground to cover. Nita planted the asters in the new retaining wall planters in the front garden and on a steep, hard-to-access slope in the back garden that is subject to erosion. Over 3 years, the patch of asters in the back garden has grown to cover a 15-foot by 20-foot area, spreading over the slope and keeping the soil intact. For Nita, planting native species that spread easily via rhizomes (such as Pacific asters and milkweed) or seed (purple needlegrass) helps fill in large open areas more quickly. An enthusiastic gardener can help plants spread by transplanting rhizomes to new areas in need of cover. For prolific seeders, seeds can be collected and spread into new areas or sown in containers and nurtured into young plants for planting.

A third big step in the rewilding process was initially undertaken with safety and fire concerns top of mind. The couple noticed the Monterey pines (Pinus radiata) and Monterey cypress (Hesperocyparis macrocarpa) which shaded the back garden were dead or dying. They removed these trees, along with fire prone junipers clearing the way for coast live oak to return. On the California coast, coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia) are integral to oak woodland communities, an ecosystem that provides habitat for numerous species such as the beautiful California sister butterfly and charismatic Steller’s Jays (California Oaks). Now, on the ridge overlooking the house, a row of young coast live oak trees reaches towards the sky.

After Nita and Rob began to clear the way, wildlife began to play a large part in remaking this garden. The oaks on the hillside were planted by scrub jays, not by Nita and Rob. Over the years one toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) has turned into many as cedar waxwings, Western bluebirds, and thrushes have eaten the berries and spread the seed. Purple needlegrass has moved, with the help of awns twining into fur and clothing, from the front yard to the back to create a small native grassland on the sunny slope. Human hands support the transition by removing invasive plants and bringing in appropriate new species to increase diversity. In the purple needle grass prairie, Nita removes bur clover (Medicago polymorpha) and vetch (Vicia sativa) in the spring to allow young needle grass seedlings to thrive. A scattering of soap root (Chlorogalum pomeridianum), California poppy (Eschscholzia californica), and coast buckwheat (Eriogonum latifolium) have been added to compliment the grassland. Many species are now multiplying and spreading on their own, with many soaproot and ceanothus seedlings being found like tiny treasures during spring weeding sessions. In this garden, humans and nature are working together to restore the hillside habitat.

Nita and Rob have long been interested in including plants to support pollinators such as native birds, bees, and butterflies. They planted narrow-leaf milkweed, host to monarch butterfly caterpillars, in conjunction with nectar-rich plants such as ceanothus, California fuchsia, and coyote mint (Monardella villosa) to attract adult butterflies to the area. The planting palette has generally been a success, with 37 monarch caterpillars seen in April 2024. They are also enthusiastic about the bird life they can see from their back windows, which they have encouraged with shallow bird baths and a bird house, as well as with native plants. The bird house attracted a pair of Western bluebirds as soon as it was installed, and Nita and Rob watched them raise two broods that year. Nita says, “We have seen more birds as the oaks get bigger and there are more flowering plants. We have documented 50 different species of birds appearing on or above our property over the past few years, with short visits by very special migratory birds such as the extremely colorful Western tanager and lazuli bunting. These birds have brought us so much joy every day.”

Another key factor to consider in choosing plants and planting locations is how much deer will enjoy eating them. At Nita and Rob’s house the back garden is fenced, but the front garden is not, and deer browsing is a concern. Nita says, “We’ve had to learn, sometimes the hard way, what the deer will eat and what they will leave alone. We caged some plants to let them get established so the deer browsing will only trim the plants and not destroy them.” For example, when they transplanted small toyons that were volunteering in potted plants they had to cage them at their new locations to keep the deer from eating all their new shoots and leaves.

All of this gardening is a lot of work, but it can also be a lot of fun and a good way to build community. Attending garden tours and participating in plant and seed swaps is a great way to meet other native habitat gardeners, to share plant materials, and exchange information. Many of the plants going into Nita and Rob’s garden come from friends they’ve met through native gardening events who have their own native gardens nearby. Recent additions from plant sharing include hedgenettle (Stachys ajugoides) planted under the oaks, California phacelia (Phacelia californica), and California goldenrod (Solidago velutina ssp. Californica). A lovely red-flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum), now thriving in the shade of a plum tree, was originally a cutting from a plant exchange.

This gardening odyssey started with photographing California wildflowers. Now, after years of rewilding the garden, Nita and Rob are thrilled that they don’t have to leave home to find beautiful plants and wildlife to photograph. They can step outside into their very own yard and discover exciting creatures to photograph any time of the year. With about 45 native plant species and a medley of wildlife to view, they can photograph in the yard when they aren’t able to travel.

For Nita and Rob, rewilding is an ongoing process that involves observing the garden and making changes based on what happens each year. As keen observers, they note which native plants are doing well and being utilized by wildlife; are they spreading or self-sowing, are they blooming and thriving? At the same time, they consider which invasive species are spreading and how quickly they are moving into new spots to focus their weeding work each season. When asked how garden goals have changed over time and what lessons have been learned, Nita says, “We’ve learned to be flexible and not feel like we have to control a native garden. The garden will never be fully completed. It will always be changing.”

To learn more about Nita and Rob’s photography please visit their website: WildflowerBooks.com

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Interested in creating or updating your native garden? CNPS has many great tools available online, here are just a few: