Before you pull up any more “weeds” in your garden, you may want to consider what Alrie Middlebrook has to share about native edible plants and trees. This past Saturday and Sunday, 50 or so gardens around the San Francisco Bay participated in the 2025 Growing Natives Garden Tour.
Organized by the California Native Plant Society (CNPS), in association with the UC Master Gardeners of Santa Clara County, San Mateo and San Francisco, self guided tours of private and public native plant gardens were open to anyone who had preregistered.
What better way to celebrate California Native Plant Month?
Middlebrook and Dr. Barry Slater opened their biologists’ dream garden for the tour. Middlebrook and Slater have been hiking the California landscapes for years. They brought their love for the outdoors and knowledge about enhancing the web of life found on this planet.
“The healthier our local soils are, the healthier and more robust we are,” Middlebrook said. “Life happens because of the web of life; the more biodiverse our landscapes the healthier we and our planet becomes; native gardens enhance biodiversity and promotes healthy soil.”
Middlebrook, who wrote Designing California Native Gardens: The Plant Community Approach to Artful, Ecological Gardens with Glenn Keator, shares her passion with educating, promoting and caretaking of the balance of nature apparent in the soil.
The tour
Middlebrook guided our group of 12 slowly through her native plant garden. I think that all of us were held spellbound and allowed unlimited questions. We stopped at a 40-foot-tall Umbellularia californica. Native people used the pungent leaves for medicine; today, we buy the leaves in stores from trees grown elsewhere. We next stopped at the edible collard greens (Brassica oleracea). This is prepared just like the spinach that we buy at the market; it is also grown elsewhere. When we grow our own plants and trees we know the soil and how we cared for it.
Middlebrook held us in awe saying, “A lot of these plants came on their own. They grew in my garden as native plants. And I just let them grow as native plants; I did not cultivate them. I did not feed them. All of the abundance that we need is right at our doorstep.”
Along the tour, I caught up with Therese Lichtle, and asked her how she knew Middlebrook. “I met Middlebrook several years ago at a farmers’ market,” she said. “I wanted to find a tree collard plant, as I had learned from a doctor how super-special it is—as preventive medicine. Alrie was at the market with tree collards to sell.”
Lichtle had some health issues and ended up becoming an expert at farmers markets in the Bay Area, offering tours, and volunteering with Middlebrook. Middlebrook is currently working on a native plant landscaping project in Tiburon.
Ice cream from flowers
Following the guided tour, we were treated to Mexican Marigold ice cream. This unusually delicious treat was conjured up by Julian Silvera, the executive chef from the Tasting House. This ice cream was beyond Pluto in taste—words do not do it justice. Silvera, 28, uses native ingredients in many of his original dishes. Silvera has been with the Tasting House just a little over one year.
The more than 6,500 types of plants in the state make it one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet. “Wherever you go, native plants support the web of life around us,” CNPS’ website states. “From the majestic giant sequoia to the tiniest wildflowers, California native plants provide the beauty, color, fragrance and habitat that make California home.”
