The first mailing of the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour garden guide is being prepared!  If you would like to receive yours early, you will need to register now.)
 
Registrants on the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour will receive passes to more than 60 gardens bird- and butterfly-friendly, pesticide-free, water conserving, low maintenance gardens that contain 30% or more native plants. These gardens will be open on Sunday, May 6, 2007, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at various locations throughout Alameda and Contra Costa counties.  More than 60 garden talks will be scheduled throughout the day. Native plants will be sold at more than 20 gardens and native plant nurseries.  
 
Several  new components have been added to the free tour this year!
 
Wish you could see more gardens?  Well, now you can.  There is still space on the Select Tours, which will take place on Saturdays April 28, and May 5.  Three of these exclusive, guided theme tours will visit gardens designed to attract birds; butterflies and native bees; and school gardens.  Three more tours will be lead by noted landscape designers Michael Thilgen, Alrie Middlebrook, and Kat Weiss to gardens they designed and installed.  There is a limit of 30 people on each Select Tour; the fee is $30 per person.  Please visit the garden tour website for further information.
 
The Native Plant Sale Extravaganza on Saturday May 5, and Sunday, May 6, is a fabulous opportunity to purchase native plants!  A number of native plant nurseries, many not normally open to the public, will be open over the tour week-end from 10:00 – 5:00.  Visit the website for more details.
 
Registration for the free tour, and the Select Tours, is required at www.BringingBackTheNatives.net.  (No registration is necessary for the Native Plant Sale Extravaganza.)
 
Volunteers are needed to spend a morning or afternoon greeting tour participants and answering questions about natives. 
 
Benefits to volunteers include: invitations to Garden Soirees, in which tour gardens are open to hosts and volunteers; a pre-tour meeting with the owner and private tour of the garden you will be staffing; a guaranteed tour reservation for the half day you are free; a Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour t-shirt, and, perhaps best of all, heartfelt thanks for helping to educate the general public about the many pleasures and benefits of gardening with California native plants.  You can browse the website at ww.BringingBackTheNatives.net to choose the garden you would like to be assigned to.
 
For more information, please visit the website, e-mail Kathy Kramer at Kathy@KathyKramerConsulting.net, or call (510) 236-9558 between 9 am and 9 pm.

Kathy Kramer
Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour Coordinator
(510) 236-9558
kathy@kathykramerconsulting.net

www.BringingBackTheNatives.net