Judy Schwarz, who manages the native plant section at the Palo Alto SummerWinds location, is an icon in the local native plants community. A few quotes about her from the GardeningWithNatives mailing list: “Judy is a wonderful resource and advocate” (link), “Judy at [SummerWinds] in Palo Alto is the best!” (link), “Judy at [SummerWinds] Palo Alto is fantastic” (link), “I second the wonderful reviews that Judy gets at Summerwinds Palo Alto. She is just the best.” (link)
Thank you very much to her for agreeing to answer a few questions related to native plants and Living Classroom. She designed the Living Classroom gardens at Covington Elementary and Oak Elementary in Los Altos, CA, along with multiple others in the area.
[The interview has been lightly edited for clarity]
How did you get interested in native plants?
The beauty of nature was installed in my head when I was 5 or 6 years old when my dad took us to national parks, and driving down Highway 101 in the early 60’s looking at the farm lands and how the grass fields moved like waves of water when the wind hit. Going to Girl Scout camps and learning about nature. Then at that young age, I was aware of the damage that humans were doing to my neighborhood and noticed the fields, and orchards were giving way to housing development and paving over the field that was behind my home. In my lifetime I have witnessed the decline of birds, and noticed I didn’t see caterpillars anymore like I used to.
I was always interested in horticulture, in fact I wanted to be a farmer. My parents had a “Sunset” landscape book that captivated me with beautiful photos of yards and all about plants. (late 50’s when yards were BIG!) Anyways, fast forward to 1996, I enrolled into Foothill College Horticulture and went through the whole program. Then I was native struck when a hip landscape contractor came into a class to talk about landscaping with native plants. I went crazy! This is how we can repair the damage that we are all doing to our environment! I did my internship at the first native nursery at Yerba Buena in Woodside, and was hired. It’s now my religion.
Who were the biggest helpers along the way?
I would have to say Foothill College hort. department, and listening to great teachers, and guest speakers. Working with contractors and improving my drafting skills.
How did you get involved with the design of the gardens at Covington and Oak? What are some memories from those projects?
My son was going to Oak School at the same time that Vicky Moore‘s kids were, and she had an idea, and needed help with drafting up a plan for the school’s first learning garden.
Memories about the garden? I was a kid going to Oak school, and I always thought it was weird that the redwood trees were planted along the fence line and how unnatural it looked. I was amazed that 40 years later, I could change that. I created the redwood grove that tied into the redwood fence line that always bothered me. I also enjoyed watching the kids run through the paths, and jumping onto the boulders and logs just as I thought they would.
I think you mentioned that the Bigleaf Maple at Covington started from seed. Where was the parent tree? Any other favorite plants in either the Covington or Oak gardens?
I had some pots in the backyard when I was living in La Honda, and when I came back home to Mountain View, I had a few maple babies growing in the pots. Question about favorite plants, I would have to say it’s all the oaks and that maple.
Any advice for those working on maintaining those school gardens?
I would recommend doing a weekly walk through looking for any weeds and get them before they flower, to make the maintenance easier later on. Also, protect the new small plants with sticks and twine until the plant is big enough to withstand the weekend unleashed dogs. Have conversations with the kids, get them to care, and then they in turn, can talk with their friends to care.
Have the school’s principal make once and awhile comments about the garden, and to teach the idea of what it is about, and to care for it. Make the kids care – it’s a teaching moment for us, for their knowledge when they get older, and for them to teach it.
Are there some other gardens in this area that were designed by you?
For years I worked with contractors who got the jobs, and they were NOT focused on native plants. But, I would sneak them into the designs, and I would try to create a natural look. I stopped designing 8 years ago… The last design I remember was at a house on Fremont Avenue in Los Altos Hills outside the fence using no irrigation at all.
Are you still in the garden design business? If so, how should someone get a hold of you if they want to get your help?
Two months ago I decided to get back to designing and this time I am using 99% native plants. Right now there are 7 designs that are in the planting process.
If anyone needs help with their native yard with a touch up or a design they can swing by to chat at SummerWinds. But I also need to help the customers.
Advice on gardening with natives?
Don’t water your new plants when it is a hot day. The warm wet soil can kill it fast. Water your new plants when it’s cool in the evening, and not heavily. I also will make a light shade with a screen if I plant in the summer – taking off the screen when temperatures cool down. I also put a piece of wood at the south/west part of the plant to cool the roots since the plant isn’t big enough to shade itself. Don’t be so quick to cut, and clean up, allow the plant to dry and develop seeds for the birds, or to reseed new flowers for next year. Often I will cut and purposely make a pile of debris off on the side to feed the birds and to see if I can seed that area for next spring. With manzanitas – don’t do any trimming for three years, then if you want to start to sculpt it only cut in the summer. Cutting in the winter when it’s moist you could bring a fungus into the cuts and possibly kill it. Remember when growing native plants, you are creating a habitat, and if you have outdoor animals they will bring unrest to the creatures or worse. If you have dogs, maybe put up a good looking low fence to keep them from scavenging through the plants. Dogs will kill baby birds too. Cats – indoors for their safety, and for the safety of wildlife, they are killers!
Talking to city council members, one worry they raised about requiring more native plants in city plantings was availability from nurseries. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Come to Summerwinds (the Palo Alto store), check out Central Coast Wilds in Santa Cruz. They will have small plants because they do restoration work. I am working with some nursery growers to start growing more unusual plants, and must have plants which they are currently not growing. They will be slightly bigger plants than restoration nurseries.
What are some favorite CA natives that you’d like to see come into wider cultivation and use?
More dry shade plants that have habitat value such as Corylus cornuta, Rosa gymnocarpa, Stachys bullata, Adelinia grandis, Mahonia aquifolium ‘Compacta’, and I would like to have small oaks for people who say they don’t have space for a oak. Quercus berberidifolia for example – I am working on this.
I purchase the native plants at SummerWinds, and if people are looking for some plants that I don’t have. I have a special order book, and when the plants are available I will call them up.
How do you feel about the future of native plant gardening in California?
It’s a happening! A lot of people are hearing of this new idea especially when the kids come home from school teaching the parents. So they want to make their kids happy, and they will buy some plants so they can have butterflies for example, to please the kids. People are also learning about native plants by force because of their water bill, they learn because the water district is giving them a huge list of plants that they have never heard before. Unfortunately, a lot of new people to California, may want to save water, but they have a hard time adjusting to the fact that drought tolerant plants usually won’t have large glossy leaves with big flowers. And get turned off.
Gallery of Photos from Covington Elementary, present day
(I release theses photos into the public domain. These works are marked with CC0 1.0, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/.)
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