You’ve gotta love the skilled weed pickers! Poco a poco …… getting it together!!!

With help from our UC students, we are prepping the Gateway pavilion for zone zero requirements. Trying to get ahead of the curve. We had a sweet spot of some sun surrounded by blustery rain.

NHCA Gardens! We have had a busy year in our two community gardens, the Gateway Emergency Preparedness Garden and the Firestorm Memorial Garden by Bentley School. Our gardening team has grown from five regulars to 13, led by Nancy Mueller and Fred Booker (Fred Booker, Geri Charnin, Adriana Duque, Kevin Faulkner, Sean Gilmore, Cornelia Grimes, […]

UC Berkeley students lent 38 hands to Gateway Emergency Demonstration Garden last Saturday, Nov 8! 19 students cleared a lot of flammable dense brush adjacent to the frame structure, and patiently pulled weeds out of the granite plaza and stone paths. They also planted several dozen daffodils donated by KOB! (Keep Oakland Beautiful) Thank you […]

Last Saturday, Oct 25, is was a rainy morn…..as predicted, started at 9.  Since Fred was away, JD arrived at “Fred time” 8:30AM and had already picked up this much trash by the time I arrived!!  We called the rest of our fabulous volunteers off but went ahead and planted about 30 iris blubs that […]

The Gateway Demonstration Exhibit Garden benefited from an energetic Cal group!!   On Sat Oct 4, we had 17 Cal students, and they worked hard!!!  They painted the graffitied irrigation box, deck posts and painted out graffiti on the understory of the deck.  Other students hammered in the heads of hundreds of popped nail heads on […]

On Sat September 27, our intrepid NHCA garden volunteers cleaned up the Firestorm Memorial Garden.   Donna got the great idea to cut down a clump of very tall, 20’+ Euc suckers which were blocking the directional highway signs.  So attack we did! Pic #1     Before our work, you can verify our location with the bike […]

This is Peggy Mooney, our steady octogenarian volunteer. She specializes in path restoration. Every little weed is out, every tiny chard of glass, gone. Rocks all together and mulch separated. Here are most of us! To our delight Donna has joined our merry crew. On the left is Geri and her husband Kevin with the […]

Eight of us worked away and bagged 22 green waste bags.  We also hauled away a 30 GA bag of trash, mostly along Tunnel Road as it comes off the freeway.  The water is off so we are concentrating on removing dead plants.  There needs to be less planted there anyhow.  There are some oaks […]

On Saturday, July 26, we had six great volunteers and gathered 8 full green waste bags and 1 giant bag of trash. Anna and Nancy decided to tackle the very unappealing bus stop.  Somebody may want to sit there now!! Amen!

NHCA is delighted to share the news that Boys Team Charity has volunteered to work in the gardens on August 9th and 23rd. https://www.boysteamcharity.org

NHCA had a very successful work party at the Firestorm Memorial Garden yesterday, Sat. July 12.  Six of us worked hard to beautify the garden…remove dead plants and branches and pick up lots of trash along Hiller and Tunnel roads.  It looks 100% better! Both Fred Booker and David Kessler wrote CalTrans to remove the […]

We had a great day on Sat June 28. With 10 volunteers, we got a lot accomplished. Over thirteen 30 GA bags of weeds and pruned material were collected. The entry was spruced up. Fred Booker continues to water his 5 buckeyes that were planted across the street from our main garden at Gateway. Earlier […]

We welcome these weed eaters on the steep slopes on the Southern slope across from the Gateway Demonstration Pavilion Garden.  You can see they are behind the electric fence which keeps them from eating the aloes and other plants that Gordon Piper planted years ago.   They are also munching away below Hiller Highlands V.

Fred Booker, NHCA Garden chair, nurtured these wonderful California native trees from seed.  He planted 5 and you can see them in cages with a bright red ribbon.  Per google, they could flower in as soon as 3 years, and after 10-15 years be over 15’.  They can grow to about 35’ tall.  It is […]

On Monday April 17, the NHCA Garden Committee hosted seven volunteers from Chevron to do some heavy lifting.  Numerous shrubs were removed from under the olive canopies and massive amounts of weeds were removed.  A delicious lunch from Zachary’s was provided courtesy of Andrea Gordon, Realtor.   Our Spring clean-up Garden Work Party days are in […]

10 am – 1 pm Firestorm Memorial Garden on Hiller Drive adjacent to Bentley School.