Today the gardens are taken care of by volunteers of the California Nursery Garden Club who work with the Math Science Nucleus and the City of Fremont.

Some of the current gardeners have been volunteering for 14 or 15 years, every week, rain or shine, with some time out for pandemic.

This garden tour is put together by a fairly new volunteer, since 2014. There is a little bit of history, a little bit of roses, and a few interesting trees...even some of our pests.

We would love to have more volunteers helping us. It is a wonderful way to give back to the community and a splendid reason to be outside, smelling the roses. Read how to volunteer.

For the garden tour, there were signs placed on (or near) plants and trees. If you want more information, you can come back here and links to useful websites will be available here.

Over the years, many businesses have donated plants, equipment, and supplies. We thank them all: Orchard Supply Hardware, Dale Hardware, Regan's Nursery, Home Depot. Recently the Candlelighters gave us a grant for a new shed to hold all of our tools. And of course, the Math Science Nucleus and the City of Fremont have supplied us as well.

Let's begin the tour!

After the park was created, the old retail center was rented as the Mission Adobe Garden Center. This is the only nursery retail center that many of us Fremont-newcomers know. We don't remember when it was the California Nursery Company. The picture below hung in the Naka Nursery office that was the wholesale nursery behind Mission Adobe Garden Center.

Prior to the Mission Adobe Garden Center, this was the retail center for the California Nursery Company, at least as far back as 1930s. The retail center was designed by the same person who converted the old Vallejo Adobe into a guest house in the 1930's, Frederick Reimers. The old retail center was one of the earliest nursery retail centers in the U.S.

For the 1939-1940 Treasure Island world's fair, Reimers created an adobe building for the California Nursery Company display on Treasure Island.

This photo from the 1937 nursery catalog of the retail building shows how similar it was to the world's fair building. Check out the cars.

A later photo of the nursery center with later cars to check out.

The fragrant red rose hedge lining the entry road of the park is the Ragged Robin rose or Gloire des Rosomanes (China / Bengale, Hybrid Bourbon, 1825). Wilma and Jerry hedge prune it several times a year and it quickly blooms again. The cover of the 1970 nursery catalog shows the Ragged Robin hedge.

The Gloire des Rosomanes is one of the parents of the famous Bardou Job rose that originated in Wales and was thought to be lost, but was found on Alcatraz Island. The California Nursery sold both the Bardou Job rose (p. 89) and the Gloire des Rosomanes (p. 97) in 1915.

If you can't stop singing "Rockin' Robin", you can sing it along with Bobby Day.

Wrong! It turns out this is really 'Memorial Day'!

This is a big robust Hybrid Tea next to the Ragged Robin hedge close to the gate. This rose may not be available to buy any longer. Even the modern Hybrid Tea roses can be "lost" when other newer roses come out.

The Peace rose was developed by Meilland in France shortly before WWII. Prior to the German invasion, Meilland sent cuttings out of France to friends. Conard Pyle Co. (Pennsylvania) propagated it during the war. The California Nursery Company was the only West Coast licensed grower and it appeared in its catalog in 1946 and then for sale in 1947. Check out the exhibit in the museum for more about the Peace rose.

Now we know that it was used for the Annual Bulb Shows where daffodils, narcissus, and tulips bloomed for two months of the year. The annual shows ran from the 1930's to the 1960's. Check out the exhibit in the museum about the Bulb Shows.

Read about the re-built windmill.

Drought tolerant roses?

Many of us gave up growing roses during the long drought. However, some roses are more drought tolerant than others. Here are some ideas about bringing roses back to your garden:

The lotus tree or date-plum tree (Diospyrios lotus) is related to the more familiar Japanese persimmon (Diospyros kaki)

Wikipedia says "This species is one candidate for the "lotus tree" mentioned in The Odyssey: it was so delicious that those who ate it forgot about returning home and wanted to stay and eat lotus with the lotus-eaters." Well, our tree is the male tree, so we won't be eating lotus here. But now you can admire his pretty reddish brown flowers. The female lotus is next to the lawn.

Sometimes people ask if they can bring a rose to their mother. Well, assuming that you like your mother, we would recommend leaving the roses in the garden with our special pest.

'Hot cocoa', a Floribunda (2002), is orange/brown rose, an unusual color for a rose. Perhaps a worthy companion to Midnight Blue?

Coral Drift Rose

There is so much to love about this rose. Continuous bloom and disease resistance.

No one really chose this rose, because three were donated by a generous rose deliveryman who knew about our park. Matching roses were donated by equally generous Niles Rotarian, Richard. But look how well they go with the museum entrance! A happy circumstance.

Bred by Alain Meilland (France, 2006).

Introduced in United States by CP-Meilland Inc/Star Roses (California) in 2008 as 'Coral Drift'.

A shady garden favorite, this flower that makes it easy to remember its name - the Yesterday-Today-and-Tomorrow plant. Flowers of different shades of purple exist on the same plant at the same time. Not only that, it is fragrant. It is in the nightshade family which includes two of our favorite plants - tomato and potato - and some of our poisonous plants. The tree is in perfect bloom now. Be sure to stop by and smell it today or tomorrow. It is next to the nursery office.

The Habitat Garden was originally planted by the Friends of Heirloom Flowers in the 1990's. They called it the Butterfly garden. We are "allowing" other critters to inhabit it, particularly bees - native and introduced. The shiny black carpenter bee can usually be seen in the "Hot Lips" salvia surrounding the "John Rock" palm.