The letter arrived Sept. 30. The property under Plant & Soul California’s nearly half-acre garden at 76 Race Street in San Jose was in escrow to be sold, the owner wrote, and the gardeners had 20 days to move out.
That set a last day of Tuesday, Oct. 20, for a native plant garden that has grown on the site for 27 years, KPIX reported. “There is nothing else like this anywhere in San Jose,” board member Jessicka Chamberlin told the station.
From a Repair Shop Lot to a Native Garden
The garden did not start as a garden. In 1999, founder Alrie Middlebrook, who rented the property from owner Fred Soltanzad, began turning a vehicle repair shop and parking lot into a demonstration garden of California native plants, supported by her landscape design business, according to San José Spotlight. The less-than-half-acre site also includes a structure at the back of the garden and a house at 80 Race St.
The nonprofit that grew up around it was long known as the California Native Garden Foundation. Its own history page lists Middlebrook among its founders alongside Glenn Keator, Barry Slater, David Long and Tom Bradner, and describes the Race Street garden as home to local Bay Area native plant communities that support birds, pollinators and insects…