David's Berkeley Hills garden, the "final" stop on an unbelievable day

Looking back it's hard to believe that on a Saturday in late March I woke up in Davis, CA (Gerhard's garden) and by 9am I was standing in Max and Justin Cannon's Oakland garden. After that I revisited Ann Nichols garden, stopped by Kipp McMichael's garden (uninvited), and then spent quality time in Marcia Donahue's garden. That's some serious powerhouse garden time right there! But there was one more garden to visit, a garden belonging to David Neumaier, who some of you probably know as slow_boat on Instagram. It took me awhile to realize this David was that David.

Many gardens could have been a letdown after a day spent visiting other gardens of such caliber, but not this one... 

Oh! My first sighting of "the fern"... the earliest Instagram conversation I had with David (in August of '24) was about photos of this fern, an unknown Pleopeltis sp. that was a pass along that may have come from UC Berkeley Botanical Garden. Seeing it in real life my heart was filled with lust (and yes, David sent me home with a chunk).

I moved on...

These first photos were taken in part of the garden that bordered the street, sort of a parking area. Oh that all parking spots were this fabulously planted!

David has been gardening on this piece of land for almost four years now, before that it was under the care of Mat McGrath, founder of Farallon Gardens. See Gerhard's post about the garden when it was Mat's back in 2021 here, and a look at Mat's current garden here.

David has definitely made the garden his, reworking many areas and adding a ton of plants, including 31 palms. Seriously.

There's that fern again!

I love this vignette so much, just look at all those fabulous plants!

This definitely says Bay Area to me...

Moving on (towards the driveway)...

Beschorneria bloom close-up...

I mentioned Mat, the former tenant/gardener here is the founder of Farallon Gardens, but David also works there (you can read more about them both here). Aren't the graphics on their van great?

I've walked down to the end of the driveway now and I'm admiring a planting area off to the side.

Then I turned to walk towards the front door and OMG! Things got really crazy...

Turns out David and I both have a bit of a container collection...

So many blooming tilandsia!

Studying the different plant mounts around the house was a Master Class (there will be more in the second part of my visit)...

Eventually I tore my eyes away from all that and turned back towards the plants in the ground, on the other side of the wooden deck that surrounds the home.

This garden is unique in that the garden actually slopes up from the front of the house, it's great for privacy and for seeing your plants from the house.

Okay, here's where I end the first part of the tour around David's garden. It's not an elegant break, but with 74 photos to share I had to stop somewhere. More on Wednesday!

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