The Garden of the Vallejo Adobe - Designed by Johannes Reimers

What did the garden around the "Old Adobe" look like? There are black and white pictures, but the cover of the 1939 catalog is probably how the Roeding family saw it. (The catalog flipped the original painting to make the front door be on the cover!). [2021 update! Movies from California Revealed]

Johannes Reimers designed the garden surrounding the Old Adobe around the time that the adobe was renovated by his son, the Bay Area architect, Frederick Reimers.

The 1931 catalog says that the owners plan to renovate the old building and that the grounds are being appropriately landscaped.

Why was Johannes Reimers chosen to do the garden?

A Walk Around the Old Vallejo Adobe

The garden around the Vallejo Adobe is often referred to as the "Reimers garden".   So far, I found this out about Johannes Reimers.  The original design for the garden still exists in the archives (supposedly). 

Johannes Reimers could be considered (at least by me) a really early drought-tolerant garden planner. He planned gardens for some of the driest most neglected areas, railroad stations.

Mrs. George Roeding Jr's History of the Old Adobe and its Garden

First an introduction to the dynamic father-son duo: Johannes Reimers and Fred Reimers

The Bay Area architect, Frederick Reimers, transformed the modest adobe building that was formerly used for fumigation and storage. He created a modern building with windows to let light in. Locally manufactured tiles covered the floor and roof. The historic adobe was introduced as the "Old Adobe." 

[Fred Reimers designed many buildings and homes in Oakland, Piedmont, and the Bay Area. His residences are very cute and are still very sought after. He designed a model home for the Niles Rotary in Adobe Acres which was built on former nursery land during the Depression. (see Fremont Main Library)]

Johannes Reimers, his father, designed the garden around the Vallejo Adobe. He created the pleasant sheltered garden surrounded by nursery buildings and created a place for gatherings.

Johannes Reimers had a long association with the Roeding family and designed and built Roeding Park, many other parks, industrial site gardens, and train stations.

A History of the Nursery Trade (1904)

To understand the importance of the California Nursery Company, it is helpful to understand the context of the times. How many nurseries were there around the turn of the 20th century?  Who were they supplying?  What were they supplying?  

The Horticultural Wishbooks

Catalogs, a window to the past

I love to look at old catalogs.  You get to see the ordinary or the fleeting or exactly what you got for Christmas back in 1965.  It was a big deal to get that Christmas Sears Roebuck catalog  each year. We called it the wishbook.  Indeed, the old catalogs give us a view into the lives of our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. What were some of those things used for?  You could buy anything in there. I always wish I could still order out of the catalog. Maybe there is a Sears Hazelton house kit languishing in some warehouse waiting for me.

Old seed catalogs are great wishbooks, too.  You see varieties that are hard or impossible to find now. You see trees that must have been just introduced to California.  All kinds of wondrous stuff.
I found several places online that have scanned in old catalogs and looked for the California Nursery Company catalogs.

The California Nursery Company History

The California Nursery Company is one of the best kept historical horticultural secrets of Fremont and of California.

Folks in Fremont probably all know that we have a early California mission, Mission San Jose.   And we have some historic buildings - Ardenwood Farm, the Chadbourne Carriage House, and Shinn Park.  Then there is the Niles Canyon Railway and the Essanay Silent Film Museum.  However, if you are the average Fremontian you probably don't know much or anything about the California Nursery Company.

Yet, at one time, according to the California Nursery Company literature, the nursery was the largest nursery West of the Rockies. (Other nurseries claimed the same!)

A Google Map tour of the California Nursery Company in Niles, California

In the Niles District in Fremont, there is an under-developed mostly unknown park called the California Nursery Historical Park.

For years I have driven by on my way to somewhere else, or stopped by the small retail nursery that was there for a while, or admired the inaccessible Vallejo Adobe, or looked at their antique rose garden and wondered about the windmill. Then there are all those large trees and some of those trees are kind of unusual.

For an "Introduction to Horticulture" class at Merritt College, I decided I would find out what I could about the California Nursery Historical Park and all of those big trees on the property. Certainly there must be an interesting story there!