Native plants and the California Nursery Company

From a scrapbook, 1918, a picture of Carpenteria californica.
At the time the nursery was under the management of W.V. Eberly,
after John Rock died in 1904.
W.V. Eberly was manager during the PPIE.
W.V. Eberly was the first president of
the California Association of Nurserymen in 1911.

We visited Scott and Jenny Fleming's native plant garden in Berkeley on a garden tour many years back.

It was a wonderful garden with a rocky slope behind and a flat area for a meadow and a swimming pool that fit in to its surroundings. Their front drive was planted with plants from shady canyons. They had a sunny meadow. They had a hillside of plants suited for the slope.

The Flemings were on the founding committee of the California Native Plant Society in 1965 and so this was almost like visiting a sacred site!

I think that I ran into the HALS report on their garden on a search for George Roeding. 

Now why would the Roeding family be in this report, I wondered.

Olive Avenue

"Olive Avenue" is not an official name, which is just listed as "Driveway" on the 1935 insurance map. It was the road behind the 1907 nursery office that was lined with olive trees. About nine of these trees still exist.

Charles Howard Shinn wrote in 1890 "John Rock, the veteran nurseryman, formerly of San José, now of Niles, is probably the leading spirit of the present time in the practical development of the industry. He does not write about the olive, but he has made two journeys to France, Spain and Italy within the past five years, and, like W. B. West. he knows exactly what to look for, and where to find it."