Native Plant Sale

The Friends of Sausal Creek (FOSC) will hold its fall Native Plant Sale on Sunday, October 24, 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the Joaquin Miller Park Native Plant Nursery. A flyer can be downloaded here.

Native plant experts will be available all day to help shoppers pick appropriate plants for their specific planting areas. This year’s plant sale will feature workshops and live music throughout the day to celebrate completion of the nursery’s expanded shady propagation and growing area and new teaching circle.

11:00  Native Bees and Your Garden with Jennifer Smith

12:00  Native Bird Connections:  Live Owls and Raptors of the Watershed!

12:30  Gardening with Native Plants

1:00    Keeping Urban Chickens with Thomas Kriese

1:30    Growing and Propagating Native Plants with Karen Paulsell

There will also be tables to visit, including Alameda County Master Gardeners to answer your gardening questions and “The Spider Chick” Linda Erickson with awesome live arachnids, plus face painting for the kids. Live music will be provided by Harlan James Bluegrass Band and Juke Joint Johnny. This year’s sale is an event not to be missed! Bring your family, neighbors, and friends…and, if possible, a cardboard box to get your plants safely home with you.

Douglas Iris

For more information, please visit the website, email coordinator@sausalcreek.org, or call (510) 501-3672. To volunteer to help before or during the sale, contact nursery@sausalcreek.org or call (510) 325-9006.

Directions:
The nursery is located in Joaquin Miller Park on Sanborn Road. From Highway 13, go east on Joaquin Miller Road. Turn left on Sanborn and park near the community center. Follow signs to the nursery, about 1/4 mile.

Book Sale and Village Family Fun

In this time of serious budget cuts, the Friends of the Montclair Library have probably never been more important.

The Friends help pay for physical improvements to the library, things like benches, bookdrops, and general upkeep. Here’s your chance to help the helpers, and pick up some new (to you) reading material. They are having a booksale at the library on Saturday from 10am to 3pm. Books range from $0.50 to $2. The selection is wide range of books you ACTUALLY want, including children’s books, classics, and what the Friends call Book Club Books. Think bestsellers only a couple of years old.

On Sunday, the Montclair Village Association hosts its Family Fun Festival 12pm – 5pm in Montclair Park. There’ll be music, food, drink, and plenty of fun for the kids.

Vandals Hit Oakland Firestorm Garden

This unpleasant piece of news just arrived from Susan Piper.

“Just two weeks before the 19th anniversary of the 1991 Oakland Hills Firestorm, vandals cut 8 bronze branches off of the metal sculpture in the Oakland Firestorm Garden dedicated to the victims and survivors of what was at the time the worst urban disaster in US history. On October 21, 1991, 25 people died and 3500 homes were destroyed as a result of a firestorm on that hot, windy day.

“This is like dancing on the grave of the fire victims,” said Gordon Piper, chair of the Oakland Landscape Committee who raised the funds and coordinated the volunteers who installed the garden in 1993. The sculpture depicts the scorched trees and new growth that graced the fire zone in the years following the disaster.

“This isn’t the first time that vandals have removed the branches. But their greed is a desecration of the spirit and meaning of the sculpture and garden,” said Piper

The Oakland Landscape Committee is accepting donations to cover the cost of fabricating new custom designed branches to the sculpture, which was designed by Gail Fredell.  Checks should be made payable  to Friends of Oakland Park and Recreation and sent to 33 Hiller Drive, Oakland, CA 94618.”

Village Hardware Store Moving?

We’ve heard some sad news about the possibility of a business departing the village.

It seems that Montclair Village Hardware will very likely leave Mountain Boulevard for a new location.  While the owner wants to wait until next week to talk about a possible move, it sounds like parking is an issue. So is the relatively small size of the store, and then, of course, there’s the rent. This would be a minor blow for the mix of shops in the neighborhood. The next closest hardware store is on Park Boulevard.

Another Montclair Genius

Montclair is officially home to a genius.  Writer and Montclair resident Yiyun Li was one 23 MacArthur Fellows announced Tuesday morning.

According to the Chron, “Li ignored the persistent caller with the unknown phone number for one week. But a few days ago, [Li] finally answered and learned she was a recipient of a “genius award” – a $500,000, no-strings-attached grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.”

Li, who also teaches at UC Davis, said the award will give her more time to write. Look for her books, “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers,” and “The Vagrants” at A Great Good Place for Books, or the Montclair branch of the Oakland Public Library.
Earlier this month, writer Pia Chatterjee interviewed Li about the craft of writing.