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About Us

Bay Natives
10 Cargo Way (at Jennings St.)
San Francisco, CA 94124
tel: (415) 287-6755
email: info at baynatives dot com



Owner, Paul Furman is a nurseryman, artist, naturalist, and photographer, who practiced landscape architecture in San Francisco for 17 years before returning to his roots with his hands in the dirt.


photo by db leonard




photo by db leonard



"Nature is not some separate thing that you have to go up to Yosemite to see. You can bring it into your backyard, you can make it part of your life. A hummingbird arrives because of the native plant that you purchase, and you realize- -Hey, there's a hummingbird in my life. This is how it's supposed to be."




Jonathan Downing: botanist, designer, Bay Area native, master propagator and bird whisperer has been with us since 2014. Jon does planting design consultations.

Our internship program offers opportunities for students, graduates, and horticultural explorers to learn the nursery trade first-hand. Interested parties, please send email to interns@baynatives.com.

Read our Terms and Conditions.

Take a look at our links to native plant resources.

Here's a few plant lists for specific situations.

To get our plant list into excel use that link to make a csv file.

Looking for QR codes to connect on your phone with us on social media?






Press Release

Bay Natives - Hidden Gem

Opportunity of the Decade



Bay Natives garden center is an amazing hidden gem near the end of Cesar Chavez, on the Southern Waterfront at India Basin. We offer a huge variety of drought tolerant California native plants that will bring your garden alive with bees, butterflies and birds. Jane Goodall recently wrote a book Seeds of Hope about how native plant gardening can be a powerful vehicle for restoring biodiversity in the world.

We have art, chickens - and goats next door, fruit trees, veggies and most importantly drought tolerant native plants to solve your drought problems. 2020 brought us two new neighbors, Heron's Head Nursery and The New Farm SF, which share the property with Bay Natives Nursery.

Opportunity of the Decade

The real story here is that the recent Godzilla El Nino rains offer the opportunity of the decade to plant California natives to solve your drought problems.

California native plants don't like to be watered in the warm summer months - those conditions encourage root rot. California natives love a deep watering in the cool of winter, which is now! This encourages deep roots for drought tolerance. Strong El Nino patterns like this only come about once a decade. This is the opportunity of the decade to plant California natives to solve your drought problems, now!


Chickens

Owner Paul, always has a new project going in the shop - the elaborate wood lath chicken run with sliding doors, compartments, an outbuilding, platforms, tredle feeder contraption, nest boxes and roosts. The nest couch, diy xylophones, grapewood art, bonsais, walking sticks, gardening books, hats and chicken feed. Farm fresh eggs - we call them 'spoiled chicken eggs' - they aren't rotten, they just come from spoiled chickens. New Mexico style pepper roasting contraptions and fermented hot sauce.

CA native landscape designer Jon came to us with a botany degree a couple years ago, has a good sense of style with an amicable flair and he knows the plants.

Bay Natives has been around for 13 years online, 11 years here in The Bayview with brick and mortar.


The Bayview

Click the image above to jump to a Google Maps Photosphere panorama inside Bay Natives, then explore the neighborhood on the map.

It's been great fun getting to know the neighborhood. We've collaborated with the neighbors - Literacy For Environmental Justice, PG&E, The Bay Insitute, Rec & Park, Kayaks Unlimited, India Basin Neighborhood Association, Sea Scavenger, Nomad Gardens, Tunnel Top Park, Sustainable Crushing, Audubon...

We call the raucous truck noise 'the sound of commerce'. Every trash truck in town passes by on the way to the recycle center and every bit of mail that enters or leaves San Francisco rolls by on tractor trailers. If you want quiet, visit us on a Sunday.

The roomy nursery grounds leased from The Port used to house 'The Pound SF' - a heavy metal night club. The soaring metal fencing is said to have been built by the Hell's Angels for security at a big gathering. Before The Pound, it was 'Bo's Bounty' with lunchtime lingerie shows and before that, The Bounty - a restaurant and bar for the longshoremen at the newly constructed Port facility. Built in the 70's as a Butler Building - steel I-beam design can stand structurally without the metal siding, so the plan is to remove the siding and roof and turn it into a greenhouse.

During the 70's they filled the Islais Creek tidal basin, expelling Buchertown to build The Port. A spit of land out into the bay which was intended to be the landing for a southern Bay Bridge eventually became today's Heron's Head Park - a restored salt marsh with rich bird watching diversity and the Eco Center, a demonstration green building - off the grid.

Around the same time we moved in, 2011, the front of the park was transformed from trucker parking to picnic tables, a dog run and native plant garden by The Port, Public Works and Rec & Park. Dramatic views to the downtown skyline, Oakland and the enormous Recycle Central warehouse - 3 blocks long - across Lashlighter Cove to the north. India Basin lays on the South, then Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard, now being redeveloped as 'The Shipyard' for housing, there will be lots of parks and development. The Hunter's View public housing projects are being replaced with new mixed income condos.

The Dogpatch neighborhood a few blocks north, is a fast changing hotspot centering around the 22nd St. Caltrain station, providing transport to Silicon Valley. Pier 70 is going to be redeveloped. Old brick and steel industrial buildings have makers market fairs periodically while the plans are being drawn up. Warm Water Cove is another waterfront open space to the south of Dogpatch and Crane Cove will be a dry dock converted to waterfront open space north of dogpatch. Potrero Hill lies to the west above the elevated I-280 freeway.

The warehouses along 3rd Street in Dogpatch hold probably close to 100 incubator inventor startup studios where 3d printers burn out prototypes by the cubic yard. Inventor Central.

South of Potrero, following the lowlands where Islais Creek flows in pipes underground, is The Produce District (wholesale produce warehouses and market) and The Bayview, Bayshore, Oakdale, Evans MacBeath Hardwoods, 'Scrap' - recycled craft supplies. Silver Crest Donut Shop, BevMo, The Old Clam House - the oldest restaurant in San Francisco.

PG&E has a vacant parcel kitty-corner from us with India Basin waterfront. The India Basin Neighborhood Association's masterplan shows it as 'Restaurant Row' with grocery stores and offices above. Currently they have an NPR StoryCorps oral history sound booth in a shipping container onsite and they hold community events like circus's, petting zoos, outdoor movie screenings and barbeque cook-offs to engage the community while the plans are drawn up, just like Pier 70 at Dogpatch.

Heading down 3rd Street you'll find Flora Grubb garden center which specializes in exotic drought tolerant plants, not compeition to Bay Natives but complimentary. Across the street from Flora Grubb is All Good Pizza, an authentic San Francisco treat with all ingredients sourced from the neighborhood. La Laguna taqueria is delicious if not the quickest, Las Isletas doesn't look fancy but has pupusas to die for. Back in Dogpatch, Neighbor Bakehouse has the most delectable French puff pastry concoctions known to man. At Longbridge Pizza, I recommend the white pizza and add your favorite hot sauce or the basic margarita for good value and fast service. Perfect thin sourdough crust though the sauces are a bit bland and cheeze a bit stingy - so add your best tangy hot sauce and get a fairly healthy treat! Marcella's Lasagneria serves up semi-paleo lasagne with paper thin noodles, heavy on the home made fillings from a friendly, traditional Italian father-son team.

You may have heard about people bringing their christmas trees to feed the goats at the railyard at the port. You can watch them and feed them treats through the fence from our store next door.









Heron's Head Nursery

Our neighboring nursery which specializes in exotics and non-natives as well as houseplants.

The New Farm

Another neighbor, known as "The coolest new music venue in SF". It seconds as a free space and ecological center where our chickens now roam.

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