History

Judith Larner Lowry founded Larner Seeds in 1977 while living in Palo Alto and studying ornamental horticulture at Foothill College where she met Craig Dremon. He was the proprietor of Redwood City Seed Company and encouraged her to start her own business. In those early years she was frequently asked, “why do you want to grow weeds?” Intuitively, she knew growing native plants would help her feel at home in California, that the plants were essential to understanding place. 

She said the first time her fingers pulled the seed from a wild native plant she was hooked. Her talent for keen observation, immersive study, and her love for the land took her to Yerba Buena Nursery where she apprenticed for eight years. She collected, cleaned, and propagated native seed, with the support and guidance of her mentor Gerda Isenberg. 

Feeling the need for land of her own, Judith purchased an acre on the Bolinas Mesa, in 1984. It was cheapest land in the bay area. “Maybe because it’s foggy nine months of the year.” She said laughing. At the time of purchase, what would become a beautiful native garden, was covered in invasive grasses and French broom. The only native plant that had survived the invasion was Bachharis pilularis. Of this undervalued plant, which became the keystone plant of her garden, she wrote: “It is to the Coyote Bush that I turn when discouraged or in need of a reminder of all that is available to learn in my own backyard.” 

As Judith walked all over the Mesa and Point Reyes, she asked the land what it wanted. Spending time in small remnants of Coastal Prairie (of which less than one percent now exists in California), and Coastal Scrub she got her answer. Her commitment to honoring the land through place-based restoration gardening, to creating habitat for local wildlife, to “always returning to the natural model, to compare situations with the home garden” and make necessary adjustments; this became her life-long work. An important aspect of that work included gathering small amounts of wild seed for growing out in the Larner Seeds Demonstration Garden so she could expand the her seed catalog and offer more variety to gardeners across the state. Her particular focus was and continued to be the herb layer – “the small things” of which she wrote  

The opposite of love, it has been said, is not hate but indifference. At this particular juncture in time, the greatest danger to our native forbs may truly lie in indifference rather than in hate…

The Landscaping Ideas of Jays, p. 176

In the early years the garden favored coastal prairie, with masses of native bunch grasses – which she loved – annual wildflowers, and herbaceous perennials. She called Festuca Idahoensis her favorite napping grass. I’ve heard that sometimes on tours she would demonstrate its sleepy charm by laying down in a stand planted out in the garden. Even then her prairie was interspersed with “islands” of the local coastal scrub community -- Coyote Bush, Monkeyflower, Lizardtail, and California sagebrush. She called these “the philosophical and ecological heart of the garden.”  

Her garden has shifted over the years. The prairie and scrub mix now share space with Coastal Evergreen plants like Coast Live Oaks (thanks to the scrub jays), hazelnut, and coffeeberry. However, as you walk through the garden you can still see those foundational islands;  waves of Artemisa Californica paired with Diplacaus and Bacharris Pillularis, and Eriophyllum staechedifolium -- the heart of the garden. 

 Though she has passed, her 

“back-yard restoration garden [continues to] serve as a corrective, a kindly textbook, bringing nature home, where it can most easily and comfortably be absorbed. That includes the contradictions, the exceptions, and the surprises. Here’s to the rich complications and the dynamic flow of seasons and soil change, the movement of insects, the sudden whims of birds. Here’s to the rich complications and the dynamic interaction of countless factors. Here’s to the mystery and to those who send into it the searchlight of a humble human attention.” Gardening with a Wild Heart, p. 191 

Judith’s wild and complex mind and heart live on in this garden. She had a deep respect for indigenous ways of knowing, which greatly influenced her and which she always tried to honor.  

Whenever you visit the garden, we invite you to take Judith’s good instruction: “slow down” engage all your senses, be in quiet conversation, with the plants, insects, and animals, as well as each other. What do you see, smell, feel as we take our time on the soft mulch paths?