Spiral Gardens in Berkeley, San Francisco Bay, United States | Nursery

Welcome to Spiral Gardens Nursery, Berkeley, United States. The Spiral Gardens Nursery, a nonprofit retail Nursery is located on the southwest corner of Oregon and Sacramento Streets, Berkeley. We specialize in useful plants that are appropriate for the Bay Area climate zones. This includes annual and perennial food plants, culinary and medicinal herbs, California natives and other habitat supporting plants (particularly for butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds). Also available are plants for fiber, dye, cleaning products, and a myriad of other uses. We strictly adhere to organic practices although we are not yet certified organic. All proceeds from the Nursery go to support the project.

Unlike most other nurseries, we propagate most of our plants ourselves on site. This allows us to offer both tried and true varieties as well as the unusual, the new, and the rediscovered. At this time we do not have the capacity to offer an availability list, but we will do our best to assist you by return phone call (510-843-1307 office line). We are always interested to learn about plant varieties that work-or don't work-for other gardeners in our area, and about hard to get or unusul plants that we should be offering.

We also sell redworms for home composting, and small quantities of soil for container gardening. We are not yet able to offer books, pots, seeds, sets, compost or other soil amendments, although we hope to do so in the near future. We will gladly accept plant containers in all sizes, including six-packs.

Our Spring and Summer open hours for the Nursery are: Tuesday through Sunday, Noon until 7pm. Closed Mondays

The Spiral Gardens Nursery is a key part of our mission. The plants we provide further community sustainability by helping to alleviate hunger and food insecurity, promoting health and hygiene, or protecting and promoting a sustainable ecology through habitat. Over the last century, the diversity of our domesticated food plants has decreased by 90% due to global corporate concentration and fewer people growing food in their backyard. This reduction in the diversity of our food plants reduces our options for a sustainable future and increases the chances of agricultural calamities. The population shift from agrarian to urban in the last century has also created a generational gap in land-based skills and horticultural knowledge. To preserve genetic diversity and strengthen our local food system, we promote heirloom and open-pollinated varieties of plants which reduces corporate dependency by allowing people to save seeds, also decentralizing the safeguarding of our common inheritance. By keeping our prices affordable and offering plant varieties that are appropriate for our climate, first time and previously unsuccessful gardeners have the opportunity to gain confidence and succeed. We also hope to facilitate individual and community self-sufficiency and stretch food dollars. The harvest from a backyard garden stretches the food budgets of low-income families and their network of families and friends. Purchase of our food plants can be savings later. In addition, we identify and propagate the useful plants of cultures from around the world that are not available from other nurseries, thus helping to diversify the community’s selection of food plants.

In addition to helping promote community sustainability, the Nursery provides the plants for the Community Farm, and as a social enterprise it holds the potential to sustain our other core activities with the revenues generated. Our detailed informational signage, hands-on volunteer opportunities, and extensive one-on-one consultations are an important part of our educational activities.  The Farmers Market stall has added benefit of increasing the visibility of our entire project by encouraging our Saturday shoppers to visit the Nursery and the Community Farm.