4306 Reden Dr

Welcome to 4306 Reden Drive in San Jose, California, a corner lot. This pollinator friendly front yard was a multi-generation (grandpa, daughter, grandson) effort, planted in two phases (May 2021, Sept 2025).

 

In Google street view, you can see the yard morph from 1980s legacy juniper bushes to a 2010s “Brown is the New Green” drought era dirt yard, and today, the yard is alive with mostly CA native, mostly drought tolerant pollinator plants. Bees, butterflies, song birds, and hummingbirds are all over this yard! We don't use pesticides and weed by hand.

Flowers are in bloom, even in August, providing shelter and an important food source for birds and beneficial insects in a neighborhood of artificial grass and half dead lawns.

 

We planted California native yarrow (all diff colors), Californa poppies (self seed year after year), creeping thyme (carpet of purple and pink in spring), 6 "hot lips" Salvia bushes (a pollinator fave), rosemary which blooms purple flowers, two pacific Asters, many other plants, as well as two native trees: a toyan and a hollyleaf cherry. The hollyleaf produced red berries which birds love. Although the yard is drought tolerant, we found that regular watering maintains the blooms that are so important for our local pollinators.