Ann Nichols’ magical bromeliad garden in Oakland

When my Portland friend Loree (danger garden) was down here in March, one of the things she wanted to do was visit the garden of Ann Nichols in Oakland. She had been there in 2013 as part of the Bay Area Garden Bloggers Fling (read her post here) and really wanted to see it again. Our Oakland friends Max and Justin (I blogged about their garden recently) know Ann well and arranged for a visit. I was as excited as Loree; I had been to Ann’s garden once myself, on a Garden Conservancy Open Day in 2017 (read my post here), and was eager to go back.

Ann Nichols with Max (center) and Justin (right). Photo by Loree Bohl.

Ann Nichols is as modest about her garden as she is passionate. But talk to anybody in the Bay Area and you quickly realize that she is a local icon. Everybody loves her garden, and everybody loves her.

When Ann and her husband bought the house in 1983, the landscaping was basic and dull: “This was one big boring garden,” Ann said in a 2024 interview with Splashpad News. “The side yard had 10 million agapanthus, which along with the backyard palms and crabgrass took us a backbreaking year to remove.”

The only thing in the front yard was a 6 ft. Canary Island date palm. Ann and her husband tried to sell it, but nobody wanted it so it stayed. It’s still there now, a towering presence, covered with hundreds of bromeliads that form a lush vertical garden (see below).

Canary Island date palm in front of Ann’s house

The lower portion of the trunk is covered with countless bromeliads...

...including many tillandsias

It was this very palm tree that set Ann on the path she’s still following more than 30 years later: “The palm looked a little tropical so I decided to make a tropical garden and planted bromeliads.”

Today, Ann’s garden is filled with a colorful mix of bromeliads, succulents, and epiphytes, earning Ann the nickname “Bromeliad Ann.”

Sidewalk bed and hell strip

The predominant colors...

...are red, orange, yellow, and green

Vriesea hieroglyphica

The one plant I remembered most vividly from my 2017 visit to Ann’s garden was the spiral aloe (Aloe polyphylla)

Aloe polyphylla is still there (a different specimen), now surrounded...

...by all kinds of mangaves...

...like ‘Mayan Queen’ and ‘Bad Hair Day’...

...and agaves like Agave attenuata ‘Kara’s Stripe’

Potted tillandsias on the front door landing

I admired this potted Furcraea macdougallii underplanted with tillandsias in 2017; it’s still there

The side garden is behind this bed

Massive flower stalk of Aechmea imperialis

Mangave ‘Mission to Mars’ looks great in a shallow bowl

Ann, a former middle-school teacher and real-estate agent, did what she could on her own, but her garden really came to life when she brought in renowned landscape architect Bob Clark, who she thought was wonderfully “crazy and weird.” He helped her divide the garden into different levels, each serving as an outdoor room with a distinct theme. Bob’s innovative and unconventional approach played a key role in shaping the unique character of Ann’s garden.

View up the side garden

“Robinson Crusoe fence” on the left, house on the right

Looking down towards the street

Before Bob’s involvement, the steep side garden (see above and below) was just a narrow walkway. Bob terraced the slope and added landings with seating areas. He created a stream that flows through pipes down a mini-canal into three small ponds. The property line is formed by a fence made of existing tree branches and ropes, resembling something that could have been fashioned by Robinson Crusoe with help from Christo. The fence supports vines and serves as a “critter highway.”

Small fish pond. The decorative grate is to keep racoons and other critters out.

The zig-zagging mini-canal...

...is a brilliant design element

Chair with flowering tillandsias

We’re almost at the top now

Top of the stream

Ann’s planting style is a spontaneous creative process. “I could not plan a garden like a landscaper with pencil and paper,“ she says. “With me, it’s more intuitive, one plant at a time. I think ‘Well this area could use some height and I like this plant’. The thing about this garden is that there are waves. It’s not square and straight. It’s undulating.”

One thing visitors notice immediately: Ann is not afraid of color. Virtually the entire spectrum is represented. Areas that get a lot of sun are heavy on reds and oranges because they stand out in bright light.

And another thing: The plantings are so dense that virtually no bare dirt is visible. Other gardens (like mine or Tracy’s) use rocks to fill empty spaces between plants. That’s not necessary here because there are no empty spaces.

This door leads to the upper garden. The bell is only one of many cat-themed decorative elements.

This is a small enclosed space with a mirror (which I didn’t photograph for some reason)

I want a bird’s nest fern (Asplenium nidus) after seeing this specimen!

The garden room I just mentioned is in the upper right of this photo. The side garden is through the gate at the top.

The upper garden looks much more like a traditional cottage garden. Almost no bromeliads.

Mangave ‘Lavender Lady’ looking about as perfect as can be

We saw plenty of birds drinking from this fountain so it’s not just a decorative element

The building straight ahead is the garage. It’s accessed from the alley behind it.

Upper garden

Allée of weeping sequoias

Looking down at the patio outside the kitchen

Potted dwarf citrus. Why don’t I have one?

Rock/crevice garden running through the lawn

I love these dwarf alpine plants even though I don’t recognize most of them

I do recognize the Echeveria agavoides on the right — and I was told the bizarre mat-forming plant in the middle is a Raoulia

Another Raoulia

View of the lawn and the house from the top level of the back garden — note the espalier serving as a divider

An impressive amount of lichen — no surprise, considering we’re just a few miles from San Francisco Bay

A garden as elaborate as Ann’s does require a certain amount of maintenance. Ann spends a lot of time in her garden and receives help from experienced professionals. In fact, Loree and I met two people who know virtually every square inch of Ann’s garden: Kiamara Ludwig, a skilled Bay Area grower renowned for her expertise in specialized plant groups like ferns, alpines and bryophytes, helped Ann for over 20 years. After she retired, horticulturist David Neumaier took over; he also works for landscape designer Mat McGrath, whose private garden I revisited recently (post here). It seems that in the Bay Area, everybody knows everybody else. But I suppose that’s true for most cities with a tight-knit gardening community.

Kiamara Ludwig and yours truly. Among many other things, Kiamara grows xeric ferns from spores and I was able to get a few for my garden. She is also one of the driving forces behind the Western Chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society.

I’m so glad Loree set all this in motion, and I’m truly grateful to Max and Justin for organizing everything — and of course to Ann for her generous hospitality. This was an outing I will not soon forget.

© Gerhard Bock, 2025. All rights reserved. To receive all new posts by email, please subscribe here.