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UC Berkeley Blake Garden

@ucberkeleyblakegarden

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Garden serving as the landscape laboratory for the LAEP Department at UC Berkeley. @ced_berkeley Public Visiting Hours are Tues. - Fri 9am to 4pm.

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A new meadow designed by MLA students for the 2026 Thomas Church Memorial Design Competition is blooming at Blake Garden! This year’s competition brief for a “hypernatural” meadow asked students to develop designs that challenge our perception of nature, explore human agency in novel ecosystems, and foreground contemporary planting design aesthetics in a post–wild world.

Through collaborative coursework, elements of the winning designs were combined into one planting scheme and installed in the spring. Showcasing Blake Garden’s role as the experiential learning lab for the Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning, the project exemplifies the garden’s mission to demonstrate the transformative potential of the designed landscape and of unique plant combinations.

See the meadow as it matures and changes through the seasons: Blake Garden is open to the public Tuesdays to Fridays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Before you go, check @ucberkeleyblakegarden for the latest info on closures.

Read more about the competition and view the winning submissions on our website.

https://ced.berkeley.edu/news/master-of-landscape-architecture-students-design-hypernatural-meadow-amping-up-complexities-beauty-of-nature

#Hypernatural #MLA #BlakeGarden Rendering of garden: Master of landscape architecture students design “hypernatural” meadow, amping up complexities & beauty of nature

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😯i kished😘a fishie🎏today🙂& explored a new🪴garden💚@ucberkeleyblakegarden ☺️🐾

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Finished painting the Blake Garden pages at home. There never seems quite enough time!

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~ GIVEAWAY CLOSED! ~ Congrats @gretchenrobardsphoto!!

🌸 Welcome to Tomatokind’s first-ever GIVEAWAY**! Lean into spring with a creative upgrade on us <3

🎁 Inside:
- (my most recommended journal for creatives/ entrepreneurs) Productivity Planner by @intelligentchange ($40 value)
- “Daily Rituals: How Artists Work” by @masoncurrey ($25 value)
- @playwabiblobi creative wellness travel pack ($20 value)
- Flower press kit ($25 value)

➡️ To enter:
- Follow @tomatokindmagazine
- Tag 3 friends in the comments of this post
- Like the first pinned post on our IG (our Possibilities Club launch announcement!)
- (Optional) 3x your chance to win by: comment on 1 post in Tomatokind’s substack (link in bio!)

**This giveaway will run until April 15th at 12pm PST, 2026 and the winner will be announced on April 16th!

Good luck 🎉🎉🎉

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First time at Blake Garden 🐝 nature's beauty all around

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Happy spring equinox! 🌱

We love Blake Garden, the living lab for our landscape architecture program, all year long — but spring is special.

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…like for being “bad” at coloring 🤦🏻‍♀️

This morning☀️, as I eased into my day, I decided to take this beautiful @chinatownoakland coloring book @byfelicialiang to the luscious grounds of @ucberkeleyblakegarden 🌷🌱🌳🌸 for an inspiring, heart-expanding coloring sesh.

With all that’s happening in the world - near and far - it feels especially needed to nurture my inner peace.

✨A dear friend had gifted me @byfelicialiang’s Oakland Chinatown coloring book for my birthday last year, and — despite being so excited about it — it’s just been sitting on my coffee table (too perfect to color!) 🫠

But, today, I decided to finally take it out for a spin.

So, I strolled around Blake garden until I found an idyllic spot, and got to work: flipped to a page, and sharpened my colored pencils (which I haven’t used in years).

🧘🏻‍♀️The first few minutes were amazing. I shaded in light and dark greens, and got comfy on the bench…

But then, I accidentally colored outside the lines once…then twice…〰️

Then, I mistook a curve for being part of the background instead of the foreground…and the shade of pink I chose for the top left corner didn’t match the bottom right…

🧠I started to get in my head — suddenly judging myself for being bad at coloring. “What a waste of time,” I thought. “I could be doing something else right now: being productive.”

It was a classic example of my pattern of criticizing myself for playing, for doing something imperfectly — for just having fun. It was uncomfortable, and I wanted to stop.

But…I didn’t. I kept coloring for 10 more minutes and finally held the half-colored page up to the sky. ☁️

In those last minutes, I gave myself more grace. I tapped into memories of coloring as a kid (on those restaurant placemats with teeny tiny pencils).

And, oddly enough, I came out of my coloring session with a simple resolve: to color a little bit every day for the next 30 days 🗓️, & see what happens. Perhaps I can re-wire my brain just a little bit to relax into these simple acts.

💬 I’m curious: Have you experienced something like this? This quick-judging of self? I’d love to know 🫶

#creativerest #play #coloring #coloringpages #innerchild

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✨Just Listed✨
61 Cowper Ave, Kensington
4🛌 2.5🛁

Step inside this entertainer's dream home! The open living room, with a handsome fireplace and large, west-facing windows, is ideal for dinner parties and sunsets, and flows easily into the kitchen and dining area. Fully updated, the kitchen features expansive quartz countertops, breakfast bar, skylights, and high-end Gaggenau combi steam oven in addition to the gas stovetop and oven. Open the sliding door off the dining area and continue the party outside on the large, private patio. Or venture up the steps from the patio to the upper yard and enjoy expansive views of the Golden Gate, and take in the sunset. If you need a spa day, no need to leave home! Turn up the heat and turn on the jets for a relaxing soak in the hot tub, and enjoy the convenience of the outdoor shower after! There is even electrical infrastructure for a future sauna.

Looking for good separation of spaces? The 3 upstairs bedrooms are down the hall from the living room and kitchen. The 2 west-facing bedrooms feature views of the Bay, and the primary bedroom, with en suite bathroom, provides access to the back garden and hot tub via sliding glass doors. Downstairs, the 4th bedroom has its own separate entrance, presenting endless options - Multi-generational living? Teenage retreat? Or perhaps you are ready to investigate this home's ADU potential?

Come see this beauty for yourself. We recommend arranging a viewing at sunset. The light and view are phenomenal.

Located close to @kensington_library
@ucberkeleyblakegarden

#eastbayrealestate #eastbayrealtors #kensingtonrealestate #viewhome
#wehaveateam
@taniahomeinsight
@lisa.robesch.realtor
@toddhodsoneastbay
#goodmove

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Have you been to @ucberkeleyblakegarden
We @mccoyfutchjourney went for the first time to check it out.

A great outing that’s FREE to go check out even bring a lunch and sit in the grass

#Garden#kensington #berkeley #collab #mccoyfutchjourney

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Designer Spotlight: Mai Kitazawa Arbegast, featured in the exhibition Modern Vernacular: Asian American Architects and the Built Environment of Postwar Northern California, on view in the Environmental Design Library through January 2026.

Mai Kitazawa Arbegast (1922–2012) was a UC Berkeley alum (MLA 1953), professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture, and first acting director of Blake Garden. She was instrumental in arranging the gift of the garden to UC Berkeley’s Department of Landscape Architecture in 1957. Born in San Jose, Arbegast attended San Jose State College until 1942, when her family was sent to the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming. She graduated from Oberlin College in 1945 and then went on to Cornell University for a MS in ornamental horticulture, where she was the only woman graduate student in the department, before earning her Berkeley degree in landscape architecture.

She left teaching in 1967 to focus full-time on practice; her specialty was planting design and she often collaborated with landscape architects like Lawrence Halprin, EDAW, and Peter Walker. She worked on many residential and commercial projects, as well as wineries and commercial landscaping. Some of her notable projects include: UC Davis Arboretum, Trefethen Vineyard, Clos Pegase Winery, California Palace of the Legion of Honor renovation, The Embarcadero Center, and Hearst Castle planting restoration.

She received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Environmental Design in 2002.

Learn more about Modern Vernacular: Asian American Architects and the Built Environment of Postwar Northern California, free and open to the public during library hours: ced.berkeley.edu/events.

Images: Mai Arbegast (1922-2012) Collection, Environmental Design Archives, UC Berkeley.
1 - Mai Arbegast in Blake Garden, 1960s.
2 - Mai Arbegast, conceptual sketch, Shanel Winery, Sonoma, 1990s.

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Afternoon walk at Blake Garden

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Visited Blake Gardens in Kensington near the UC Berkeley Campus. It was so dreamy in summer and can image how much more magical it might be now in autumn, go check it out 🍂

#blakegarden#ucberkeley#berkeley#california#thingstodo#kensington#gardens#bayarea#mexicandoll#muñecalele#traveldoll#garden

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