About Us
California Flora Nursery is devoted to natives and habitat gardening with attention to local Bay Area needs and conditions. Visit us at 2990 Somers Street, Fulton, CA to explore our excellent offerings. Our enthusiastic team is knowledgeable about how to select and care for native plants and can help with finding pollinator-friendly, low-water, and fire-safe landscaping options. Healthy plants are our priority. Our many sanitation protocols make us one of the cleanest nurseries in the North Bay.
Our nursery specializes in propagating plants onsite and has recently expanded our seed-grown selections. We aim to make the most in-demand natives readily available to customers, as well as provide a diverse range of California’s more unusual and hard-to-find species. Over the years, Cal Flora has introduced many wild forms into the nursery trade, such as Monardella villosa ‘Russian River,’ Festuca californica ‘Phil’s Silver,’ and Calamagrostis ‘Little Nootka’— just to name a few.
Josh Williams
As owner of Cal Flora, Josh Williams is always on the lookout for new forms of our native species and fresh ways to entice people into planting more natives. His life-long fascination with California’s flora began as a child while hiking and camping with his family. Since then, he has sought to bring what he saw in nature into the garden setting, mimicking natural landscapes through selection and repetition of plant species. His current focus is on ecological gardening, where each section of a landscape represents a different plant community.
Amber Huntington
Cal Flora’s nursery manager, Amber Huntington, brings her many years of plant-propagation experience and her expertise as botanist-in-residence for Pepperwood Preserve. Her early interest in botany and native plants was encouraged by her physicist grandfather who took her out into northern California's natural areas where they collected flowers to observe under his homemade microscopes, and which they photographed with the cameras he machined. Amber has worked together with Josh in growing and promoting native plants since they both joined the nursery in 2009. At her residence on Pepperwood, she focuses on botanical exploration, native gardening, and studying the phenology of oaks.
Sherrie Althouse and Phil Van Soelen
One of the Bay Area’s oldest California native plant nurseries, Cal Flora was founded in 1981 by Sherrie Althouse and Phil Van Soelen. Over nearly four decades, they built the nursery into one of the most sought-out native nurseries in Northern California. Josh, their nursery manager at the time he purchased the nursery in 2020, continues to expand on this vision.
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We do not ship or mail order.
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Return Policy:
Due to sanitation protocols regarding the spread of Phytophthopra, we are no longer able to accept plant returns or used nursery containers. However, we do stand behind our plants and endeavor to provide healthy material when it leaves the nursery. If a plant has not performed well and the customer believes it was an issue with the plant, we are happy to discuss the situation and issue a credit if it is appropriate.
For more information regarding Phytophthora and what we are doing to keep a clean nursery, please see: www.suddenoakdeath.org
