The Gardens at Lake Merritt

The Autumn Lights Festival organizers are calling for early artist submissions to be featured in this year’s three-night fundraising event October 15-17th. This year marks a special milestone—our 15th anniversary. In an increasingly uncertain world, opportunities for joy, creativity, and community connection are more important than ever. Please submit this artist form to join us if you’re interested!

Autumn Lights Festival 2026 • Artist Submission The Autumn Lights Festival organizers are calling for artist submissions to be featured at this year's fundraiser for the Gardens at Lake Merritt. We're calling this event The 15th ANNUAL AUTUMN LIGHTS FESTIVAL. Submissions will be juried by a panel, The Director and other chosen community artists.....

The humble , in all its gorgeous variations, is illuminating every shady corner of our verdant gardens.

The wonderful Dylan McNair from came by the garden today to work on the Bee Hotel, tidying everything up, tucking it in with moss and putting hardware cloth over everything to keep everything in place. Checking one of the tubes, there were lots of eggs inside so very exciting. Of course, Dylan could not resist teaching visitors about the bees.🐝🐝😎💕

We were so lucky to host a robust group of Yale alumni, friends and family this past weekend as part of their annual Yale Day of Service! We are so grateful for all they accomplished in our Lavender, Rose and Dahlia Gardens. We adore this partnership and hope to continue the tradition for years to come 💚

Last weekend we hosted an amazing compost workshop, lead by our very own Katie Applegate and StopWaste's Lori "CompostGal" Caldwell. We learned all about what makes a healthy compost system and how we can better maintain and feed our bins and, in turn, our gardens!

Programming like this is made possible by collective community skill-sharing and volunteers just like you! Please reach out to us at [email protected] if you have a topic you'd like to bring to the community 💚


stopwaste CompostGal: Consulting, Landscaping & Education

Today! The fabulous annual show is going on this afternoon at Lakeside Garden Center! Free admission.

So lucky to have 2 more PG&E groups come volunteer this week, helping out in our Bonsai Garden Reserve space and the Oakland-Fukuoka Sister City Garden! Come by this weekend to see all the work we've accomplished in April and enjoy the tranquil, beautiful space we steward with community effort.

EY brought an amazing team to volunteer yesterday as part of their EY Connect Day, helping to transform our Firescape Garden into the beautiful, welcoming space it's meant to be!

Oh, what a day! We welcomed in around 400 amazing volunteers on Monday's MLK Day of Service, working on 15 different projects and getting so much accomplished! Huge thanks to all the individuals, families and groups that joined!


#

That lovely time of year when the dawn redwoods turn their brilliant copper color 🧡