Healdsburg designer at SF showcase home

<p>Healdsburg designer Myra Hoefer snagged a high-profile room in San Francisco’s Decorator Showcase home, opening for public ogling starting Saturday.</p><p>The bi-continental designer who is constantly jetting back and forth to Paris where she re-does apartments, called in chits from everyone she knows to pull off the feat on a shoestring — without looking like it.</p><p>Hoefer applied her estimable skills to a second-floor living room in the 1910 four-story Georgian, located at 2830 Pacific Ave. Her “neighbor” is internationally known designer Orlando Diaz-Azcuy, who did the dining room.</p><p>“The two rooms will radiate together. He has lots of gold and light. Mine is very humble,” said Hoefer, who is known for a certain refined Euro elegance brought to earth with fun finds from France’s brocantes and flea markets.</p><p>Hoefer said she knocked on the doors of all her wealthy friends to get backing for the project.</p><p>“Nobody helped me out but the little guys,” she said. “I’m so blessed. I had so many people come to my aid for nothing. All the upholstery, all the silk fabric, the workmanship on the marble in the fireplace.”</p><p>Keying into a new era of more toned tastes for a younger generation, Hoefer went for a look she describes as “lean” and practical, something almost like a “little global salon” with bare floors and white-washed linens.</p><p>Hoefer is among more than 30 designers unleashed on the grand residence.</p><p>It’s open daily except Mondays, through May 25. 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, with extended hours to 7 p.m. on Thursdays. Sundays and Memorial Day it is open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets are $30; $25 for seniors over 62. Tickets sold at the door only. (415) 447-3115, decoratorshowcase.org.</p><h3>NORTH BAY: Pick up some plants</h3> <p>The plant sale season reaches a crescendo this weekend with a tempting selection of opportunities. Get out your GPS and chart a course.</p><p>Old roses and native plants propagated from some of the heirlooms abloom in Santa Rosa’s rural cemetery, will be on sale May 2. Pick up some pots for your own garden after taking a free guided walk through the cemetery. Choose among either a Vintage Rose Tour, pointing out many hardy roses planted in memory of friends and family more than 100 years ago, or a Cemetery Flora Tour describing many of the living plants of the cemetery as well as those depicted on the headstones. Tours begin at 10 a.m. and run every 20 minutes until 11 a.m. The cemetery is located at Franklin Avenue at Monroe Street. Tours will leave at the Franklin Avenue gate. Free. 573-0103.</p><p>The Flatland Flower Farm in Sebastopol, a primarily wholesale nursery, opens its garden for one day a year only to the general public, and this year the magic day is Sunday. This is a time to stock up on certified organic ornamentals, vegetables and herbs, including hard to find peppers and heirloom tomatoes. 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. 580 Tilton Road, Sebastopol. 823-3453 or flatland@sonic.net.</p><p>It’s a tomato love fest Saturday and Sunday when Cornerstone Sonoma plays host to Tomatomania, an all-tomato sale of heirloom seedlings featuring 200 varieties. In addition to plants, the sale offers stakes, pots and tomato-inspired foods. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. 23570 Highway 121, Sonoma, 933-3010, cornerstonesonoma.org.</p><p>The Harvest for the Hungry Garden is the place to go for tomatoes and drought-tolerant and native plants. And proceeds benefit the garden, which feeds the hungry and needy. 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at 1717 Yulupa Ave., Santa Rosa. For information: harvestgarden.org.</p><p>If you’re celebrating the Apple Blossoms in Sebastopol this week, wander away from the festivities and seek out Gold Ridge Farm. This historic site where Luther Burbank conducted his legendary plant experiments, holds an open house and plant sale Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days. 7781 Bodega Ave., Sebastopol. 829-1757.</p><h3>SANTA ROSA: More plant sales</h3> <p>If you don’t get enough from this weekend’s plethora of plant sales, there is always next weekend.</p><p>Kendall-Jackson Wine Center, which has one of the Wine Country’s most impressive public potagers, is throwing a massive Heirloom Tomato Plant Sale, with some 115 different varieties, as well as herbs and perennials from the School Garden Network. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. May 2, 5007 Fulton Road, Santa Rosa. 571-8100.</p><p>San Francisco Botanical Garden holds its Spring Plant Sale on May 2. This is touted as the largest plant sale in the Bay Area, with 4,000 different kinds of plants, many from the garden’s own collection.</p><p>This year’s sale emphasizes drought-tolerant plants and food plants suited for Bay Area vegetable gardens.</p><p>The sale includes a big selection — 300 to 400 varieties — of California native plants at their seasonal peak. But there will also be cacti and succulents, herbaceous perennials, vines, ferns, roses, rock garden plants, salvias and rhododendrons as well as a unique variety of Asian and Mediterranean shrubs. 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. In the San Francisco County Fair Building, Ninth Avenue and Lincoln Way in Golden Gate Park. (415) 661-1316, sfbotanicalgarden.org.</p><h3>WINDSOR: Water-wise workshop</h3> <p>SBI Materials in Windsor hosts a free workshop from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday on water-wise gardening.</p><p>A range of helpful topics will be covered including easy drip irrigation retrofits and water-wise plant selection and design. Information about rebates offered by the town of Windsor for water conservation will be provided. There will also be a talk and demonstration on sheet composting, a good way to transform your lawn from turf into living soil without chemicals and without the expense of hauling it away.</p><p>SBI is at 10540 Old Redwood Highway, Windsor. 431-1617.</p><h3>UKIAH: Seminar on tap</h3> <p>If you live in Mendocino County and are facing a summer season of serious water shortages, you might want to catch a free Water Wise Gardening Seminar at Mendocino College on Saturday.</p><p>The workshop, put on by the Ukiah Garden Club, the Mendocino County and Mendocino College ag departments and Drip Works of Willits, will cover irrigation, garden design and tips to reduce your water bills. 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Little Theater, 1000 Hensley Creek Road, Ukiah. 485-0363.</p>