California Nursery Company

In 1884 John Rock and four business associates purchased the Jose de Jesus Vallejo Adobe located on five hundred acres of rich alluvial soil near Alameda Creek in Niles, and established the California Nursery Company. Rock was an experienced nurseryman with three successful operations on Coyote Creek in San Jose and planned to focus the new site on wholesaling grape vines, ornamental plantings, roses, fruit and nut trees to California’s flourishing agricultural industry. He worked with Luther Burbank and other West Coast plant breeders in introducing new horticultural hybrids and within a few years listed nearly five hundred varieties of fruit trees, seven hundred ornamental shrubs and two hundred and fifty roses in his widely distributed mail order catalog.

The booming California Nursery Company, an occasional location for Bronco Billy silent western films, was commissioned to landscape a portion of the grounds of San Francisco’s Pan Pacific International Exposition in 1915 by providing four hundred Canary Island Palms to line the fair’s grand promenade. CNC also received a gold medal for its immersive redwood forest exhibit, attracting the attention of William Randolph Hearst who selected the Rock’s Niles based operation to landscape the grounds of his fabled San Simeon castle.  

Ownership of the nursery changed hands several times after Rock’s passing, and in 1917 George C. Roeding, proprietor of Fancher Creek Nurseries in Fresno, purchased California Nursery Company. George Jr. took over management from his father in 1926 and at the time employed as many as one hundred fifty workers, reached annual sales exceeding $200,000, and had customers located around the world.  Roeding guided the nursery through the great depression by scaling the grounds back to two hundred and sixty acres and receiving the assignment of landscaping the approaches to the newly completed Golden Gate Bridge.  California Nursery Company became a destination for local gardeners and aspiring horticulturists in the 1940’s and 50’s with up to five thousand attendees to the Annual Spring Bulb and Summer Rose Shows. The City of Fremont restored the Jose de Jesus Vallejo Adobe in 1975 and began the creation of the twelve-acre California Nursery Historical Park at the corner of Niles Blvd. and Nursery Avenue that now attracts curious visitors to its informative entry plaza, heirloom rose garden, towering palm trees, eclectic forest, shaded pathways and rich history.