Gardening with a Wild Heart. Judith Larner Lowry
A pink penstemon intertwines with the pale lilac of Bolander's phacelia by a large ceramic water jar. Orange and yellow columbines are set off by the dark gray fence. Where a tree fell last year, bare soil is filling in with seedlings of yellow-eyed grass, always an opportunist in my garden. Red fescue, luxuriant and green for months, begins slowly to fade. After it goes to seed, we'll cut it to four inches above the ground. Or maybe not. Here and there it is flattened in the shape of a lying-down dog.
In September, the reddish orange form of the California poppy we call “Mahogany Red” contrasts with the dormant fescues, mirrors the fall colors of vine maple and creek dogwood. Seed was sown in four-inch pots in February; plants were put in the ground in August and bloomed to the end of October.
No plant community has been particularly thought of here, and forbs from moist creek and semi-arid grassland and oak savannah demonstrate their adaptability by thriving together. Blue bedder penstemon from dry hillsides is stunning with bleeding heart from the redwoods; I never would have thought that they would “go” together, and they certainly are from different ecosystems, but this particular year, with consistent and extended amounts of rain, the fluidity of plant requirements is amply demonstrated.
As late as August, I shall continue planting annuals and perennials from four-inch pots. There is a chaotic, flowery, surprising aspect to this part of the garden, a jumble from which patterns can be discerned, information gained, interesting surprises enjoyed.
An arching trellis separates this part of the garden from the wilder part. This trellis is planted with a French rose and a native clematis. Once I saw ten quail perched on the top of the arch, and another morning, an antlered buck paused under it, as though to savor its philosophical implications.
INCORPORATE NATIVE PLANTS
THAT ALREADY EXIST ON THE SITE
Coyote bush was almost the only native species to be found on our Scotch broom—infested field. I have learned the garden utility of coyote bush, its versatility, quirkiness, and unpredictability. One elegant specimen, pruned and mulched, is such a perfect rounded mound that many visitors don't recognize it. Other coyote bushes, responding to factors both known and unknown, are uneven in shape, idiosyncratic, as various as oaks. I enjoy working with coyote bush. As I prune, weed, and mulch around it, I ponder its ways.
RESPECT PLANTS AS A CONNECTION
TO THE EARLIER INHABITANTS OF THE LAND
Once the French broom had been removed from our garden, a plant called soaproot, Chlorogalum pomeridianum, showed itself. Mounds of large, straplike leaves with wavy edges and spidery white, moth-pollinated flowers that open toward the end of the day in airy sprays, this species is found in many parts of California, in many types of soil. Here they are so large and old that possibly they were present when the Coast Miwok paused here for lunch.
For the Miwok, soaproot served several purposes. The bulbs were roasted for food, boiled for glue to make baskets watertight and for other uses, and thrown into dammed-up creeks to stupefy fish. Neat brown brushes for whisking acorn meal out of grinding rocks are still made from the fibers surrounding the bulb, the brush handles glued together with glue from the bulb itself.
This plant tested our desire to let the garden have a say in designing itself. It appeared in a planting of local eriogonums, and its long straplike leaves did not “go” with the rounded felty leaves of the buckwheats. We decided to play with the design by repeating this unplanned plant combination in the border. It turned out to “work” in an entirely unanticipated fashion. By using the design technique of repetition, we were able to satisfy our gardening aesthetics as well as to preserve this reminder of an earlier human-plant relationship.
At the annual gathering of the California Indian Basketweavers Association, some kids were making traditional soaproot brushes from soaproot bulbs. One of the adults, in order not to waste the bulbs from which the fibers were gathered, offered to demonstrate how the bulbs are used as shampoo. We gathered around to watch as he brought up a lather in a bowl of water, then rubbed it through his hair. Besides the unusual experience of watching somebody wash their hair at a conference, this act contained a sense of an old relationship being maintained, and the respect that avoidance of waste implies.
MAKE A KINDER, GENTLER FENCE
In my town, the vistas were once unimpeded, and everyone could see the ocean from their house. Now redwood plank fences dot this marine terrace like mini-stockades. The dullness of the view and the thought of the redwood forests such fences devour make walking down a country lane flanked by solid wooden walls a grim experience.
See-through fencing, including various kinds of wire stock fencing, helps to maintain the visual connection to the larger garden beyond the fence. It is cheaper than wooden fences and easier on the environment. Fences with spaces between the boards use less wood and are both more visually appealing than solid fences and more resistant to wind damage. Wind encountering a solid barrier is forced up and then over it. Wind filtering through an airy fence or multi-layered hedge is diffused.
Our property is a medley of fences, some part of the original property, solid redwood fences and old-fashioned pickets, and some recreated with components of original fencing mixed with wire and other materials. One stormy year, a Monterey cypress came crashing down on a section of old fence. A local tree surgeon with a small mill took the tree away and brought it back in beautiful planks, for yet another kind of fence.
One section of fence was designed by a carpenter who also does beadwork. The combination of wire fencing strongly reinforced top and bottom by recycled redwood boards, sections of old fence moved from old boundary lines, and eucalyptus poles is strung like a beautiful necklace along the property line. It is varied and pleasing, a part of the play between randomness and order.
Somewhere between “Good fences make good neighbors” and “Something there is that doesn't love a wall” exists a kind of fence that reflects a desire to be part of the larger picture, with flexible and friendly boundaries. I want to see my neighbors, but not too much and not all the time. I want privacy but a friendly wind blowing through, a barrier that is permeable to quail, seeds of California oatgrass from the field across the street, and my sense of connection to my neighborhood.
STUDY THE NATURAL LANDSCAPE
When garden problems reach a dead end, ideas can come through personal exploration and reading. A red elderberry in a coastal garden became huge, thriving beyond what we had expected. Nothing seemed to do well near it. Reading that elderberry and sword fern hold the nests of Swainson's thrushes and Wilson's warblers near coastal creeks, we decided to use sword fern as the nearby underplanting, hoping to draw these lovely singers. On a hike, I saw that creek dogwood, a deciduous shrub comely at all times of the year, but particularly in the fall when its leaves turn shades of purple and orange, was thriving near elderberry. We planted that too.
PLAYING FAVORITES: DESIGN FOR THE WHOLE PICTURE
In an otherwise excellent book about butterfly gardening, one author advises against planting berry-bearing shrubs or trees. Such plantings will attract birds, he says, which might prey upon the caterpillars that turn into butterflies. Since his focus is on butterflies, he wants to enhance the environment for butterflies only, advising readers, “Avoid cultivating plants which have fruits or seeds that birds eat and which do not attract butterflies.”
Once I watched an enraptured mammalogist rush toward a badger hole, crushing a lone specimen of a rare Dichelostemma at which I was gazing. I know butterfly fanciers who welcome the devastating advance of certain invasive non-native plants because a favored butterfly may be able to use this plant. Favoring a particular species over others seems to be a human propensity.
I have a new neighbor next door. At the edge of her property is an extremely tall Monterey pine. Not long after she bought the place, we noticed a blue milk bottle crate high up in the tree. We gazed at it in wonderment, speculating as to how and why it was there. Turned out my neighbor had placed it there, hoping to attract owls.
Some of us “old-timers” laughed at this hopeful act. Owl requirements are more complicated than a box in a tree, and there didn't seem