Gardening with a Wild Heart. Judith Larner Lowry
coastal scrub habitat. But I was slightly worried. If it worked, which wasn't likely, how would it affect my beloved back-yard quail?Moving to a new neighborhood and introducing a predator right away seemed a thoughtless idea. For a number of reasons, I garden for quail: historical (they used to be here in flocks of thousands), aesthetic (is there a prettier bird than the California quail?), and emotional (such sweet, homeloving creatures). Counting back-yard quail is a way I have of reassuring myself, like counting rosary beads, that things are still somewhat okay.
It is hard for humans to avoid playing favorites. The vole specialist must have some innate fondness for the vole, the lily fancier for the lily. On the positive side, our natural tendency to divide and specialize, from which much knowledge has been gained, is a form of love. It may be that tribal divisions into clans, each of which had its own totem, was an example of this human proclivity for alliance.
Specialists studying family dynamics advise noninterference in most sibling quarrels. By planting in such a way as to replicate natural plant associations you can, like a good parent, avoid playing favorites. Provide habitat for basic needs, and let the kids fight it out.
WHAT BIRDS REALLY WANT
Much has been written about gardening to attract birds or butterflies. In seeking to draw birds to the garden, note that, in general, birds (unlike butterflies and some insects) require a certain habitat structure rather than a particular plant. Habitat structure supplies shelter, roosting, nesting, and food-finding opportunities. Some birds want open plains, some prefer deep woods, some want access to both. Some require proximity to a number of different plant communities, one for each life function. Some stay close to home all their lives; others travel great distances. What birds visit your garden depends on many factors, only some of which are under your control.
The Point Reyes Bird Observatory studies birds of the coastal scrub. I learn from them what birds I might expect with my plantings of coastal scrub plants. Since that particular plant association is being removed or overcome by non-native species in my neighborhood, my decision to use this plant community as a backbone for my garden includes the hope that wrentits, bushtits, and white-crowned sparrows, all denizens of the coastal scrub, will find what they need in my garden.
Birds need to eat all the time. Although
Bird feeders and birdseed are big business, providing pleasure for many, and yet there are questions about their role in the health of our bird populations. Ray Peterson recommends being an inconsistent feeder, so that bird populations do not become totally dependent on being artificially fed. Others recommend consistency, so that birds can count on the food you provide. This controversy provides another opportunity to recognize uncertainty and honor complexity.
The composition of seed mixes sold as bird feed is one problem described by non-feeders. Birdseed that includes millet attracts the notorious cowbird, a dangerous pest in the West. The cowbird lays its eggs in the nests of other species, which find themselves raising aggressive nestlings that outcompete their own offspring. Some birdseed mixes include weedy species that can compound the California gardener's weeding tasks, although sterile seed is also often sold. The back-yard restoration garden, if large enough, might ideally include enough food-producing plants to make birdseed unnecessary. And foster the butterflies. As Barbara Deutsch, a Bay Area butterfly savant, says, “Without caterpillars, birds can neither form eggshells nor feed their young.”
LEARN TO LOVE WHERE YOU LIVE
A visitor described my garden setting as “having no natural features.”It is flat, there are no rocks, no ocean view, no valley view. Although less dramatic than steep or sloping land, and not my inborn concept of the most beautiful gardening situation, I have become increasingly appreciative of something very “comfortable” about gardens on flat land, where so many of our houses are built.
It's always a good idea to check out the preferences of the original inhabitants of a place. Many tribes chose village sites on flat land. With no erosion concerns, we can plant with impunity whenever we feel like it. And the soil is good. With no rocks, the digging is easy. Kids can learn to walk here; elders perambulate without the difficulties added by dramatic slopes.
I value the easy flow from prairie to perennial border to woodland, from volleyball court to woodpile to our plot of oak-shaded Indian lettuce. I have come to think of it as an encampment, where many activities, from badminton to campfires to food growing, can be encompassed.
DESIGN TIP While washing the dishes, I see quail fighting from my kitchen window. For some weeks, they seemed to be tranquilly double-dating; now the males are taking each other on. I can look this behavior up in A. Starker Leopold's book The California Quail, or I can try to figure it out myself while I wash the dishes. Or I can take afield trip with an ornithologist and hear what an expert has to say.
The kitchen window can be an important design component in the back-yard restoration garden. When possible, I recommend that clients carefully plan the view from this vantage point. It provides a regular observation post, where the mind, not otherwise occupied, can play the game of drawing conclusions about nature, as it carries on in the garden.
The back-yard restoration garden should be a comfortable place, providing many opportunities to be on the ground. Decks and patios, ways of staying off the ground, are minimized. We are interested in all ways to interact with our garden that bring us out into it. Hiding places, hammocks, shady places for hot days, places to soak up the sun on mild winter days, places for games, places for seed cleaning, even a small, body-sized section of perfect lawn, might all be accommodated by the back-yard restoration garden.
And places for sitting around the fire. A client wanted a fire pit to be the center of her garden, so we designed a circular garden with the pit at the center. Native grasses were planted around the pit, then a ring of coastal scrub plants, then at the perimeters a mix of willows, hazels, elderberries, and oaks, for privacy and enclosure. If you came upon such a place in the wild, you might think you'd died and gone to heaven, restored to an earlier California paradise.
LEARNING TO LOVE BROWN
Bart O'Brien of Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden says that the most important reason native plants are not accepted by the general public is the summer dormancy that many (although not all) require. The glowing green of spring, with its bright blossoms, is considered to be the desired state for a garden at all times.
There comes a time in the landscape of California, even along the coast, when nothing much is growing. Summer dormancy, in those plants that employ this drought-evading tactic, holds sway in the native garden. Wildflowers have gone to seed, grasses are semi-dormant, and some perennials have died down to their roots.
Slanting shadows of late summer and autumn afternoons, golden grasses, ripening acorns. A meditative, not lively, time. Newly arrived from the East Coast, I used to be impatient for the quickening of the rains. By November, I might have had enough sunny days in the sometimes worrisome “waiting for rain” times. Depending on the year, this time might last into January. I often found myself apologizing to visitors for the unspectacular state of my garden.
A century ago, Clarence King called summer dormancy “a fascinating repose…wealthy in yellows and russets and browns.” I measure my true life as a Californian from the time that I stopped apologizing for a garden exquisite in its light and shadow, its still endurance. Reveling in shades of gold, blonde, palomino, gray, and muted greens, it seldom occurs to me to do so now.
A deepening into the season was required, a renewed acceptance of the solemn stillness of golden days, when grasses, perennials, and wildflowers have gone to seed, and shrub and tree seeds are still not ripe.