California dreaminin’

(Letter to Martha Part II)

I took a drive a drive along a country road the other day, west into the hills. It was autumn in sonoma

county, cool and overcast. The land was starting to green again and the valley oaks spread out across

the hills. Muted tones, somber shrubs and a subtle yellow flash of fall color gave a sense of peace to my

inner soul until I turned a bend and there, in our California Mediterranean landscape, was a large Cape cod

house with all it’s frilly east coast trappings. The glare of the pink impatients alone almost drove me off the road. Now I want to tell you, I don’t have any trouble with a Cape cod house, I’ve spent a few wonderful

summers in Sandwhich and I find the sea-worn gray color of the beach houses natural and calming but I

don’t understand why people from the east coast who come to Sonoma county (or the Bay Area in general)

and find it so beautiful that they want to move here and the first thing they do is want to build house and

landscape it exactly like where they came from. We are not in England anymore! This is a Mediterranean

climate. Hasn’t anyone read “Collapse” by Jared Diamond. If not, I suggest you do. A lot of ideas that the

native landscape movement has been talking about for years are summed up rather nicely, first of all that it is folly to

come to a new land and then try to stubbornly impose your own cultural practises on that place. Look at

Australia and it’s plaque of rabbits. This is California! It does not rain here that much. The soils are heavy

and hard. It makes no sense to remodel a house on a rural property, that is surrounded by rolling hills,

native shrubs, oaks, redwoods, vineyards  (which have their own set of problems) and then landscape with a bunch of showy, high maintenance, moisture-needy plants. You’re just throwing $$$ money away. And you

complain in the middle of summer, when you just planted a bunch of trees, that things don’t look so good.

Arghhhhhhhhhh! Would you send your sensitive, artsy kid to military school? Only if you want him to fail

miserably. If you want your garden to thrive , create an environment where they will do so or even better,

plant things that will thrive in the environment that is already present. Plants have a much more difficult time adapting than people do. or do they? sometime I’m not so sure

Martha my dear

Dear Martha,

You have been an inspiration to me and I want to thank you for the marriage counseling. At the very least I learned a lot about myself. This knowledge has also led to the realization that working on your property will not end up satisfying either of us.

As you know is going to I’ve been going through a lot of changes lately and I’ve come to the point where I no longer want to compromise my gardening ideals. I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t want to support bad landscaping decisions

which is going to be hard because it seems the world is full of them. You may be saying “where does this guy get off saying what’s good or bad” and it’s true most of my gardening knowledge has not come from formal training but hands on experience yet that experience has taught me how to recognize many of the classic mistakes you are now making.

I’m going to point out a few and although you may not appreciate them now perhaps later they can help.

1. Impatience (and you’re stubborn too!)

I know you say you’re an old lady and you don’t have time wait for trees to grow but when you’re

In the middle of building a new house on the property, landscaping now is a waste of time and money. First of all, construction workers don’t care about plants. They happily kill plants because

Those plants are just another thing in the way of completing their job. They don’t think about the

Future of the landscape or how long it takes a plant to grow, they only think about what they are

Getting paid to do. That’s all. That includes ripping out irrigation if it’s in the way. So any land-

Scaping during a building projects will only result in lots of destruction and turmoil in the garden.

Contractors are also often the “shoot first ask questions later types”, so you never know what’s going to go down during the project. This leads to predicaments like when you insisted on planting an orchard against my recommendation

and sure enough the workers damaged the irrigation which killed some of the trees and then they all had to be moved to make way for a mountain of excavated dirt. I know this sounds bitter and I don’t just want to say “I told you so”.

I want to share what gardening has taught me and how the lessons can be applied to the rest of the human experience.

I imagine people who work inside, in offices, who work with the symbols of language and are used to attaining their

goals via scheduling tasks on the calendar don’t realize that timing can be critical in the landscape and that timing

is influenced by the seasons and the weather. It’s kind of like the stock market. Buy or sell at the wrong time and

you can lose a lot of $$$. (Next post- Don’ be no oppressa’ man)

Landscaping vs. gardening

Landscaping works toward shaping the earth, clearing away what’s naturally there or at least what is presently

on the site and imposing a new construction.

Gardening is more concerned with plants, how to grow them best, pruning, fertilizing, preventing disease,etc.

Landscaping may also include planting but it is often just part of an “installation” which includes the

hardscaping elements such as concrete, wood and stone and irrigation for the “plant material”.

Gardening too incorporates design but usually works with the site as it already exists.

Farming is growing plants for food to consume or sell.

Gardeners have to do a lot of digging, weeding, mulching and watering. this is usually done by hand or

with the aid of small motor tools

Landscapers have to do digging too. Lots and lots of digging. sometimes the digging is done with big

pieces of equipment like a backhoe.

Farmers like backhoes too.

Landscapers have to truck in big loads of soil and rock and mulch.

Gardeners like that stuff too but usually on a smaller scale. Good gardeners incorporate compost into

their gardens.

Some farmers use compost.

Landscaping is masculine

Gardening is feminine

Landscapers oppress the earth

Gardeners oppress the plants, sometimes

Can you guess which one I consider myself?

they didn’t call it the landscape of Eden