RE: fan letter

Loretta,

Thanks for the vote of confidence, it is nice to know
that others find what I babble on about interesting. 
I would agree with you that Berkeley is a great spot
to have a garden, but this time of year I wish I were
in southern California,(or Cabo San Lucas), I hate the
winter and cold weather!  I probably spend more time
looking at the garden from inside, than out in the
cold this time of year...

I certainly don't feel as if I am an expert,
especially compared to my other horticultural friends,
so have had to "specialize" in my own interests just
to be able to pull my own weight in conversations with
friends.  I think the only thing that does set me
apart is that I am both a landscape architect by
training, with the resultant urge to design gardens by
creating meaningfull spaces, providing strong
architectural backdrops for plants that help set them
off; and a wannabe artist, as my artist
mother,(painter), has influenced me, and a gardener
and collector of plants, as influenced by my father
and his mother, who was an incredible gardener.  I
always wonder what she might have created if she had
lived in California rather than Indianapolis, Indiana.

Throw some experiences of living overseas in the
tropics and subtropics, (Brazil, Malaysia, Hong Kong,
Singapore, Saudi Arabia), into the mix, and add a
fascination for tropicals and bromeliads and
succulents in particular.  Even so, I sometimes feel
inadequate around other bromeliad specialists, who
make me realize that I know very little about the
subject, except the developed interest in what is
hardy outdoors in Berkeley and coastal California.  My
other plant friends amongst the Califronia
Horticulture group and my favorite gathering of
gardening friends, the East Bay garden group the
Hortisexuals, whose motto is "No plant is safe!", also
put me in my place very quickly, as there are so many
knowledgable people in both these groups.  Fortunately
we are all so busy that it isn't really a competitive
scene, but more one of cross pollination of ideas...  

Again, because I have more of an interest in
subtropicals, I have become the presumed local person
knowledgeable about all things tender, but certainly
am not an expert.  I only can speak knowledgeably
about what I have tried, and speak from local
experience, which even then I don't consider the final
word on things.  It certainly helps to have curiosity
and a sense of humbleness in all this, and knowing
that there are always people who know more certainly
keeps one humble.  I also often feel odd in the sense
that I live and work in two often different worlds,
that of other landscape architects, and plants people,
who often have vastly different approaches to gardens.
 It makes me feel a little schizophrenic at times...

Good luck with the new Hedychiums, the Butterly
Gingers are some of my favorite plants, and if I had
more room I would try many more of the new,(to me),
species and hybrids, as Hedychium flavescens, H.
garderianum, H. coronarianum and Alpinia zerumbet and
A.z. variegatum are starting to seem old hat.  But at
$10 to $20 per rhizome for mail order varieties, it is
expensive to start new collections, especially when I
want 10 of everything!  You might consider growing the
deciduous, and cold hardy Cautleya spicata, which in
mass in shade is an incredible melange of red and
yellow blooms, (not always a tasteful or politically
correct combination), for late summer.   The Asian
garden section at UC Berkeley has a mass planting of
these that are incredible in August, and later all but
disappear into a withering mass of yellow stalks this
time of year.  So different from most of the
Hedychiums in my garden which usually are evergreen in
normal winters...

Regards,
David Feix

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