Re: The Evolution of a Gardener

I often wonder about people who insist that we shouldn't make gardens that require irrigation to sustain them; mostly whether they apply this logic to their own efforts.  Excuse me if I am casting a wide net here, but I tend to think that most people/gardeners are not quite so natural in their approach.  You will get no argument from me that as a society we could do a lot better than we have, and the current default landscape of irrigation for a California garden is probably not sustainable over the long term.  On the other hand, trying to dictate to people as to the personal choices they make in arranging their landscape is a hard sell, and leading by example is a better approach than telling people what they can/can't do.

Coastal California is not truly a desert, and the climate is quite capable of supporting many of our adapted natives and suitable exotics without the babying that most currently get.  Seeing what survives on abandoned properties is certainly one way to get a handle on what can survive without irrigation.

As a landscape designer who enjoys designing with plants from around the world, I don't see the choices as being limited to only natives, or even primarily natives.  It makes more sense to adapt the planting choices with what can reasonably be grown in the climate without unreasonable amounts of water/fertilizer/labor.  Especially if that irrigation is in the form of the once or twice monthly drip irrigation for only those plants that most need it.  There is far more water being used for irrigation of agricultural crops such as alfalfa and cotton, to name just two, that perhaps shouldn't be planted in such huge quantities here in water deficient California.  If we stopped growing so much alfalfa, it also stands to reason we should eat less beef, the primary reason for growing the crop.  If cities were also willing to invest in city wide gray water recycling of treated sewage, as is mandated in many new larger scale developments and especially newer
 purpose-built commercial projects, there is enough water to be apportioned to reasonable continued landscape irrigation.

I'd make the case that it makes more sense to get rid of your lawn first, especially if it is purely visual, or switch to a lawn type that can be kept alive with just once/twice monthly irrigation, and start switching your landscape to less water thirsty plantings over time, along with conversion to more efficient drip systems.  Recycling your own gray water as possible, or building storage tanks to capture roof water is an expensive option for climates such as ours with rainfall only half the year, but also expands the potential.

I also have to take exception to thinking that certain garden styles are not appropriate for a Mediterranean Climate Garden.  A Japanese style garden as one example also can be created with non-water loving plants that mimic the look of Japanese plants.  And tropicals are not all water loving hogs, and many can be fairly drought tolerant if carefully sited to take advantage of microclimates, which is what sensitive landscape design in this era is really about.  I'd also add that many desert plants that are extremely drought tolerant may be tropical or subtropical in origin, and may perform better here in an extended drought than even our local natives.

My own personal evolution as a garden designer has perhaps come full circle from the first professional gardens of mostly all California native plants that I was designing and installing while still a student of Landscape Architecture at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo some 37 years ago.  This was in the mid 1970's when we were in the middle of a several years long drought, and all native plant gardens were a very big deal back then.  Since that time I have tended to use a smaller percentage of natives and more similar Mediterranean climate or adaptable plants, and only in the last few years as we again face water shortages, have I changed my approach.  I now find that it just makes better sense to choose plantings and planting designs that will weather the probability of increasingly erratic climate that global climate change seems to entail.  I am coming to appreciate our local natives more and more, and finding increasing reasons to incorporate more of them
 into my current designs.  It is interesting to go back to some of my 30 year old gardens and see what still survives, what worked, what didn't.  Being exposed to a better selection of natives from around the state while working with Annie Hayes of Annie's Annuals has also changed my thinking about the design possibilities.

A big part of may garden design and installation now revolves around trying to plant new gardens primarily in the fall and winter, especially if I am using natives and trying to get these new gardens more quickly established using the least amount of water.  I spend a lot more time thinking about maximizing on-site microclimates to achieve efficiencies, and less time forcing a planting plan onto a site based purely on aesthetics.  It also seems that I incorporate a lot more recycled content into the hardscapes, including use of ground up tree trimmings as mulch for both budget and water savings reasons.  

Since I primarily design gardens that are very urban in location, and seldom work with locations that border wilder, natural areas, replicating what may have existed a 100 years ago doesn't really seem like a particularly valid approach.  Personally I'd rather see remaining wild areas conserved in-situ as a sustainable approach to saving wildlife diversity, rather than a mandated political policy that dictates to individual homeowners how and where they may create their own gardens,  If there needs to be water rationing in the future, I'd prefer to let each homeowner sort out what their personal values are, and decide how and where they want to use water within the rationing limits that are determined by the majority.  Who knows if this is the way it will play out in the end, but it certainly does seem that the future may see wars over water resources if the world doesn't wake up to the limits of supply, and the need for limiting our ever increasing
 populations. 

--- On Sun, 1/10/10, margn@internode.on.net <margn@internode.on.net> wrote:

> From: margn@internode.on.net <margn@internode.on.net>
> Subject: Re: The Evolution of a Gardener
> To: "medit plants forum" <medit-plants@ucdavis.edu>, "Ben Wiswall" <benwiswall@pacbell.net>
> Date: Sunday, January 10, 2010, 6:41 PM
>  
> Hi Ben and all readers, 
>   
> It is 43 degrees outside, at 12.13PM, and I am staying
> indoors with ears alert for the fire siren to sound the
> evacuation - there is no apparent danger here today but our
> state govt has dropped the pretence that out taxes and
> bush-fire levies should actaully fund a fire service that
> extends outside the CBD and inner suburbs!
>  
>  
>  
> Where-ever man goes he changes the landscape forever.
> It's not just the plants and gardens that are alien:
> what about the freeways, towns, cities, villages, airports,
> shipping ports, shopping malls, gold courses, vineyards,
> farms, orchards, schools, colleges, universities,
> cemeteries, power stations, dams, hospitals, parks, rubbish
> tips, factories, power stations and nurseries? Nothing
> can be just plonked down in a landscape without there being
> a major impact on what was there before. Adjusting to that
> idea is difficult for many who feel concerned about making
> as small  a footprint as possible. With some 22
> millions California (as an entity) just can't be
> landscape neutral. (My population numbers are probably
> wrong.) It can't be environmentally neutral either. The
> whole civilization thing is an artificial construct invented
> by Man.  
> Asking folks to use native plants is fraught with
> conceptual challenges: native to where - the contiental US?
> the West Coast from N to S, the SW desserts, the Rockies?
> the lesser mountain ranges/ estuaries/ riversides/
>  floodplains/ salinas marshes bogs fens swamps? the
> region within 50 Km of your home - why not 1 Km? What is
> native? What is more important is what will be native once
> climate change has run its course and plants
> 'native' to an area are no longer able to grow
> there and populate it .  
> Tropical gardens are out of synch with the usual
> climatic patterns of California - even in LA LA Land and
> Disney Land and Nuts Berry Farm,  just as English
> flower gardens are at FILOLI and Japanese gardens in SF. I
> could go on. But I can't stop without referring to the
> Robert irwin garden at the (new) Getty - now that is a
> totally defiant garden: it defies the climate; the
> architecture, the broader landscape - a total anachronism.
> Ah, but it;s Art with a capital A. It's a
> cultural abberation made possible by the interventions
> of technology, chemical interventions, irrigation
> interventions and evey other amendment made possible by the
> culture within which we (you) live.  
> Maybe what you are becoming aware of Ben is the
> dissonance between what you perceive was there before the
> arrival of European settlers and what actually confronts you
> face-to-face every day? Don't forget that even the
> native Americans (there's that 'n' word again)
> changed the landscape too - fish traps, settlements, burial
> grounds, sacred sites, trade places, burning fires
> deliberately to harvest animals by driving them towards
> hunters. middens of shellfish in the coastal dunes etc. 
> Out of all the landscapers who worked in CA - Yoch to
> Church, Lockwood de Forest to Ganna Walska the unspoken
> Spanish settlers who made simple patio gardens perhaps came
> closest to working with the landscape, climate and
> plants to produce a response sympathetic to local
> consitions. I agree with you in this. 
> Irrigation: the idea of using  it for flower
> gardens, is another technological dead-end. It creates a
> design dead-end too. Designers don't have to think about
> making a garden without it ie making gardens that get by on
> the rain that falls. In this respect designers have delluded
> themselves into believing they are artists; they believe
> they should be free of the constraints of the materials with
> which they work; that local conditions can be overcome by
> technologies applied to conceptual iudeals such as the
> Arcadian garden - or indeed, of California as Arcadia
> itself. 
> Now that I've bagged technology I have to add that
> modern sub-surface in-line irrigation technology such as
> invented and developed in the orchards, groves,
> vineyards and truck gardens of Israel are really
> excellent in saving water, delivering it just where its
> needed, in the right quantity - even with fertiliser and
> pesticides etc included. 
> BUT for home landscapes I believe it is vital to start
> out every plan with a rainfall only commitment to which
> small amounts of irrigation water can be added as families
> grow and change to support grassy play areas, shade trees,
> productive trees - shrubs- vines and even specialised flower
> beds. We really have no choice but to move determinedly away
> from the idea of green from front to back and side
> to side coupled with year-round flowers. It may have
> been a dream for those East Coasters of the Golden Age but
> it was only ever a dream. Whatever William Randolph Hearst
> wanted, and however Julia Morgan tried to make it come true
> it just wasn't, and isn't, sustainable even for one
> man let alone for the millions of peope who live in 
> California . 
> cheers 
> trevor n. 
>   
>
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