Re: The Evolution of a Gardener

Perhaps another consideration other than water use in choosing appropriate
plants that may tip the scales toward natives is the question of
invasiveness which has not, I think, been mentioned here.

Sylvia Sykora
Oakland, CA


On 1/10/10 8:04 PM, "david feix" <davidfeix@yahoo.com> wrote:

> 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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