Olivier Felippe's visit and lecture

Adding to what Sean O'hara had to say about Olivier's
visit, it was very interesting to see the emphasis
that Olivier is making on creating gardens and garden
style with absolutely no permanent irrigation, and how
he remarked that this is not the trend here in
California.  He kept saying that everything looked so
lush and well watered here by comparison.  This tends
to be so even in native plant/mediterannean plant
gardens here, where drip irrigation is most often used
as a means of extending the bloom season or keeping
things greener than they would stay without any
irrigation.  He noticed that even the natives at the
Tilden Park California Natives Botanic Garden received
occasional irrigation. 

It does point out some striking differences in
phiospophy between different areas around the world,
and may point out how reliant we, (Californians),
still are on using applied technology and imported
resources here to maintain the majority of our
gardens.  Even in places like Tucson and Phoenix,
Arizona, most if not all landscapes using natives will
rely on a drip irrigation system during the initial
establishment period to help plants survive, and
Arizona is probably at the forefront of using locally
indigenous plants in desert appropriate design style
in many public and private gardens/landscapes over the
past 15 years.  Steve Martino and Christine Ten Eyck's
work, both very well known landscape architects in
Arizona, are particulary representative of this style.
 

There is so little written on local California gardens
that are designed with no suppemental water given,
although there is much more information on plantings
which can survive on occasional to periodic
supplemental irrigation.  Perhaps the complicated and
convoluted geography and 100's of microclimates within
California contribute to this, as it is difficult to
generalize about water requirements of a specific
plant even over a distance of a few miles, it can vary
so much depending on elevation, soil type and depth,
exposure and distance from the sea.  The other factor
that must still be considered a strong cultural
influence is the wealth of plants available to us to
choose from, the historic sense of California as a
paradise location that ony lacked water to make the
earth bloom, and the eclectiscism and individualism
that our local culture seems to prefer.  As one
example, imagine how difficult it would be to get a
consensus to rebuild an entire city to conform to a
spanish mediterannean style, such as was done for the
City of Santa Barbara after the earthquake there in
the  1920's.  

These days there is still a desire to impose man's
control over nature, and the tropical movement of the
1990's shares much with the same vogue of a century
ago. (Except that we tend to think that we show better
taste in our plantings compared to the victorians,
with perhaps more unity of design principles and less
objectification and snobbery on having the latest new
or rare plant).  In fact, we are probably very much
the same, and perhaps only repeating the earlier
trend... 

I'd be interested to hear from more people that garden
without irrigation, as it is a topic that should be of
interest to us all, especially knowing that a water
shortage may be the norm in all of California with
global warming.  Our snow pack may be greatly reduced,
and even with heavier and more frequent winter rains,
the net effect will be less water retention, a
shortened water storage season, and more potential for
winter and spring floods.  My guess is that it will
become more economical to recycle gray water for
landscape use than build more dams, and cisterns to
collect roof top water will come back into style.  

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