`Britain Meets the Bay'?

Fellow Medit-Plants persons - 

I just received an invitation to a reception for a noted
English landscape designer, Julian Dowle.  I am researching
what I can about this fellow before this reception (at the
end of the week), but am coming up a bit shy with regard to
information on which I can really chew - he seems a knowlegeable
and obviously famous fellow, and apparently well-steeped in
the English style.  I have uncovered that he is apparently
participating in the `Britain Meets the Bay' Flower Show at
a major downtown Merchant (Macy's) later this month.  I'd be
interested in anyone's first-hand impressions of his work,
writings, or speaking.

In reading a press release I found on the internet announcing
this event, I suddeny feel dispondent.  Such a fuss is made 
about England's Chelsea Garden Show and the idea seems clearly
to bring a 'bit of Chelsea' here to the Bay Area.  While I admire
the Brits for the intensity with which they attach landscapes and
gardens, many of us here in California who have tried to make
gardens for clients have routinely run up against the 'English
Garden Style' being upheld as the standard against which all
gardens must be judged in the eyes of the general public.  I am
sure Mr. Dowle is a likeable fellow, and good at his craft.  I also
think John Brooks to be equally so and I had a chance to meet him
during a prior SF Garden Show.  But the idea that he was looking
to design Bay Area gardens and that everyone should be so in love
with all things English with regard to gardens makes me feel as
though we'll never get our local gardening folk to adopt a truely
Californian, climate appropriate gardening style.

Local Garden shows are now starting to occur, and there is still
such an insistence on high-maintenance, copiously irrigated, and
such a non-California approach.  A few designers who are very
much 'on the edge' are making a name for themselves amid the avant-
gard homeowners who what something really unusual or trendy, but
the average homeowners should also be working towards gardens more
in sync with our local conditions and inherent California themes.

Just thinking out loud - it might be interesting to hear what other
people think about the above shapeless mass of thinking.

Sean O.

Sean A. O'Hara                       sean.ohara@poboxes.com
h o r t u l u s   a p t u s          710 Jean Street
'a garden suited to its purpose'     Oakland, CA 94610-1459, U.S.A.
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