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IN MY MINUTE My neighbor provided me with an interesting perspective recently. I made a visit to inquire tactfully if the weasel-shaped killer kitty that has decimated this season’s first crop of baby California quail might belong to her family. (It did, a recent birthday present for her daughter.) As we talked, I stood on her deck and looked at her garden backed up by mine. In so doing, I saw my garden from her point of view. She has a pretty little border of lavender and roses, set against an old-style wooden fence. Behind the fence, serving as backdrop, foil, and privacy corridor, is a section of the patch of coastal scrub and coastal chaparral I have worked on for the last 20 years. It is a dense, vibrant, glorious mass, now that the poison hemlock, Himalayan blackberry, vinca, and French broom are almost eradicated. Things that rustle, chirp, and slither live there. Together, my neighbor and I admired the view. Judith Larner Lowry, author of Gardening with a Wild Heart (UC Press 1999), owns Larner Seeds in Bolinas, Marin County, and designs and cultivates native plant gardens. OTHER GARDENS, OTHER VIEWS Gardening is the favorite outdoor sport of more people than baseball, football, or soccer. There are, thank heavens, as many kinds of gardens as there are gardeners. In the last 10 or 12 years, while writing a column called “Garden Gallivanting” for the Point Reyes Light, I had the privilege of visiting more than 100 coastal gardens. I wouldn’t change a one of them, not even the garden that represents in miniature an entire railroad line, and certainly not the wonderful garden I saw that approximates Monet’s Giverny estate, outside Paris. Certainly there have been many fads in gardening, beginning perhaps with the Mogul gardens of India. They gave us the notion that gardens must feature water, whether in streams, fountains, waterfalls, ponds, or even birdbaths. Most gardeners still try to do that, lo these 2,000 years later. In the 1700s, tulip mania overcame Europe and people ripped out roses to plant tulips. Now in coastal California, native plant gardens are one trend. Margot Patterson Doss wrote a column on walking for the San Francisco Chronicle for 30 years and also served on the Citizen’s Advisory Commission for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area during the GGNRA’s first 15 years. She lives in Bolinas. Her books include San Francisco At Your Feet and Bay Area at Your Feet. The full text of these articles is in the print edition of Coast & Ocean. |
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