Naturalistic Landscaping

Posted on March 6, 2018 by tomkarwin

Several months ago, wrote about a remarkable book by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West: Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes (Timber Press, 2015).

In that book, Rainer and West present interesting, insightful and inspiring ideas for landscape design. Central concepts include interlocking layers of plants that grow compatibly in nature, while creating landscapes that are naturalistic but “more robust, more diverse, and more visually harmonious, with less maintenance.”

Some of their concepts, in plainer language, are the following:

“Plants are social creatures” —This thought advocates close planting of natural companions, rather than isolating plants from each other, separated by areas of organic or inorganic mulch.

“Plants are the mulch” — This catchphrase points to the practical value of close planting as a strategy for blocking weed growth and thereby reducing time and effort.

The Rainer/West vision, while complex, is predominantly optimistic. Their book is certainly worth reading. My review, titled “Designing Naturalistic Landscapes,” is archived here.

A reader of this column who had previously read this Rainer and West book observed that the style they described emphasizes landscape uses of herbaceous perennials and annuals in a climate with year-round rainfall. By contrast, while California has “lots of shrubs and sub-shrubs with some annuals” and a summer-dry (Mediterranean) climate. The reader asked how to go about adapting the style presented in this book to our California climate, and where in California has such a garden been created.

These are worthwhile questions. The authors recommended drawing on locally relevant resources, e.g., the California Native Plant Society. Also, my column referenced a book by Glen Keator and Alrie Middlebrook: Designing California Native Gardens: The Plant Community Approach to Artful, Ecological Gardens (University of California Press, 2007).

There are more relevant resources available online, notably Thomas Rainer’s Grounded Design website.

Gardeners also have access to many books on Mediterranean climate plants and especially California native plants, but such books typically describe individual plants in alphabetical order rather than in the “interlocking layers” envisioned by Rainer and West. We encounter the same organizational model in mail order plant nursery catalogs and in local garden centers, so many garden designs amount to scatters of single specimens.

The Rainer & West style was published fairly recently, so there are few California landscapes that are based on this style. The Keator & Middlebrook book cited above approaches that concept by grouping native plants within particular regions of California (e.g., coastal scrub, grasslands, deserts, oak woodlands), but leaves it to the garden planner to adopt fully the Rainer & West style.

One might seek exemplary designs in gardens included in annual garden tours that feature California native plants:

Bringing Back the Natives —Gardens in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, early May (http://bringingbackthenatives.net)
Going Native Garden Tour—Gardens in Santa Clara Valley & Peninsula, San Francisco Bay Area, early April (http://gngt.org/GNGT/HomeRO.php)

Although the Rainer & West style could take many different forms in California gardens, avid gardeners should keep watch for examples of this emerging approach to landscape design.

Gifting Garden Books

Posted on January 6, 2018 by tomkarwin

As we enter the season of giving, you might puzzle over finding gifts for gardening friends, or for that matter advising well-intentioned but stumped gift-givers what you might enjoy finding under your holiday evergreen.

Gardeners can always use another special plant or a great tool that works without a cord or spark plug, but a gardening book can be an excellent choice.

In selecting a gardening book as a gift, first considerations include quality of content and the recipient’s interests.

Gardeners I have met are typically fascinated by what other gardeners have done with their patch of soil, so books about —and tours of—other people’s gardens are perennial favorites. A new addition to this popular genre is Private Gardens of the Bay Area, by Susan Lowry and Nancy Berner, with photographs by Marion Brenner (The Monacelli Press, 2017).

The book’s title, of course, refers to gardens around the San Francisco Bay. There are many “bay areas,” but SF somehow has assumed ownership of that term. That’s not objectionable in this case because the Monterey Bay and San Francisco Bay areas have similar growing conditions. (Gardeners in the Chesapeake Bay area might feel differently.)

This book resonates with local gardening priorities because of its consistent and light-handed interest in sustainability, especially through lawn alternatives and drought-tolerant plants. The garden presentations convey these important messages subtly through multiple examples and without preaching.

The book takes the reader on an imaginary tour of thirty-nine gardens, which the book groups in four regions surrounding SF Bay. The gardens range in size from very small to very large, the gardeners range from dedicated amateurs to experienced designers, and the product compiles a wealth of ideas to inspire all gardeners.

The garden descriptions, averaging about six pages, understandably focus on each site’s exceptional vignettes, which are the most readily adaptable features for one’s own garden. Time is needed to add impressive mature plants to the garden but effective designs can be replicated with creativity and commitment.

Authors Lowry and Berner have written other books on private gardens; their communication skills are evident in each garden description. They introduce the gardeners, provide a bit of the garden’s history, characterize its design successes, and often highlight individual plants that contribute to the garden’s uniqueness. Their prose is non-technical and readable, and they also include botanical names of plants for those who wish to search for more information.

Marion Brenner’s photographs are beautifully done. Most of her images present aspects of the landscapes of interest while some show satisfying details of specific plants. The authors also credit Brenner as their guide to SF Bay Area gardens, drawing on her decades of experience in local garden photography.

Private Gardens of the Bay Area would be a fine gift to an avid gardener living in this part of California, or to others who would like to experience this horticultural paradise vicariously.

Happily, you can also choose from many excellent gardening books on a wide range of topics, assuming you what inspires your giftee’s gardening pursuits. The American Horticultural Society annually recognizes exceptional gardening literature through the AHS Book Awards. The winners for 2017 include the following:

All the President’s Gardens by Marla McDowell (Timber Press) —the White House gardens;
The Bee-Friendly Garden, by Kate Frey and Gretchen LeBuhn (Ten Speed Press) —plants for bees;
Garden Revolution, by Larry Weaner and Thomas Christopher (Timber Press) —ecological gardening;
Plant, by the editors at Phaidon Press (Phaidon Press) — fascinating botanical art; and
Rock Gardening, by Joseph Tychonievich (Timber Press) — photos and detailed info on this gardening style.

For more info, browse to the AHS Book Awards for 2017 and then click in turn through Gardening Programs, National Awards, and Book Awards. There are outstanding books for many gardening specialties, easing your efforts to cultivate just the right gift.

You have another opportunity to find selected gardening books as well as plants and other gifts at Norrie’s Gift & Garden Shop at the UCSC Arboretum. Norrie’s Holiday Open House will be open from 10:00 to 4:00 tomorrow, December 2^nd.

Touring California’s Best Gardens

Posted on November 5, 2017 by tomkarwin

Gardeners should visit public gardens to broaden their knowledge of garden design and plants. Visiting private gardens is also a good practice, especially to learn about the possibilities on a residential parcel, with various levels of time and resources. By contrast, public gardens typically are much larger than private gardens and have much more gardening support, including staff and volunteers. They can be wonderful resources for the home gardener’s continuing education.

An excellent resource for visiting public gardens is Donald Olson’s new book, The California Garden Tour (Timber Press, 2017). The book’s subtitle, “The 50 best gardens to visit in the Golden State,” describes its scope, and the contents page lists these targets geographically. The book includes maps of the northern and southern parts of the state, showing garden locations.

The Northern California section lists twenty-six gardens, from the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens in the north and continuing southward to The Secret Gardens of Monterey.

The Southern California section lists twenty-four gardens, with the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden northernmost and San Diego’s Balboa Park southernmost.

Olson’s nineteen-page introduction is definitely worth reading. It includes a concise history of California gardens, a distinction between art gardens and botanical gardens, a nice overview of the California floristic province, and more.

Olson then describes each of the gardens in two or three pages, providing enough information to prepare the visitor with the garden’s history and orientation. The descriptions include a summary of basic facts: address, operating hours, phone number and web address, admission cost (usually free), etc.

His descriptions are readable and include one or more photographs by the author. Olson’s comments about the plant collections and noteworthy plants reveal his familiarity with horticulture and his appreciation for plants that each garden features.

Information about the books fifty gardens and other public gardens in California is available on the Internet: Google “California public gardens” for links to several websites that list such gardens, often with terse descriptions. Such information can be useful but doesn’t compare well with Olson’s more complete and expert presentation, like that of a well-informed friend. A visit to given garden’s website will yield more information of interest, but if you are interested in visiting any of California’s excellent public gardens, this book will be a valuable introduction.

Here are three recommendations for visiting a public garden.

Select a garden to visit firstly for its convenience. The maps in Olson’s book will be helpful in spotting gardens that are close to your home, or near a future travel route. Certainly, readers of this column you might begin with gardens of the Monterey Bay area: the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum and The Secret Gardens of Monterey.

As you enter a garden, notice how the pathways bring visitors past a series of horticultural displays. These displays might be designed as vignettes or “rooms,” or as sections that focus on plant genera, geographic regions or landscape styles. If the pathways offer only a random variety of routes to follow, look for a map that helps to make sense of the garden experience. Larger public gardens’ maps might highlight one or more walking routes as learning opportunities. A large garden that lacks an organizational model can be confusing and less successful, despite expert maintenance of the inventory of plants.

Finally, prepare to enjoy your visit. For some gardeners, preparation might include listing learning objectives, but for all visitors, it is wise to wear comfortable shoes and weather-appropriate attire, carry some water and provide enough time to enjoy the experience.

Federal and state agencies recognize public gardens as living museums. They offer unique resources for both avid gardeners and casual appreciators of nature to gain an understanding of our horticultural environment. California has many wonderful public gardens (even more than the fifty excellent gardens in Olson’s book) that should be part of every gardener’s ongoing education. Find time to see a new garden every year.

Designing with Succulents

Posted on August 9, 2017 by tomkarwin

An avid gardener I talked with recently mentioned that he and his wife are not at all interested in succulents. They have none in their garden and do not intend to add any.

I wasn’t advocating succulent plants at that time, but I find their preference to be puzzling. In fact all plants store moisture to some degree; those we call “succulents” just have more effective ways of managing during dry periods.

Given this perspective, we might consider the reasons why many gardeners find succulent plants to be appealing and others do not.

Some who don’t like these plants might think all succulents are cacti with sharp points, and don’t want to be harmed. We must respond with the old line that all cacti are succulents, but all succulents are not cacti. Also, a few cacti do not have sharp points, and a few succulents that are not cacti also have sharp points. With simple precautions the gardener can avoid being poked, and with study can appreciate Nature’s strategy for some plants to defend themselves from hungry predators. (Cactus spines are really modified leaves designed to minimize moisture loss.)

Other gardeners who don’t like succulent plants might just be unfamiliar with their great variety of forms, structures, colors, landscape value, and unique qualities. For these gardeners, an excellent introduction to succulent plants is Debra Lee Baldwin’s new book, Designing with Succulents (Timber Press, 2017). This book, due for release later this month, is the completely revised second edition of Baldwin’s 2007 book of the same title.

Baldwin has organized her ideas about succulent plants in six sections: essential garden design ideas; specialty gardens; cultivation advice; descriptions of selected plants; categorized lists of plants; and drought-tolerant companion plants.

Each section includes the author’s solid information based on her own gardening knowledge and inputs from other experts, and excellent images from her own work and other photographers. Baldwin brings a strong background of garden writing and photography to this task, as well as extensive experience in gardening. She is also a popular speaker and a producer of many short YouTube video recordings on succulent gardening.

Other books provide an encyclopedic resource or a botanical analysis of succulent plants, but Designing with Succulents, as its title indicates, focuses on design ideas for landscape vignettes, plant combinations, and containers. The book shows and describes exciting examples of designs from public and private gardens in southern California, and several other parts of the United States.

Among many other ideas, Designing with Succulents demonstrates the aesthetic value of larger plants in the landscape. Familiar good advice for adding plants to the garden includes being aware of the plant’s mature size. Buying only small plants minimizes expense, but filling the garden with plants that will never grow into larger size leaves the landscape with little drama or architectural interest.

Gardeners new to these plants will find both useful information and inspiration in this book. Experienced growers of succulents also will discover motivation to explore possibilities for refining their gardens and containers, and enjoying gardening with succulents.

Achieving Resilience in the Garden

Posted on May 27, 2017 by tomkarwin

I have written enthusiastically about the book Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes, by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West

To review my two recent columns about this book, visit “Designing Naturalistic Landscapes” and “Resilient Plant Communities.”

Regular readers will recall the “essential messages” of this book, as boldly summarized in this column:

Good planting design results from harmonious relationships of plants to place, plants to people, and plants to other plants.
Combine plants in interlocking layers, as they occur in natural plant communities:

structural/framework plants (10-15% of the total)
seasonal theme plants (25-40%)
ground cover plants (50%)
filler plants (5-10%)

I wanted to overhaul my own garden right away along the lines recommended by the authors.

After a very brief period of planning the next steps, I realized that putting these ideas in place would involve a good deal of thought and study. I had already written, resilient plant communities “require planning and knowledge of specific plants to put into practice.”

I was not alone in this assessment. The others who have read the book also praised its ideas and observed that they would not be easy to apply. In fact, several reviewers concluded that Rainer and West were not writing for home gardeners but for professional landscapers, especially those with exceptional knowledge of plants.

Thomas Rainer replied: “The book clearly acknowledges the complexity of creating plantings that function more like a naturally occurring community. But it doesn’t look at this complexity with despair, but instead, attempts to systematically describe how to do this in practical steps.”

He does recommend planting the four layers in four steps and provides practical advice about site preparation, but the missing pieces are lists of plants for each of the layers for each of the archetypical landscapes, along with knowledge of how plants look and grow together.

These are not small matters for home gardeners, for landscapers, and almost all garden designers.

Emulating Nature, it turns out, is not a simple matter. But one should not be discouraged.

The aspiring creator of a resilient plant community has access to very useful books. I previously recommended Designing California Native Gardens: The Plant Community Approach to Artful, Ecological Garden, by Glen Keator and Alrie Middlebrook, and Thomas Rainer recommends Garden Revolution: How Our Landscapes Can Be a Source of Environmental Change, by Larry Weaner and Thomas Christopher (Timber Press, 2016).

For the next step, we have Rainer’s tip: “Real design happens in the field. Take time there to get the layout right. Arrange all plants first, then go back and adjust location and spacing.”

I will report overviews of my progress from time to time, without, as they say, “getting into the weeds.”

Resilient Plant Communities

Posted on May 22, 2017 by tomkarwin

In a recent column, I referred to a book by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West: Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes. Rainer and West present landscape design ideas that are worth applying in home gardens, and indeed in all kinds of gardens. Their ideas are intended to result in gardens that are “more robust, more diverse, and more visually harmonious, with less maintenance.”

To review that recent column, visit ongardening.com, click on “Essays 2017” and then “Designing Naturalistic Landscapes.”

The ideas presented in this book ring true to nature and good sense, and require planning and knowledge of specific plants to put into practice.

This column cannot replace reading the authors’ thoughtful review of familiar landscaping practices and groundbreaking recommendations, but w can consider their essential messages.

Rainer and West indicate that good planting design results from harmonious relationships of plants to place, plants to people, and plants to other plants.

The first of these relationships recalls the “right plant in the right place” axiom, which often refers to locating the plant where it will have the soil, exposure, and moisture that it needs to thrive. To these aspects of place the authors recommend locating plants in the grassland, woodland/shrubland, or forest environment that is their natural home. A garden, as a built environment, should look and function like a “distilled version” of one of those archetypical landscapes.

Consideration of the relationship of plants to people addresses the visual appeal of the landscape. The authors state that plant communities need not be limited to a naturalistic style and can exist within any other style. There are too many garden styles to list, but the basic idea is that the gardener can develop any preferred style and still maintain the plant’s relationships to place and other plants.

Rainer and West feature the relationship of plants to other plants and write about the “levels of sociability” of plants. In nature, some plants grow as individuals, or in groups of various sizes, or in large areas. For example, plants that tend to grow separately from other plants would be candidates for containers, and some plants propagate across vast numbers in large fields (see photographs of this year’s superbloom of wildflowers).

The authors recommend combining plants in interlocking layers, as they occur in natural plant communities. This approach allows plants to support each other, form a diverse and lush garden (as distinct from swaths of a single variety), and provide natural mulch that retains moisture and blocks entry of weeds and invasive plants. They categorize plants in four layers:

structural/framework plants — trees, shrubs, upright grasses and large leafed perennials that form the visual structure of the planting (10-15% of the total)
seasonal theme plants — mid-height plants that dominate the scene when in bloom, and provide supporting companions to the structural plants when not in bloom (25-40%)
ground cover plants — low, shade-tolerant plants that cover the soil, control erosion and provide nectar (50%)
filler plants — short-lived species, e.g., annuals, that fill gaps and add short seasonal displays (5-10%)

The authors describe this plant community approach collectively as resilient gardening. The benefits include growing healthy plants, minimizing maintenance (always a popular objective), and providing a systematic approach to developing an attractive, full grouping of plants.

I have been vaguely dissatisfied with a garden that separates plants from other plants by mulch. Developing layered plant communities will require reviewing plants already in place, searching for new plants for the needed layers, and allowing time for growth. The authors have not provided tidy “recipes” for plant communities because there are too many possible variations, including personal preferences, to put in a book. Instead, they have left the design process to each interested gardener.

Enjoy your garden, and consider learning about—and developing—resilient plant communities for your garden.

Designing Naturalistic Landscapes

Posted on May 7, 2017 by tomkarwin

Landscape design has been analyzed, discussed, and written about by many people, and from several angles. Most treatments of this subject consider the built landscape as part of built environment, which contrasts with the natural environment. Generally, they describe landscapes as vignettes or vistas that please the beholder’s eye by combining forms or colors from an aesthetic perspective. Aesthetics determine whether a garden is Victorian, Italian, Japanese, modern, white, classical, etc. Often, this approach results in random groupings of favored plants, with the only design principle being “tall plants in back.”

There are more horticultural perspectives for thinking about landscapes. For example, we have the idea of companion planting, in which proximities affect plant vigor. Then, we have generic groupings, as with small or large collections of roses, cacti, irises, or some other plant genus. Another horticultural approach involves grouping plants with similar needs for moisture. Such “hydrozoning” responds to the horticultural needs of plants and incidentally organizes the gardener’s irrigation tasks. A tropical landscape focuses on plants with an exotic look and a continuing thirst (not a good choice in the land of persistent drought).

Moving further into horticultural considerations, we encounter climate-oriented landscaping, with emphasis on plants from the world’s Mediterranean or “summer dry” regions, which of course include the Monterey Bay area. This landscaping approach supports plant development and vigor and eases the gardener’s workload.

The attractive subset of summer-dry landscaping is landscaping with California native plants, which combines the climate-oriented approach with the ecological compatibility of flora and fauna.

The more naturalistic form of landscaping with California native plants is landscaping with California plant communities. There are various ways to define this state’s several plant communities but essentially, the coast, the mountains, and the deserts are different horticultural environments, and therefore support different plants. A very useful book on this topic has been provided by Glen Keator and Alrie Middlebrook: Designing California Native Gardens: The Plant Community Approach to Artful, Ecological Gardens (University of California Press, 2007).

The next level of appreciating the difference between built and natural landscapes can be found in the book by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West: Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes (Timber Press, 2015). This book has been called “inspiring,” “masterful,” “groundbreaking,” and a “game-changer.” Reviewers have also praised it for “lyrical, passionate, and persuasive writing” and “lavish” illustrations.

The authors deplore the ways in which typical gardening and landscaping practices have ignored the ways in which plants thrive in natural combinations, and present A New Optimism: The Future of Planting Design. They state, “The good news is that it is entirely possible to design plantings that look and function more like they do in the wild: more robust, more diverse, and more visually harmonious, with less maintenance.”

The book (which we have just begun studying) advocates planting in interlocking layers of plants, which reflects the dynamic way plants grow together in nature. There is much to learn about this approach. The authors envision improved plant labels that provide more useful information about how a plant grows and recommend relevant resources as the http://www.cnps.org/cnps/grownative/California Native Plant Society.

Both aesthetic and horticultural approaches to plant selection have significant impacts on the success of gardening and the amount of work involved in maintaining a garden. If your gardening involves mostly keeping plants alive, replacing plants that have died, combating weeds, and wanting the garden to look better, it could be time to give more attention to plant communities.

The Bold Dry Garden

Posted on February 19, 2017 by tomkarwin

It’s not often that we see a new book about a garden that’s both famous and near enough for a one-day visit. We now have The Bold Dry Garden: Lessons from the Ruth Bancroft Garden (Timber Press, 2016), written by Johanna Silver, with historic photographs and excellent new photographs,

This is a three-acre garden in a residential neighborhood, packed with over 2,000 cacti, succulents, trees and shrubs. Visiting is not a sprawling and overwhelming experience, with too much to take in without camping out, or an extended visit. Instead, it offers a relatively compact display of a wide variety of succulent plants.

The book begins with the garden’s history. Ruth Bancroft developed this garden at her home in Walnut Creek, beginning in the 1950s. Like all personal gardens, it began tentatively, with the purchase of few small plants, and grew slowly as the owner’s interest deepened and her vision broadened.

By the early 1970’s, Ruth was ready to map out her future garden. She brought in garden designer Lester Hawkins, to draw the setting for a dry garden, and to recommend plants to add to her growing collection. The initial planting was accomplished formally in 1972, although Ruth had already collected a significant number of plants.

The plants grew in number and size, and the collection grew in sophistication and beauty. It deeply impressed, Frank Cabot, a nationally prominent gardener from the Quebec area, who became concerned about preserving the garden into the future. In 1989, he founded the Garden Conservancy with the goal to preserve exceptional private gardens, with preservation of the Ruth Bancroft Garden as its first objective. By 1994, the Garden’s site was officially transferred to a non-profit corporation, Ruth Bancroft Garden, Inc., dedicated to maintaining and improving the garden, and to make it available to the public.

Today, Ruth Bancroft is recognized as a dry gardening pioneer and innovator. She has reached the age of 107 and she maintains her love of her collection.

The longest chapter of The Bold Dry Garden, “Signature Plants of the Dry Garden,” describes and pictures garden’s diversity, organized in sections: The Smallest Players, Aeonium, Crassula, Echeveria, Haworthia, Sedum, Sempervivum, the Importance of Rock, Architectural Elements, Agave, Cactus, Yucca and Other Swords, Flowers and Foliage, Aloe, Euphorbia, Gasteria, Protea, Terrestrial Bromeliads, The Softer Side, California Natives, and Trees. Whew!

Reading this fine book can be a pleasant introduction to the world of succulent plants. Visiting this extraordinary garden is an opportunity to see many different forms of these plants, and to become inspired to develop your own collection…and to come again to the garden.

For more about this garden, and everything you need to prepare for a tour, visit the garden’s website.

The Garden Conservancy is both a preserver of private gardens and guide to seeing them through its Open Days program. Browse to the Conservancy’s website for more information.

The long-time curator of the Ruth Bancroft Garden, Brian Kimble, is scheduled to speak at the Monterey Bay Area Cactus & Succulent Society on Sunday, March 19^th. See the Society’s website for details.

The Bold Dry Garden is a good read for any gardener, excellent preparation for a visit to the Ruth Bancroft Garden, and a fine addition to any library of garden books.

Urban Agriculture

Posted on December 10, 2016 by tomkarwin

Gardening of edible plants occurs in many different circumstances. Home gardening will be most familiar to most people, including gardeners of edibles, gardeners of ornamental plants and those rare people who don’t garden at all.

Next most familiar might be farming. Residents of the Monterey Bay area will at least drive by acres of many kinds of edible plants, and a significant number of our neighbors have spent time in the fields.

Then we have community gardens. Some fortunate people have direct experience with managing a small allotment of space within a community garden, to grow a personal preference of vegetables or, in some cases, ornamental plants. These small parcels often are borrowed spaces within urban surroundings, making good but temporary uses of the soil for a few people to enjoy the cultivation of plants and benefit from bringing the produce to their own tables or the tables of friends.

Too often, we hear about such gardens in our communities when the landowner decides to build on the land and requires the gardeners to abandon the soil they have been improving, perhaps for years.

My early exposure to such events was in Berkeley, in May of 1969. During a work-related visit to that city, in a multistory building with oversight of what was called the People’s Park, I observed a confrontation between armed police officials and peaceful people who wanted to maintain their occupancy of a small parcel of land. Using helicopters and tear gas, the officials won that day, but today, part of that parcel contains community gardens. This history perhaps demonstrates the dedication and persistence of gardeners.

A more organized approach to making productive use of otherwise idle urban lands is being demonstrated in Santa Clara County. The Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority recently awarded substantial grants to community organizations for projects with goals in selected areas:

Environmental Stewardship and Restoration
Parks, Trails, and Public Access
Environmental Education
Urban Agriculture/Food Systems

This program represents a positive move toward protecting the natural environment and humanizing the urban environment.

Some communities have adopted policies to encourage and support community gardens. Good examples can be found in the western cities of Washington and Oregon. In many areas, however, community gardens are authorized and managed ad hoc, without a long-term perspective. The status of local ordinances in the Monterey Bay area would be an interesting study.

Street Farm cover A recent book inspires interest in a constructive approach to community gardens. The book is Street Farm: Growing Food, Jobs, and Hope on the Urban Frontier, by Michael Abelman (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2016. 239 pages).

In this book, Abelman describes his several years of developing small farms (up to two acres) in urban areas in California and Vancouver, Canada. He and his colleagues managed to gain access to underutilized parcels in urban areas, often after considerable effort to secure permissions and meet local ordinances. The parcels typically were either paved parking lot or contaminated land, so these prospective farmers constructed raised beds to make agriculture possible.

Raised-bed gardening is a better strategy than attempting to improve native soils with an excess of clay or sand.

Abelman approached his street farming adventures by assembling crews of workers from the community’s homeless populations, including people who were distressed for various reasons. In this respect, his projects have a constructive social purpose as well as the goal of producing organic food of good quality for sale. Their sales were typically through farmers markets, but have also included direct sales to restaurants, including Alice Waters’ the highly regarded Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley.

Abelman’s operating model generated enough income to pay his workers and meet the day-to-day expenses of urban farming. It also produced good will for the cooperating landowners and demonstrated the value of the persistent pursuit of a creative vision. Street Farm includes impressive photographs of highly productive farms in urban settings.

The stories in Street Farm culminate in Abelman’s “Urban Food Manifesto,” in which he expresses his visions, both “radical and terribly obvious,” of how we feed ourselves. He offers good and solid ideas that could be pursued in every community.

This book brings to mind Santa Cruz’s Homeless Garden Project, which will be a future topic.

Seasonal Events

Posted on September 23, 2016 by tomkarwin

At about this time each year, our thoughts drift to certain seasonal topics. For example, this is the time to plan a display of spring bulbs. I thought I should write about this activity (which can lead to adventuresome ideas), but I have already written before on this topic. To see earlier columns, browse to http://ongardening.com and search for “bulbs.”

Let us consider other aspects of seasonal gardening.

The annual Succulent Extravaganza is happening this weekend. This is a fine free event to learn about and become fascinated by succulent plants. If you are already collecting and landscaping with these interesting plants, the Extravaganza offers a selection of plants to add to your garden. For info, visit http://sgplants.com and click on ”Events.”

The next really big event for succulent gardeners is the Fall Show & Sale convened by the Monterey Bay Area Cactus & Succulent Society. This event will happen on October 1^st & 2^nd, in nearby San Juan Batista, California. Nineteen members of the Society will offer a vast array of small succulent plants, many larger plants and some unique pots for sale. The selection is great, the prices are very good, and members of the group will be available to answer specific questions and share their enthusiastic for gardening with succulents. The display of exceptional plants is a “must-see” event in its own right. For info, visit http://mbsucculent.org .

Dudleya brittonii — a California native succulent plant

Toward the end of October, an event for gardeners is the annual apple tasting, organized by the California Rare Fruit Growers, Monterey Bay Chapter. This will be included in the Wilder Ranch Heritage Harvest Festival, which is on October 15^th. It will be a unique opportunity to learn which apple tree you want to plant in your garden. The Festival also includes other interesting activities. Info: http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=26413.

The UCSC Arboretum’s annual Fall Plant Sale will be on Saturday, October 15^th. It will be open to members of the Friends of the Arboretum from 10-12, and to the public from 12-4. Just before the sale, you could join the Friends. There are year-round benefits to belonging to the Friends, in addition to gaining early access to the Sale, which offers a great selection of plants from California, Australia, and South Africa. The California Native Plant Society will have a concurrent sale, at the same location: the Arboretum’s Eucalyptus Grove, which is accessible from High Street, near the intersection of Western Drive. Info: http:// http://arboretum.ucsc.edu/.

The Friends of the University of California, Santa Cruz Arboretum held its annual meeting —called the “AR-B-Q” — on Sunday, September 18^th, in the Australian Garden. This was a fine, convivial event, as always, with many volunteers enjoying the company and the warm weather. The meeting included thanks to retiring board members (including this writer), the election of board members, and the announcement of officers for the coming year.

Several readers of this column have expressed interest in our recent column about the book, The Invention of Nature, about the extraordinary Alexander von Humboldt 1769-1859. On October 19^th, the Garden Conservancy will sponsor a visit of the book’s author, Andrea Wulf, at the UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley to discuss the influence of Humboldt’s vision, and how he helped shape our understanding of nature today. Wulf ‘s very readable book reflects her thorough research and inspires interest in her other highly regarded books about gardeners:

This Other Eden Seven Great Gardens and Three Hundred Years of English History

The Brother Gardeners. Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession

The Founding Gardeners. The Revolutionary Generation and the Shaping of the American Nation

For info on WUlf’s talk at UC Bekjeley, visit the Garden Conservancy website:

The gardening world is very lively, as always. Enjoy your garden!

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Tom Karwin is past president of the Friends of the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum, president of the Monterey Bay Area Cactus & Succulent Society, and a Lifetime UC Master Gardener (Certified 1999–2009). Visit ongardening.com for links to information on this subject, and send comments or questions to gardening@karwin.com.