The Seven Gardens of Meme

Sarah and Helen of Toronto Gardens have kindly bestowed upon me the honor of a "Seven Things About You" meme, and it feels so much like, "have another glass of wine, dear and tell us about yourself" that I accept!

In pondering the topic, my mind veered into the garden, as it often does. I saw that there have been seven particularly influential gardens in my life. Spanning nearly five decades, their stories make for a passable memoir of a California gardener. Thank you for inspiring
me to share them!

Garden 1: Floribunda roses in Sunnyvale, CA 1967

For the first four years of my life I traveled with my parents as a Navy family. We lived in Texas, San Diego and the Philippines, but I recall little of it. In 1964 we moved to Sunnyvale, and when my dad finished his tour of duty, we stayed in the 'Valley of Heart's Delight.'

Our first garden was a simple suburban lot in the heart of what was rapidly becoming Silicon Valley, but at that time was more orchards than offices. My mother planted roses and annuals and old fashioned shrubs like pussy willow. My dad built us a clever play yard. There were trees to climb, just enough lawn, and a full complement of butterflies, bugs and birds, of which I was inordinately fond.

I have such vivid memories of that garden, much more so than the inside of the house. Looking through photos for the post I could almost smell that particular fragrance of snapdragons as you squeeze their sides to make a tiny roar; and almost taste that drop of nectar you can sip from a nasturtium.

Garden 2: My room, Saratoga, CA 1977

In 1970 we moved to Saratoga, where I commenced my teen years. We had a different sort of garden there, perched at the top of a creek bank lined with large pine trees. It was a larger and wilder place.

During those years we played in the creek, planted vegetables and enjoyed the many fruit trees. But I have to say, my main horticultural interest then was houseplants, I loved them, my private oasis in my room. Back in the day, I was the QUEEN of macrame plant holders.
My true gardens would have to wait a bit longer.

Garden 3: With a small helper, Aptos, CA 1989

My stay-home mom years coincided with a move to Aptos, along the coast south of Santa Cruz, where my first husband and I rented a home for eight years. My creative outlet during that time was building my first 'real' gardens.

It all started innocently enough, a row of petunias down the driveway, but with that first little taste I was hooked. By the second summer the tiny front yard was overflowing with perennials. Those were the years of gardening books, magazines and catalogs stacked by the bed, and a grubby baby monitor in the tool bucket.

Garden 4: My first sanctuary, Aptos, CA 1991

With no more room in front, I set out to reclaim the tiny (~10' deep) back garden. Our house was cut into a steep, north-facing slope covered with live oaks, ivy, native hazelnut, elderberry, wild currant and blackberry, all intertwined with copius amounts of poison oak. Fellow blogger Ivette Soler (The Germinatrix) recently wrote about how the jungle advances like the ocean. This stuff advanced like a tsunami!

The garden I made, by adding a planter along the retaining wall, a deck outside our bedroom doors and a shade garden under an arbor, was actually a finalist in a contest (for small gardens under 200sf) held by The Victory Garden. It didn't win, but to have such an early effort recognized at all was very cool!

Garden 5: My first 'Landscape' San Jose, CA 2006

Fast-forward through four dalliances with rental house gardens to
the landscape my second husband and I created, with the help of a landscape architect whose work we admired. The flat lot was transformed into something really quite unique and lovely.

These pictures were taken six years after planting; only the mugo pines by the walk and some star jasmine remain of the original. This west-facing ranch-style home, with its large windows used to be an exposed, hot fishbowl. What it became was a colorful dappled private woodland and meadow, with a house nestled in.

Garden 5: Where my Buddha used to sit

The bones of the garden were the large granite boulders used throughout, sometimes as structure, sometimes as accent. I love boulders in a garden, and use them often (I like structure you can count on, and you can count on rocks.) The cream-colored pot is actually a bubbling fountain, really nice to have near a front door.

Garden 5: Front Entry

We had the hand-carved front door made in Santa Fe; the chip-carved surface almost looks like hammered metal, and the stain went beautifully with the house color, the brick and the bluestone porch. Taking advantage of its willingness to roam, I liberated the star jasmine from the foundation bed and allowed it to ramble along the roofline, one of my favorite details.

Garden 5: Pinching the view; privacy in layers

We used 'pinched views' to gain privacy without blocking the house off completely, as a fence or hedge might do. The garden is actually quite open in the middle, once you walk up the path or over this hill between the shrub rose and large phormium. The focal point stone in the center was a particularly fine place to pose a large furry spider at Halloween!

Alas, this garden was not to stay mine; we sold the house not long after these photos were taken, and another family has made the garden their own. These may well be the last record of "how it was."

Garden 6: My second sanctuary, San Jose, CA 2006

Which brings us almost up-to-date. When I moved into my present home in the summer of 2006 I was a little discouraged to find myself back to square one, but also excited about finally using my years of experience as a landscape designer to create a new garden for myself.

Garden 6: My second sanctuary: 2009

The back came first, as it had been reduced to dirt during a remodel. I've written about this particular corner before; it is my favorite place to be, under the Red Umbrella. It has taught me much about the healing power of peaceful surroundings, particularly gardens.

The back garden was designed and built rather quickly to take advantage of a rare alignment of resources; for the next one I would take my time.

Garden 7: My Manifesto 2006

This is my house as I first saw it. Small, sunny, perfect; I immediately knew it was home. However, it would be a couple of years before I could replace my aging lawn, and I semi-dutifully mowed and watered the tyrant until a sprinkler head broke last year. I saw that as a sign, and let the lawn die with no regrets.

Garden 7: My Manifesto 2009

This winter, with business much slower and my nest newly empty, the time and resources were there to begin in earnest. My dad did the beautiful woodwork; every bit as artful and sturdy as the play yard he built more than 40 years ago. Working with him was a precious opportunity, and I happily bequeathed him my power mower in gratitude for his help.

So the garden mandala I've been creating for three years is now complete; harmonious elements combined to surround, infuse and define my private world. It is not perfect by any means, but it certainly shows how far I've come since that first row of petunias.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for joining me on my long journey; I'm a bit exhausted! Now is the part where I sent you off on further adventures. Here are seven different directions you can go:

A Verdant Life John Black writes SO well, and has a knack for introducing provocative viewpoints with wit, insight, and the chops to back them up.

Blue Planet Garden Susan Morrison has already opted out of the 7-Things meme, but I want you to know about her blog anyway, her message is important and the way she relays it is smart, funny & charming.

GardenPunks Katie Hobson is an amazing photographer as well as a writer; when I saw the photos she took of my garden I looked at my trusty point-and-shoot and said "why can't YOU do that?"

Gossip in the Garden Rebecca Sweet serves up fresh and funny horticultural and design advice from her own beautiful gardens, which have twice been featured in Fine Gardening magazine!

Great Stems Meredith's blog is new to me, but it had me at cantaloupes and ladybugs; the work of a true gardener and talented photographer.

Miss Rumphius' Rules Susan Cohan has already been meme'd I know, but if anything deserves some extra recognition, it is her intelligent, informative blog. It is a standard to which I aspire.

Root Awakening Lynn Felici-Gallant's photos of her New Hampshire garden are exquisite, I have borrowed several (with permission!) for my screen saver, and enjoy them every day!

The Germinatrix Ivette Soler has also been meme'd already, (and her delightful response might be even longer than mine) but I HAD to include her because I adore her every post. When I'm inclined to curb my enthusiasms, her writing reminds me that it is OK to have passion for what I do, and to not be afraid to show it!

A Gardener's Stack 1: The Grande Dames.

I was reading Daffodil Planter's blog tonight (it's about Eleanor Perenyi...what a treat!) and was tickled to read the following in one of the comments:

"I just came across this writer in another blog (wish I could remember which one) and immediately requested the title from our local library...Another book the blogger recommended was Anne Raver's Deep in the Green, which is now also on my to-read list."

Gee, I wonder who that mystery blogger could be? Wow, this means somebody is paying attention! The commenter went on to ask for other titles, and all of a sudden I felt a blog post coming on. The Red Umbrella will have to wait just a bit longer.

So I've gathered up some more of my favorite garden books, and will continue to share them with you. Tonight I'm going to start with two Grande Dames of garden writing.


'We Made a Garden'
by Margery Fish (2002) edited by Michael Pollan for the Modern Library Gardening Series

In the late 1930's, as WWII approached, Margery Fish and her husband Walter (long-time editor of London's Daily Mail newspaper) decided to retire to the safety of the country. Their friends assumed they would buy something neat and tidy and move right in. In Margery's words: "When, instead, we chose a poor battered old house that had to be gutted to be livable, and a wilderness instead of a garden, they were really sorry for us...how would two Londoners go about the job of creating a garden from a farmyard and a rubbish heap?"

This book is the story of how they did just that; and anyone who has ever tried to build a garden with an opinionated spouse (of opposing tastes) will appreciate what poor Margery went through. After Walter's death, Margery went on to finish the garden HER way, and become one of England's leading gardeners and garden writers. She published six other books, was named a classic garden writer by the Royal Horticultural Society, and welcomed thousands of visitors a year to her garden in Somerset. But I love this first little volume of hers the best. Read it if only to learn of the horrible things Walter did to Margery's delphiniums...

'Onward and Upward in the Garden'
by Katherine S. White (1979)

Katherine S. White was an editor at the New Yorker Magazine for 34 years. After her retirement in 1958, she wrote a series of 14 garden articles that appeared in its pages over the next 12 years.

Katherine was a passionate gardener who would think of nothing of wading into her borders in Ferragamo shoes and tweed suits...as her husband said, "she refused to dress down to the garden." I think of her every time I find myself knee deep in a project, wearing my "good " jeans!

Her articles were detailed reviews (often critiques, not all of them favorable) of the catalogs, published by seed companies and nurseries, that she poured over each winter. They were one of the only sources of information about plants and seeds for gardeners of her generation. After her death, the articles were compiled into a book, with a charming introduction by her husband, children's author E.B. White, quoted here:

"The thing that started her off was her discovery that the catalog makers--the men and women of her dreams--were, in fact writers. Expression was the need of their souls. To an editor of Katherine's stature, a writer is a special being, as fascinating as a bright beetle...'Reading this literature,' she wrote, 'is unlike any other reading experience. Too much goes on all at once. I read for news, for driblets of knowledge, for aesthetic pleasure, and at the same time I am planning the future, and so I read in a dream.'"

These books are like old friends, and I feel honored to introduce them. Please enjoy! Next up? Elizabeth Lawrence, I think...

Next in the Pantheon...

With Book Expo America going on this week in New York, there has been a lot of discussion among garden communicators about the future of garden writing. Which got me thinking about what I, as a writer, gardener and designer, like to read, and why.

When I started gardening as a young stay-at-home mom over twenty years ago, I craved information with all the appetite of a neophyte. My bibles were Sunset and Fine Gardening magazines, and the many fine books from their presses. We didn't have the Internets in those days, people! We had newspapers, books, magazines and catalogs, and whatever community we could find among local gardeners.

The highlight of my day was walking with the kids the 1/4 mile to the mailbox, to see what might have come...the 80's equivalent of "Check Inbox" I suppose. My busy mind and gardener's soul, which are now replete with every sort of wit, wisdom and news in the form of Twitter tweets, garden blogs, and a career as a garden designer, had to be satisfied then with the dog-eared stacks by my bed. I still have the first issue of Fine Gardening; I'm an inaugural subscriber, and learned much from its pages. You should see my cabinet of back issues, rivaled only by Sunset in their sanctity.

As I wrote in my first 'InterLeafings' post, one genre of garden writing that I found particularly satisfying in my search for gardening wisdom was the essay. Such a nice, old-fashioned word that seems now, but isn't a blog just that? Eleanor Perenyi was a master of the garden essay, and after reading 'Green Thoughts' I wanted more. Tell me a story about a garden! I found many wonderful writers, but using the nightstand-o-meter, there was no question which one I would introduce next.

'Deep In The Green, An Exploration of Country Pleasures'
by Anne Raver
Anne Raver is the garden columnist for the New York Times. 'Deep in the Green' is a collection of her early columns, mostly from her days as a garden columnist for Newsday on Long Island, but also after her transition to the Times.

I've re-read 'Deep in the Green' nearly as many times as 'Green Thoughts.' The decidedly more contemporary style is a nice contrast, and her foibles as a gardener, charmingly relayed, are particularly endearing. The way she interweaves her own life with that of other gardeners, gardens, pets, friends and readers gives her stories an earthy flavor that touches my heart. I admire her independent spirit; she is a woman living by her own lights.

As with Eleanor, if you are not familiar with this book, I will let Anne make the introduction in her own words. It is, as far as I know, the only collection of her work that has been published (but would be happy to know that I'm mistaken!)

~From the introduction to 'Deep in the Green, An Exploration of Country Pleasures' (copyright 1995 by Anne Raver. Cover shown is from the first Vintage Books edition, May 1996)

"This is not a book that will tell you how to site your garden, or which of the old roses you dare not live without. It does not unravel the mysteries of science or even the Linnaean binomial system. It tells the story of the earthworm and the sea turtle. Of a goose separated from her goslings on the Long Island Expressway. Of the children of farmers who now live in big cities--as the old fields turn into house lots and golf courses. It's about growing old. It's about losing things you love. Dogs, places, people.

But as any gardener knows, it is about going on. Building new gardens, if the old one has been ravaged by a hurricane--or a housing development. Taking the spirit of a beloved dog or person with you, long after you have buried her, as you take a walk she would have loved, or bake his favorite pie, or set the bright faces of Autumn Beauty sunflowers in a lovely old vase from your mother's house.

And exactly. I hope to do the same.

Good In The Beginning

I have just finished a gift of a sabbatical, made possible by the same economic lull that is affecting us all. This winter and spring the last pieces have fallen into place…a hand-built front garden that's already getting some serious attention, a new website and blog…and a final piece that was Twitter-shaped.

My apprenticeship is over. June 1 marks 8 years since leaving the corporate world to be a landscape designer. It seems a fitting time, then, to honor the masters. Though my personal pantheon is rather vast, there are some particular footsteps I wish to honor, and to follow. Many of these masters are not designers. Mostly they are women, they are writers, and they are passionate about gardening. So I’d like to inaugurate this blog with a dedication to these particular teachers, My Wise Women, as it all began with them.

I will begin with a writer whose words have become part of my own lexicon. Her book has done more nightstand time than any other. I love essays, and appreciate that to say something briefly, yet well, is a gift.

Eleanor Perenyi ‘Green Thoughts, A Writer in the Garden’
Eleanor was the daughter of an American naval officer and a novelist, and met her husband, a Baron, in Hungary before World War II. They lived in a castle, but were very poor, and also very happy. She braved a brutal climate to start a garden with all the enthusiasm of young wife and mother, but lost it and her husband behind the Iron Curtain.

Eleanor wrote a book about this period of her life, published in 1946, called ‘More Was Lost.’ I came across it after becoming quite familiar with Eleanor as an older woman, speaking from a lifetime of experience...she was just a couple of years younger than my grandmother. To be re-introduced to her as a young woman was a nice surprise.

When she left Europe, Eleanor came to live on the Connecticut coast with her son and parents. There she created her second garden; reluctantly, at first, because of the pain of losing her first, but with growing dedication and skill. She writes of her hard-won gardening experience and opinions in 'Green Thoughts,' as alphabetical essays. Eleanor’s garden was the eclectic mix of an ardent enthusiast… perennials, vegetables, fruits, berries, roses, herbs. She was a lifetime subscriber to Organic Gardening magazine, and even writes of interviewing the original Mr. Rodale at his farm during her career. (see Compost).

Wow. In fact-checking I discovered that Eleanor Perenyi died just three weeks ago, May 3, 2009. I shouldn’t be surprised...I also lost my grandmother last November. But still, it comes as a bit of a shock…

Eleanor Perenyi, Writer and Gardener, Dies at 91
Eleanor Perenyi, a writer and deliciously opinionated amateur gardener whose book “Green Thoughts” is widely considered a classic of garden writing, died Sunday in Westerly, R.I. She was 91 and had lived in Stonington, Conn., for many years.

Here is her full obituary,
http://tinyurl.com/cp226g

I’m quite moved by this news, and now feel a particular urgency to pass on her words and continue her legacy.

From the Forward to ‘Green Thoughts’ By Eleanor Perenyi, 1918-2009

“Why, then presume to write a book about gardening? The simplest answer is that a writer who gardens is sooner or later going to write a book about the subject—I take that as inevitable. One acquires one’s opinions and prejudices, picks up a trick or two, learns to question supposedly expert judgments, reads, saves clippings, and is eventually overtaken by the desire to pass it all on. But there is something more: As I look about me, I have reason to believe I belong to a vanishing species. Gardens like mine, which go by the unpleasing name of ‘labor intensive’ are on their way out and before they go, I would like to contribute my penny’s worth to their history.”

And so would I. Please comment if you visit! Thank you…