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When
I first began designing and installing gardens on the San Francisco
peninsula in 1970’s, I called myself "The Country Gardener."
Back then the only game in town was the so-called "English Garden."
I have witnessed (and hopefully helped bring about) a more regional
approach to garden design since those days.
The old garden was lawn centered; the New is not. The New garden is
Mediterranean in flavor, favoring gravel, paving and ground covers
in place of sod. In general, it acknowledges our unique environment,
and the role that water plays in a summer-dry climate.
The elements which seem to make our gardens different from those of
Spain or Italy are:
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The modernist influence
of design pioneers like Thomas Church. |
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Our complex cultural relationship
to Latin America and the Pacific Rim (as personified by Isamo Naguchi’s
work in Southern California, and the influence of Mexico’s Luis
Barragan). |
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Our rich diversity of native
plants probably first used by the Santa Barbara/Montecito gardenmakers
of the early 20th Century. |
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The notion of landscape
space as art — not a place in which we "plop" art,
but a place that is art. |
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Above all, the "New"
garden has a democratic spirit that embraces the realities of the
western environment. Within its wildly varied forms the experimental
"edginess" of the left coast is enhanced and softened by
our western commitment to our plants, our climate, our seasons, and
our multiple cultures. |
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