A number of California home builders are distancing the homeowner from the environment by apparently using Disneyland as a design model, incorporating bays, turrets and towers to invoke a quasi-European fantasy of the homeowner as feudal aristocrat.  Such designs are acceptable for fantastical public attractions, but are not a great model for private emulation.  Often the built landscape exudes this same estrangement from the natural environment. The regional, environmental garden calls for celebrating the beauty of our native surroundings rather than mowing, blowing, overwatering, and poisoning those surroundings to evoke an exotic neverland.

The first thing that potential clients usually tell me is that they want an “English garden.” To the average Californian, this means armloads of flowers dripping off of everything, effortlessly, in perpetuity. This doesn’t really happen in England or anywhere else. As a designer, my job is to translate this request into terms that make sense both for the real world and for our climate, which is about as unlike England’s as can be. I call it “Californicating the English Garden Myth.” When we agree that “English” translates to mean “informal” with lots of flowering shrubs and perennials, and with something in bloom during all seasons, we can blend native and mediterranean plantings into our design, rather than undertaking the constant battle of keeping traditionally English plants alive in an unsuitable environment.

I hope to make the transition to sustainable horticulture easier for my friends and clients by sharing some of the information and opinions that I use in my practice as a gardener and landscape designer. Conserving water, detoxifying air and soil, reducing fire risk and minimizing damage by animals can become a challenge and a pleasure by following simple guidelines in garden design. This booklet is based on research from such diverse sources as Sunset Magazine, the U.C. Division of Agriculture, the East Bay Municipal Utility District, and my friends, neighbors and fellow gardeners.

A potential client recently told me she hated shrubs and ground covers and didn’t much like grass or trees! If I could ask one favor of my readers, it would be to momentarily set aside all preconceptions and prejudices.  It won’t happen all at once, but if we each make small changes in our garden habits, the cumulative effect will be a better future for us all. Although it requires planning, a change in attitudes, and breaking old habits, the benefits of creating an environmentally safe, regional garden include freedom from the frustrations of fighting Nature, lessening of the possibility of chemical poisoning from exposure to toxic chemicals and the bottom line is: it costs less!

Copyright ©1994-2000 by Chris Jacobson & GardenArt