As a child of city parents, I discovered the soil later in life. My first garden was behind a little rental, and I couldn’t get anything to grow. When we moved to a horse farm, I had access to a large plot and the best fertilizer in the world. That summer everything was bountiful, and I couldn’t believe how the earth would give me potatoes and squash and tomatoes so abundantly. I also couldn’t believe how quickly grass and weeds took over the spot the next year. With a new baby, we bought our first house on an acre and a half. Heaven.
My lifelong obsession with gardening came from everything I learned at that house. How to spot a conifer so that the new tip growth shimmers in the fading afternoon light. How to position the sweetest scented roses- Graham Thomas, Sonja Rykiel- near the outdoor table. In the winter I would swoon over seed catalog and learned most of the scientific names of plans through the Western Garden Book. Lavender, foxglove, peony-I feel in love with them all. I learned about deer, too, when I would come out in the morning anticipating yesterday’s almost open buds and find stubble instead.
I’ve lived here in this house now for about 12 years, and have gradually created, and re-created its gardens. Its a state of perpetual change, especially considering our drought. I’ve learned more about native plants that need little to no no water during our dry summers. There is so much to learn from this land and its inhabitants- ponderosa pine, black oak, mazanita, madrone for the trees. Ceanothus, holly, chinquapin and mahonia the shrubs. Monkeyflower, lupin, and of course poppy in the spring. I did not know, for example, how water is pulled up a hill by oak trees to share among grasses at the top, but when we look at a canyon at the bottom of a hill, it makes perfect sense.
Last summer we were able to complete a landscaping project that I had been dreaming of forever, and this year I’ll be filling it with artemisia, staychs, calamagrostis. I’ll still slip in the occasional rose.
— Cristine
My lifelong obsession with gardening came from everything I learned at that house. How to spot a conifer so that the new tip growth shimmers in the fading afternoon light. How to position the sweetest scented roses- Graham Thomas, Sonja Rykiel- near the outdoor table. In the winter I would swoon over seed catalog and learned most of the scientific names of plans through the Western Garden Book. Lavender, foxglove, peony-I feel in love with them all. I learned about deer, too, when I would come out in the morning anticipating yesterday’s almost open buds and find stubble instead.
I’ve lived here in this house now for about 12 years, and have gradually created, and re-created its gardens. Its a state of perpetual change, especially considering our drought. I’ve learned more about native plants that need little to no no water during our dry summers. There is so much to learn from this land and its inhabitants- ponderosa pine, black oak, mazanita, madrone for the trees. Ceanothus, holly, chinquapin and mahonia the shrubs. Monkeyflower, lupin, and of course poppy in the spring. I did not know, for example, how water is pulled up a hill by oak trees to share among grasses at the top, but when we look at a canyon at the bottom of a hill, it makes perfect sense.
Last summer we were able to complete a landscaping project that I had been dreaming of forever, and this year I’ll be filling it with artemisia, staychs, calamagrostis. I’ll still slip in the occasional rose.
— Cristine
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