Recently I looked back at one of my gardening influences- I took my copy of “Gardening with a Wild Heart” off my bookshelf and began to read it again. Thirteen years ago, this book by Judith Larner Lowry inspired me to begin gardening with California native plants- setting in motion a gardening career and a passion for native plants, and affirming my relationship with the nature of California.
Now, taking another look at it, I read, “…The reasons to garden with locally occurring native plants have more to do with joining in, with setting in motion interrupted process that are unique to this place. It has to do with recreating a garden that connects the gardener with that larger garden beyond the fence…” (from Chapter One, ‘Gardening at the Seam’). I am still captured by that language!
This past weekend I hiked on Mount Diablo and was greeted by blooming manzanitas, fresh green polypody ferns, and fragrant yerba buena. I thought of the polypody ferns planted on a creekside bank in a Berkeley garden, a Richmond garden with yerba buena trailing under maple trees, and the manzanitas blooming for me in my garden at home. Familiar plants I’ve brought into many gardens, but there on the hillside trails they were tucked in with oaks, pines, and early spring wildflowers, while in every direction muted colors painted the surrounding landscape through the fog.
As I write now, I ache for the scent of yerba buena, for the quiet happiness of oak silhouettes and wet air you can see and touch… Oh, and those cheerful California buttercups blossoms! Just starting to open on the mountain, I wondered if they’d begun to bloom amongst yerba buena in the Richmond garden, and how this dry year will affect their flowering?
Over the past decade, my work as a gardener has deepened my connection with nature and has offered me opportunities to be drawn into the marvels of our natural world. I love the recognition I have for these plants, for the stories they’ve given me, for the richness they add to a garden, and for the quiet reassurance that comes with finding them in their natural habitat. I love also the wondering I have, the unanswered questions, the uninterpreted experiences, and the endless stretch of learning I anticipate ahead whenever I encounter them. I know so much, and so little.
I began with a book thirteen years ago, and that book began with this quote:
“I wish so to live ever as to derive my satisfactions and inspirations from the commonest events, everyday phenomena, so that what my senses hourly perceive, my daily walk, the conversation of my neighbors, may inspire me, and I may dream of no heaven but that which lies about me.” Henry Thoreau
Sitting at my desk now, I wonder what the birds outside are chattering about, whether they’re telling one another where to find the best seeds in my garden, or directing others to the worms that have surfaced after our rainy week. I’m going to check now!
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