By selecting plants that remind you of a hike in the local chaparral, coastal sage scrub, oak woodlands, or even along our coastal bluffs, you bring a bit of that adventure into the environment surrounding your home. It is a structure that invites interaction both by you and the animals it attracts, as opposed to the conventional landscape of lawn, hedge, and rose with its routine upkeep and its singular purpose of being viewed. And so these plants are familiar but wild, tamed but not entirely so. The garden is designed but is allowed and expected to change. Its structure is a framework for plants that invite the nearby birds, butterflies, and insects to join into a landscape that is full of life, a garden that pulses with the cycles of seasonal change.
All gardens feature plants on exhibition.
By definition, the various and familiar theme gardens, such as the herb garden or the rose garden focus on the plants of their titles. In the California native plant garden, natives are certainly on display, but it s not about the plants. It s about what the plants do for people interacting in or with the garden. California s unique climate, history, and culture provide us with a canvas for a classic painting. In this talk, we will consider various aspects of the California Garden.