Taming the Hillside
This week I am coming to the end of a progression of man versus nature. I don’t like to think that I have triumphed over nature because that would be a foolish perspective. Nature always wins in the end. It would also be foolish because this effort is all about finding ways to embrace nature and revel in it. But I cannot completely avoid feeling like I have wrestled some aspects of nature to the mat. The nature of the high chaparral which dominates my hillside in Northern San Diego County is that it is a rock-strewn, brush-covered dry hillside that is a veritable tinder box waiting for a stray spark to give it an opportunity to go out in a blaze of glory as it runs its length to some natural stopping point.
When I moved in last year I made several observations. I felt that I was unlikely to want to put in more hillside management in the back as I felt that the existing approach of ice plants, yuccas and manzanita and live oak trees fading gently away from the house was sufficient and that leaving the slope wild and barren otherwise was best. I also took a point of view on the outdoor lighting, which was that as much as I felt we needed it in the front, that we could skip it for the back since the night beauty of the deck was in the stars and big sky above. It turns out I was wrong (or at least changed my mind) on both. I’m not sure if it was spending four months rebuilding the deck (and therefore spending lots of time on the back hillside) or putting in the Bison Boulder sculpture, but my focus has clearly been on the back hillside all of this year. I feel like I am close to a culmination of that now with the work which has been going on over the past month and is now nearing completion.
I have added one small and one large rock garden, half a dozen new mulched beds, two wildflower gardens, a rose garden, five seating areas and five defined pathways. The back hillside is now a chaparral garden unto itself. Everything except the rose garden that I have planted is either native, Californian and drought-tolerant or low-water succulent or cactus (most often from Arizona, Mexico, Africa (particularly the dry areas like Madagascar), or Australia). While I have water running throughout the property, the idea is to not fight with nature, but go more with the flow of it while still having things look nice and colorful. Some people may not realize it, but desert flowers, which tend to bloom only briefly, do so with great vigor and color as though to scream at the birds and bees to pay attention to them. Everything I have planted blossoms at one time or another during the season. I am not yet so sophisticated a gardener that I plan out my gardens based on when the blossoming of each varietal occurs. I have a great respect for a garden that manages its self like a wonderfully choreographed ballet. I am just learning how to stand on the hot rocks of the garden and I will leave dancing to the coming years.
Today was Joventino’s. technically my gardener, day to straighten out the mess left by the laborers who moved the 7.5 yards of bark mulch and the 3 yards of DG pathways down from the superbags deposited on top of the driveway, around the house by wheelbarrow, and onto spots I designated with red turf spray paint. I had about fifteen new plants for him to put in the ground in designated spots as well as a few spots where I asked him to scrounge up some larger rocks (they are in no short supply on my hillside) to add interest and texture to the bark mulch beds surrounding the plants. The look is intended to be somewhat random and I believe it looks especially so. No one will mistake the bark mulch as naturally there but rather put down by intent, but the plantings all look very much at home. The paths follow the natural contour and boulder configuration of the hillside and they all naturally lead to a logical end point where I have placed a bench. It looks like a chaparral version of a zen garden to me and it suggests that people might want to take a book and sit and enjoy the sunshine and ocean breezes. Obviously, there are times when the scorching sun does not welcome visitors to sit and read, but it always looks inviting. I have purposefully left three areas totally natural for the time being.
To begin with, there is the coyote den area to the north. I want that to stay natural (the brush has been removed, but the earth looks dry and rocky). That is also a natural path to a cliff over which Joventino and I toss excess plant material since the four vegetation buckets that we put out for waste disposal fill up fast. It is also my unilateral deal with the coyotes that they can have that if they leave my cultivated areas alone. They are negotiating hard with several coyote scats left for me on the path suggesting that I placed it too close to their territory. I am standing firm on my drawn lines and am reminding them that I am the ultimate boss of the hillside. Then there is the great ravine which runs down from the large live oak by the NW corner of the house to the bottom edge of the property. It is bounded by boulders the whole way and is a natural gulley for rain and coyotes alike. I plan to leave that totally natural though I did move two cacti to the middle of that and have left them there fo fend for themselves. The entire northern hillside that is my new large rock garden is having two new sprinkler zones added this week. I envision that hillside as the start of spectacular succulent garden in the future since I started it with 140 very lovely plants and so far in two weeks they are all thriving under my hand-watering regimen. We will see next week how they do with their automated watering.
The entire midsection of the hillside is now cultivated with paths and beds and wildflowers, all the way down to the Bison Boulder. That bison looks like she has found a nice field of grasses and flowers to rest in. She looks perfectly in place after just one season. The southern side of the hill has two new mulch beds with new plantings strategically positioned so as not to interfere with the natural wheelbarrow paths which are used to transport this and that down the hill when needed. I prefer (for the moment anyway) to keep that pathway natural and not covered in DG and the natural sporadic agave and monkey flower plant with its dry -as-sand look are all naturally a part of the landscape. I think I have just the right amount of beds and areas left natural, but time will tell.
I will step out on a limb now and use an expression that Kim often finds it necessary to say to me. She tells me that Coco Chanel always said that you should take off one piece of jewelry before you went out because less is often more. I always respond to her that I went to the Michael Milken school of thought and felt that more was more. That’s just a running joke between us and I think in this instance Coco trumps Milken and I will leave the rest of the hillside alone. At least until I get bored with myself and feel that there is more taming of the hillside needed.