Gardens in coastal California are lovely at most times of the year, especially to an envious northerner. Writing this article in a San Francisco coffee shop (husbands must amuse themselves as wives shop), I am filled with delight at the sights, sounds and tastes of the past week. Plants lured us south, that is, if pursuit of the grape qualifies as a plant pursuit. The vast variety of Vitis vinifera and its many cultivars make many of us unconsciously appreciative of the genetic variability of plants (no pun intended on the 'unconscious').
Wine makers are deserving of praise for their art, but we must also respect the generations of growers who maintained genetic distinction and who experimented to create new genetic variability. As plant lovers, we tend to appreciate the variability in 'looks'. The grape grower pursues the subtle characteristics of taste, combining generations of tradition and a sense of adventure.
California grows and blends many grapes that we cannot produce in BC. Mourvedre? Grenache? Counoise? Crop failures are defined differently in California too. In the Paso Robles wine region, the temperature did not get warm enough (at least in the 90’s F) to produce a Mourvedre crop last year or this year. A mainstay of their blends failed to produce. Perhaps new blends will be developed and new varietals will be tested in a region that cannot depend on its weather.
Botanical gardens are having challenges there too. Three of them in California are devoted exclusively to native plants. They are having difficulty keeping collections alive because of the unnaturally dry conditions. We shouldn’t need to water native plants, but changes in climate are making that necessary sometimes. One garden, the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden, even caught fire in the extreme drought. One third of it was burnt up two years ago. Happily, their landscape is recovering, but it shows the tenuous nature of conservation efforts in extreme conditions.
San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum faces a different set of challenges. Two years ago when we visited, activists were out front collecting signatures on a petition to keep the garden free. I know, free sounds good, but if governments don’t support us, who will? San Francisco’s botanical garden sits in the middle of the 1,000 Golden Gate Park next to the $30-entry Academy of Natural Sciences. People were playing Frisbee in the botanical garden, with hundreds of acres of parkland next door. If botanical or public gardens have a mandate to educate, they need resources. I hope that Master Gardeners, and the less-informed public, will understand why entry to botanical gardens isn’t free, at least not without a big change in the current political paradigm.
Today, San Francisco charges a $7 entry fee to non-residents. At the risk of calling down a number of indignant emails on my head, I’d have to say it’s a step in the right direction. Your local botanical gardens can do so much for your communities. It’s about more than looking good. It’s about more than Frisbee tossing. We conserve, we educate and we are gathering places for the lovers of plants and nature. Anything you are able to do in support of your local public gardens will assist them in reaching a wider audience with information that we, as a society, need. As our partners in education, I hope that Master Gardeners will join me in raising a glass to gardens that serve their communities.
Author: Harry Jongerden, Garden Director, VanDusen Botanical Gardens
