Wild and Untamed–for the most part

I’m always thinking about my garden. Often it’s the tidying up that preoccupies me. Where some climate zones provide respite, we in Southern California continue to witness growth and change over the next few months, perhaps less so than in the active growing seasons, but it’s a mistake to think the maintenance can be deferred indefinitely.

I was reading one of my favorite books, Stanley Kunitz’s “The Wild Braid,” a beautiful reflection on the poet’s century of gardening and his words connected. 

“The garden is a domestication of the wild, taking what can be random, and, to a degree, ordering it so that it is not merely a transference from the wild, but still retains the elements that make each plant shine in its natural habitat.”

The Wild Braid

Sometimes I’m a little overwhelmed at my wild. And how to handle the domestication?

I am in close connection with the Theodore Payne Foundation (TPF) not just for the purchase of the native plants, but also for education. I don’t have years of experience with native plants to fall upon, and as the season turned from summer to fall I wasn’t sure of the “when and how” of pruning.

Bee’s Bliss Sage, Salvia Leucantha, Allen Chickering Sage, and Mexican Bush Sage are predominant anchor plants that serve as backdrop to an array of lavender, herb and succulent species. 

Plants continue to grow and begin to crowd in a tumble that surprises me. I cut and trim and before I turn around the plants continue to put out new shoots. The insect population keeps the birds well fed. One of the things I have had to adjust to is not cutting back too severely. The plants can take it, but the instruction I received at TPF was to live with a little chaos in benefit of other living organisms.

I’m full to almost overflowing, but there are pockets around the property I’m yet to fully transform with natives. And with this in mind, I was off again to the Theodore Payne Foundation for one of their highly anticipated fall plant sales.

I enjoy my visits to this non-profit organization “run by a collective of plant lovers and optimists with big dreams,” in Sun Valley, California. I always come home with plants, books, seeds, and enthusiasm for expanding my knowledge in support of sustainable and ecologically sound gardening practices.

I did come home with packets of wildflowers in anticipation of a colorful spring. Every year the California Poppies planted a dozen years ago in my garden return and being self-sowing I let them go to seed before I pull them up. I’m trying to weigh months ahead of time if I have the energy to “tidy-up” again if I more liberally sow a wildflower “prairie” among the established plants. 

If we have anywhere near the rain we had last year we may be treated to another gorgeous superbloom. With some planning today I can create a miniature meadow! Well, I can’t dream of a white Christmas, so…