In the Garden of Sensuous Delightby Mary Jasch
In the Heather Garden at Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens in coastal Fort Bragg, California, hills of heath and heather undulate and mound amid the native Bishop Pines. Nearby, blossoms of tender species rhododendron from the Himalayas and Southeast Asia perfume the air. Sculptures adorn the gardens but play third best to the plants and settings in this primordial-looking landscape. I take the North Trail to the headlands. Here, along Fern Creek Canyon, the view is prehistoric and the mood changes to wild. Bishop Pines rise through big leaf rhododendron. I walk through ferns as tall as me, mahonia, rhodies, pine and tanoak and a 10ish-foot rounded camellia blooming red all over. Was the Jack of Hearts here? The scent turns to grasses, earth and its microbes, and wood. I envision a new cologne for men: “Pacific Woodland.” Up to the headlands tall foxglove blooms in forest gaps and salal flowers everywhere on the ground. Salal is a shrubby, native groundcover in West Coast forests, but it is harvested for East Coast florist “greens.” I reach the headlands above the Pacific Ocean and suddenly, sky, rock and sea fill my vision. Wild flowers spill down the bluffs, the reason I have come. Magnificent! A subspecies of the native yellow poppy on the headlands has flattish, silvery leaves and bright yellow flowers with an orange throat. Eschscholzia californica ‘subsp. californica var. ‘maritime’ is usually described as being farther south, but it is here, too. There is disagreement regarding the subspecies and varieties of E. californica. Standing inches from the edge, my legs weaken and heart races. Survival instinct makes me quickly wonder: can I back up without tripping or should I turn around when I want to move? Back on land without edges, I head to the cultivated part of MCBG for the Heritage Rose Garden and discover Rosa ‘Sally Holmes,’ fragrant with clusters of white blossoms almost the size of soccer balls. Families brought these roses from far away to their homes on the Mendocino coast so long ago. I think of two local sisters who rescued the roses from the long-abandoned homesteads and highways where they were, as time went by, left behind. With many of them, the sisters founded the Heritage Rose Garden. In the Perennial Garden, designed by Gary Ratway (owner of Digging Dog Nursery with his wife Deborah), grass paths flow around island beds. A stream of raspberry arctotis fronts purple Turkish Delight Hebe and, nearby, a silvery mat of New Zealand Scab Plant begs to be touched. On another trail, furry boughs of larch drape against Red Vulcan rhododendron and Yunan pine with monster candles in a garden of large evergreens. Camellia ‘Curtain Call’ and others huge with trunks the size of a man’s torso tower over spreading Camellia tsaii var. ‘tsaii’ with small pointed, reddish leaves and Camellia cordifolia, a groundcover. Fragrant Rhododendron parryae is a show stopper with peeling red bark and red bud scales. Rhododendron maddenii is my new luscious favorite. Although I am not near it, a light breeze brings it to me like a spritz of delicate perfume. Pale pink poppies mark the edge of a bed of tall, dark, Slender Tea-tree from Australia. The Succulent Garden contains over 150 species of succulents, cacti and euphorbia including South African Cape Aloe and a mound of the bromeliad, Dyckia brevifolia with orange spikes. Colors abound: lemon “Wheel Cactus” flowers, cream poppies, orange aloe on dark leaves like lipstick tubes, orange torch lily and big white beards of tall Old Man cactus framed by purple cushions of ice plant. Into the other side of the prehistoric jungle we go. Pines so tall with bare boles take my breath away. Pink-purple fuschia, planted by fuschia fans decades ago, grow four feet tall in the shade. Eucalyptus as tall as the pines… The trees lead the way to a hilltop vegetable garden. In an opening in the primeval wood, a garden of sensual delights appears, bedecked by flowers. White roses flounce over fences by fragrant yellow phlomis. Hummingbirds and swallows hover and zoom between the trees and over raised beds of veggies. Fruit trees and blue flowered shrubs that mimic hydrangeas decorate other fences. Hills of nicotiana, dark-leaved yellow-blossomed mustard, foxglove, alstromeria, borage, dahlia, euphorbia, calendula – all in the vegetable garden. On the way out of the garden, still the scent on the breeze of pink trumpet maddenii. Coast banksia with thick trunks rise gracefully with silver leaves and yellow-flowered cones. A hummingbird comes to check out the native grass gone to golden seed but finding nothing it chirps away to a white azalea. A Few Interesting Plants Big Leaf Rhododendron - Rhododendron macrophyllum Broom Restio - Ischyrolepis subverticillata from South Africa. Coast Banksia - Banksia integrifolia Faber’s Fir - Abies fabric False Heath - Fabiana imbricola ‘Violaceae’ Ice Plant - Drosanthemum floribundum New Zealand Scab Plant - Raoulia australis Old Man Cactus - Cephalocereus senilis Salal - Gaultheria shallon Slender Tea-tree - Leptospermum brevipes South African Cape Aloe - Aloe ferox Tanoak - Notholithocarpus densiflorus Wheel Cactus - Opuntia robusta White Rose Campion - Lychnis coronaria Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens: www.gardenbythesea.org ** Mary Jasch photos |
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