More Postcards from Point Reyes

Garden Conservancy Open Days

This past Saturday I had the pleasure of visiting three gardens in the Sacramento area as part of The Garden Conservancy Open Days. The Garden Conservancy is a wonderful organization that works to preserve the beautiful private gardens in the United States and to help open these private gardens to the public for education and enjoyment. I learned about them through Margaret Roach, on her Web site, A Way to Garden. Margaret opens her gardens to the public each year during Open Days in her area in New York. One day I hope to visit her gardens, but until then I will content myself with seeing some of the private gardens in my own neck of the woods.

The first stop was at Maple Rock Gardens in Newcastle. It is situated over three acres in the Sierra Nevada Foothills. The owners, Ruby and Frank Andrews, have created beautiful garden rooms. There is the Memory Garden, Rock Wall Garden, Vegetable Garden, a Croquet Lawn, a Plant Hospital, a Railroad Garden, Orchard, and a Japanese Garden. There is also a wonderful Pavilion that is a shady retreat where you can meditate. We could have stayed there all day! Maple Rock Gardens has recently opened for weddings, corporate gatherings, family reunions, and other events. There were so many things I loved about these gardens, each room was different, but they each flowed effortlessly into the other. The owners are truly artists!


The second stop was at the Golden/Darville Residence in Lincoln. This garden is created on approximately 2.3 acres and is a wildlife garden. There is a spectacular lily pond with a cottage that takes up a good part of the acreage, a vegetable garden, and perennial gardens. We spent quite a bit of time near the lily pond eating cookies and drinking lemonade and soaking up the quiet and peaceful ambience. The small, black Guillards were fun to watch swimming and playing among the lily pads. This garden was so different from the Maple Rock Gardens, but just as lovely. The owners/gardeners have created a very special place here.




Our last stop was The Gardens of Springhill. The gardens are on 54 acres in Lincoln and "is gardening on a grand scale." [The Garden Conservancy] It includes a 400-foot-long statuary garden, a ten-ton, nineteen-foot high fountain; Tequila Hill has hundreds of agave plants, there is a pond with a wooden walkway so that you can view the wetlands and wildlife, close to the house is the rose garden, knot garden, a shade garden. Leaving the gardens you walk through a 500-foot-long arched pergola. Half-way through this pergola is a stop to Uncle Rob's Crazy garden, a gnome and pink flamingo filled garden. Last, but not least, is a small (well, not so small) version of Stonehenge. The owner is English and he and his wife were gracious hosts that day. Peg Poswall made delicious cookies and served them along with bottled water and coffee. John Poswall, a Sacramento attorney and author, drove his golf cart around and stopped and visited with everyone. They supplied us with a hand drawn map with their suggested route through the gardens.



All three gardens were truly remarkable and inspirational. I hope that I can take some of the design elements that I saw and apply them to my little corner of the world.

Vernal Pools

Yesterday we went on a field trip to visit some vernal pools not far from the house. John's seven-year-old niece, Kayley, was my companion for the day.

Vernal pools are seasonally flooded depressions found on ancient soils with an impermeable layer such as hardpan, claypan, or volcanic basalt. The impermeable layer allows the pools to retain water much longer then the surrounding uplands, but they are shallow enough to completely dry up during the summer and fall. Only plants and animals that are adapted to this cycle of wetting and drying can survive in vernal pools over time.

The above photo is from the EPA Web site so you can see what the vernal pools like like when they are still in the wet phase, going into the flowering phase. The specialized plants and animals found in vernal pools are what make the pools unique. As winter rains fill the pools, freshwater invertebrates, crustaceans, and amphibians emerge. Many of these animals live no where else on the Earth and are important food sources for migratory waterfowl. Vernal pool plants sprout underwater, some using special floating leaves and air-filled stems to stay afloat. Some of the plants even flower underwater.









We saw the pools during the flowering phase which occurs each Spring. Flowering plants produce the brilliant circles of color that follow the receding shoreline of the pools. Flowering vernal pools are like snowflakes in that no two are exactly alike. There are over 60 different plant species that live in California vernal pools. The peak bloom of each plant species coincides with the emergence of the pollinator insect that will visit the plant.


Since this year has been drier than recent years, the water in the pools have already evaporated, and in some places the ground is brown, barren, and cracked, indicating that they are quickly going into the dry phase. Even when they appear dry and barren, the grasslands and vernal pools support many animals throughout the summer and fall. Seeds left behind from the flowering plants provide food for insects, birds, and gophers.

We walked, and walked through the grasslands and visited as many of the pools as we could. The small wild flowers are protected by Federal and State laws, so since we couldn't pick them, Kayley decided to pick rocks instead. By the end of our field trip, both of her pockets were full with rocks. I don't think Kayley had ever walked that much in her entire life, but she must have enjoyed herself because she said that she wanted to come back in early spring next year so she could see the water and animals in the pools.

Although it was a little windy, it was a beautiful day, and we could see the snow-capped Sierras off in the distance.