Looking Ahead to 2020

Happy New Year! 2019 is a blur behind us, and 2020 is in our sights. It's always fun to have a new year stretching out before us, beckoning us into the future!

Each year I like to pick a theme for Eden By The Bay. For 2020, I think the only thing we can possibly entertain is Vision! It's too perfect, and the same opportunity will never present itself again. So, for the year 2020, we will look to the past for visionary ideas that got us to where we are; live fully into the present moment with the ideas that surround us; and look to the future for great ideas that will sustain close to eight billion of us. As always, our focus will be gardens, landscapes, and the natural world.

2020 vision - past, present, future	Innovations of the past
Roof gardens of today	Future of farming

Along the way we'll take time to rest, to breathe, to read great books and watch great movies. We'll spend time with our loved ones over delicious meals, get our hands dirty in the garden, and take inspiration from time in nature. We'll roam locally here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and hopefully put on our travelling shoes to venture further afield. Despite the ups and downs of life, I'm planning a great year in 2020, and hope you'll come along!

Looking Ahead to 2019

Happy New Year! 2018 is in the review mirror, and 2019 is an open road before us. Nature, gardens, friends and family are stops on the map for the year to come.

Looking ahead, my big theme for the year is "plants to dye for". For a long time I've wanted to learn more about dyeing with plants. I did a some research during my sabbatical about the history of dyeing, the plants used for dyeing, and the recipes used to dye with plants. I have a lot of interesting posts and hands-on dyeing projects planned for the year to come.

Plants for dyeing	Exploring nature
Enjoying gardens	Dyeing fabric with plants

Along the way we'll continue with some of our favorite pursuits, like hiking the parks and preserves of the San Francisco Bay Area, enjoying beautiful landscapes, reading books, and watching movies (where plants are the movie stars). Best of all, we'll continue to celebrate the people that walk along beside us on the journey of life, by sharing experiences, enjoying a good meal, and engaging in great conversation. Hope you'll join me on the journey!

Decorating for Fall at Heritage Park

I recently had another  opportunity to volunteer at the Dublin Heritage Park and Museums in Dublin, California. A group from the business women network at work (the Mighty Morphing Women of Power, as my husband likes to call us) worked with Master Gardeners Jim and Sue on several projects.

The museum before we started - notice all the fallen leaves!

The garden we planted in the spring, now all grown up

It was gratifying to see the results of our labors back in June (see Volunteer at Heritage Park). The plantings are mature and healthy. It is great to see that several hours of work in spring can bring beauty and pleasure to folks through several seasons.

Piles of leaves ready for the compost heap

The museum after we raked - no leaves!

Our group made short work of raking up leaves and sprucing up the garden beds. This made a significant contribution to the compost heap. Never mind that a gust or two of Dublin wind will undo what we did - for the moment it looks great!

Lady scarecrow

Another group worked on crafts and decorated the grounds in preparation for an upcoming fall festival. We also got a chance explore the park grounds.

Wash basin of fall gourds and wheat

Our business women's group (which includes a few men) enjoyed our service project and time together on a beautiful fall morning.

Barnyard in the fall with square harrow

Kolb House at Heritage Park

While at Dublin Heritage Park and Museums, be sure to take the tour of Kolb House. The Craftsman style bungalow was built across the freeway for George Kolb in 1911, and later moved to Heritage Park to start its new role as a museum.

Kolb House from the front entrance

The Kolbs migrated from Münsterappel Germany in 1880, spent a few years in Philadelphia, and ended up in Pleasanton, California in 1884. George Kolb purchased the Dublin general store, married Wilhelmina Hartung, and together started their family. Kolb purchased 200 acres of land, built the house in 1911, and the family moved in.

Calla lilies edge the front of the house

Back entry, with the Challenge Dairy headquarters across the street

The craftsman style bungalow worked well as a farmhouse, with its wide overhanging eaves to protect from the hot sun, and wrap-around porches for gathering, extra workspace, or catching a breeze. A kitchen garden outside provided vegetables (with a lot of effort to keep the deer, moles, and birds away).

Raised bed kitchen garden, now planted by visiting school children

Kenmore washer in the laundry porch

I especially appreciated the laundry porch and adjoining kitchen. The Kenmore roller washing machine would have been a time saver (Mom used one of these in Hollis, Alaska, the logging camp where Dad spent several months of the year researching for the Forest Service early in his career). The cooler kept fruits and vegetables cool with air from under the house (Grandpa Bob built a cooler for Grandma Char in their Southern California bungalow).

The cooler

The house is furnished with the family's furniture and artifacts, giving it a feeling of authenticity. Many on the tour commented "my grandma had that" or "my great-aunt used one of those". For us, it was a journey down memory lane.

The range

Pastry station , with flour bin

For school age children, it would be a source of wonder - "how could they only have one bathroom, and why was by the back door?" and "how can they charge the computer without any wall plugs?". No matter what your age, you're sure to enjoy a tour of Kolb House.

Original location of the Kolb House, across the orchard from "downtown Dublin"

Dublin Heritage Park and Museums

Dublin Heritage Park and Museums is a ten-acre park located in the crook of the Interstate 580 freeway as it swings around from the valley floor to make the grade through the pass heading west toward the East Bay. It is a gem of a place to spend an hour or two if you're in Dublin, California, and want to be transported back in time a hundred years or so. The location was  the original "downtown Dublin" for the surrounding homesteads. As Dublin transformed from farmland to a modern town, a few forward-looking folks sought to preserve a little of its dairy farming history.

Dublin Heritage Park and Museums

The old St. Raymond Church (built in 1859) and the Dublin Pioneer Cemetery (established in 1859) are in their original locations. The Murray Schoolhouse, Kolb House, and associated barns were moved from across the freeway as the original farms were carved up for development projects. A small stream and forest insulates Heritage Park from the freeway, and the grounds are landscaped with plants you might see in the early 1900s, like hollyhocks and rambling roses. Across the street is the Challenge Dairy headquarters, and the original Green general store building.

The schoolhouse has wonderful exhibits for kids (and grownups) showing what it was like to attend school in a one-room schoolhouse, and to live and work on a dairy farm. The headstones in the cemetery provide a glimpse into pioneer life, and the church is a testament to early settlers who pitched in to build the center of spiritual and community life. I especially enjoyed our personal tour of the Kolb House, built in the Craftsman Bungalow style that was becoming popular at the turn of the twentieth century. I recommend visiting the Dublin Heritage Park and Museums, and checking out the photographs at the Online California Archive, the Dublin Heritage Museum collection.

Volunteer at Heritage Park

I recently had the opportunity do do some volunteer gardening with my workmates at the Dublin Heritage Park and Museums in Dublin, California. We worked with Master Gardeners Jim and Sue, who keep the Park in great shape and know a lot about the dairy farming history of the Tri-Valley area.

Spring spruce-up around the Museum at Heritage Park in Dublin, California.
The planters are old wooden watering troughs from the farm.

Our mission was to spruce up the area around the Murray Schoolhouse Museum (a former one-room schoolhouse) for spring, and plant some flowers. I manned a rake for most of my time, gathering up dead leaves and dead branches from winter storms. We had a great team of workers, and had fun while we worked. After our labor, we got a personal tour around the grounds, and of the old Kolb farmhouse, a craftsman style bungalow built in the early 1900s. I'll share more about Heritage Park in later posts!

History of Gardens – Public Parks

Public parks emerged in England in the 1800s, enabling access to common land for all. In 1835 John Claudius Loudon (1783 - 1845) published "Remarks on Laying out Public Gardens and Promenades" in his publication, The Gardener's Magazine. In the article, Loudon defined a public garden as "a garden into which the public are admitted, either gratuitously, or on the payment of a small fee." He observed that Britain had few public gardens, but that they were becoming more frequently available in Europe, especially in Germany, France, and Spain. He offered that these public gardens were taking the place of ramparts and fortifications, and seemed to be a pledge for the general peace of Europe and release from the ancient and tedious quarrels of the past.

Map of Birkenhead Park and adjoining Villa Sites (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
The map appears in Parks, by Frederick Law Olmsted in American Cyclopaedia, v. 13, p. 103)

In the article, Loudon remarked on public promenades, parks, scientific gardens, landscape gardens, recreational gardens, and gardens for burial. Scientific gardens included zoological, botanical, horticultural, agricultural, arboretums, herbacetums, plantariums, British flora, local flora, exotic, geographical, and geological. He recommended garden plans, soil and drainage, site preparation, and design principles. His comments showed a practical knowledge of landscaping, as well as an aesthetic and historical sense. He recommended the public funding of gardens for the benefit of all, not just for rulers and the wealthy.

The first publicly funded garden in England was designed by Joseph Paxton (1803 - 1865) at Birkenhead Park, Liverpool in 1843. Funding was provided through parliament, and through the sale of residential parcels surrounding the park. Park grounds were dedicated to the free use by its residents for recreation, nature, and health. Birkenhead paved the way for the public park movement in Britain and beyond. Frederick Law Olmsted was influenced by the writings of Loudon and the implementation of Birkenhead by Paxton. In 1858, he submitted his design for New York's Central Park in America, with architect Calvert Vaux. Public parks continue to be an important component of society.

Learn More:

• The History of Gardens, by Christopher Thacker
• The Story of Gardening, by Penelope Hobhouse
• The Gardener’s magazine and register of rural and domestic improvement, by J.C. Loudon

History of Gardens – Gardenesque

Another style that came out of the Landscape Movement was Gardenesque, which was popular from 1830 - 1930s. The Gardenesque style celebrates individual plants, and comes from the desire to plant plants for their own merits, rather than for garden design. The style gained popularity because of all the plants pouring into England from all over the world, the increasing knowledge about propagation, and the availability of large scale green houses in which to raise exotic plants.

Gardenesque: flowers, trees, and shrubs (The Gardener's Magazine, 1938)

John Claudius Loudon (1783 - 1845) was a proponent of Gardenesque, and wrote in 1840 that "the aim of the Gardenesque is to add to the acknowledged charms of the [picturesque], all those which the sciences of gardening and botany, in their present advanced state, are capable of producing". Gardenesque often displays plants in the picturesque setting.

Gardenesque: specimen trees (The Gardener's Magazine, 1938)

In 1866, architect and writer John Arthur Hughes described Gardenesque as being "distinguished by the trees and shrubs, whether in masses or groups, being planted and thinned in such a manner as to never touch each other; so that viewed near, each tree or shrub would be seen distinctly while from a distance they show a high degree of beauty...Grace rather than grandeur is its characteristic." The garden becomes a collection of individual specimens rather than composed. Many of the trees and shrubs coming out of the Americas were perfect candidates for this garden style.

Learn More:

• The History of Gardens, by Christopher Thacker
• The Story of Gardening, by Penelope Hobhouse
• The Gardener’s magazine and register of rural and domestic improvement, by J.C. Loudon

History of Gardens – Picturesque

A couple of years ago we explored the Landscape Movement, which was introduced in England and lasted over a hundred years (roughly 1720 – 1810s). The gardens were meant to be indistinguishable from nature, and even to improve on natrue. Landscape characteristics included sweeping house-to-borrowed views, serpentine lines, trees and plants silhouetted against the sky, and the use of eye catchers. Capability Brown was one of its chief promoters and implementers (see Garden History – Landscape Movement, and Elements of the Landscape Movement).

Around 1800, garden design took a turn from the beautiful and the sublime. Critics argued that it was impossible to tell what was designed by man, and what was pure countryside. They felt that that true landscape gardening must show the hand of man. A new movement emerged—Picturesque—in which the garden or landscape was not just wild, but was further refined to emulate a picture that an artist might create. Humphry Repton (1752 – 1818) became the successor to Brown, and champion of the Picturesque.

Red Book: Repton's redesign of a village (see Alchetron)

In 1788, Repton started his gardening career, with little practical horticulture experience, but lots of good ideas. Where he lacked practical gardening experience, he excelled at presentation and salesmanship. For each garden design, he created a Red Book (referring to its binding) that contained a description of the proposal, and watercolor paintings showing the before and after look of the design. This approach helped educate and persuade his clients.

Red Book: Repton's redesign of the estate view from the house (see Alchetron)
Notice the tab in the upper picture that is used to peel away the "before" picture to reveal the "after".

Repton followed many of Brown’s basic design principles, but he started to prettify the areas around the house. Where Brown brought the lawn right up to the house, Repton brought in terraces, balustrades, shrubs, and flower beds around the house. He used long winding roads to make the property seem larger and access to the house more dramatic. He reintroduced the fountain, and used trellises and greenhouses. He designed picturesque themes, such as Chinese, American, arboretum, and forcing gardens. He modified many of Brown’s original landscape gardens with these new ideas, and created new landscapes in the Picturesque style.

Learn More:

• The History of Gardens, by Christopher Thacker
• The Story of Gardening, by Penelope Hobhouse
• Humphry Repton, by Alchetron Free Encyclopedia (watch the videos!)

Looking Ahead to 2017

Happy New Year, everyone! Hope you enjoyed a little break from your routine over the holidays, and lots of parties, gatherings with friends and family, good food, and beautiful decorations. Christmas is one of my favorite holidays, for both its spiritual significance and fun. My husband and I celebrated Christmas in Seattle, with our son and daughter-in-law in their new home, so the holiday was extra special. Now back to healthy eating, and some extra exercise to get “back” in shape!

Looking ahead, my theme for the year is “color in the garden.” For the last several years we have been studying native plants and water conservation, to help us re-imagine our gardens here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Now it is time for some fun – color! I’d like to delve into the topic, using Penelope Hobhouse’s book Color in Your Garden as our guide, along with some color theory principles from the art world. Let’s build a color palette of sustainable native plants for the Bay Area garden (keeping in mind that green and brown are colors too)!

Color theory	Mount Saint Helens
Lan Su Chinese Garden in Portland	Color in the garden

HTML Tables

Other gardening goals for 2017:

• Learn more about the East Bay watershed, by visiting some of its parks. Redwood, Huckleberry, Sibley, Roberts, and more are right in our backyard.
• Investigate the native plants and street trees of Bishop Ranch, located near the Iron Horse Trail. My work office is moving after many years in Dublin, California. I will miss the familiar trees and turkeys, but am looking forward to exploring a new microclimate.
• Explore the gardens and wild areas of the Pacific Northwest, including the Lan Su Chinese Garden in Portland, Mount Saint Helens in Washington, Alki Park in Seattle, Manito Park in Spokane, and the Old Mill District and family farm in Bend.
• Visit Bay Area gardens in various seasons, and look for great ideas to add seasonal color for year-round interest in our gardens. In general, visit gardens wherever my travels take me - from the deserts in Southern California, to the wilds of Alaska!
• Continue exploring the gardening innovations, ideas, and movements that emerged out of the Landscape Movement, as technology and society changed.

Hope you will join me on this journey!

Garden History – Innovation of Gardening Publications

Our final garden landscape innovation in this series is the spread of gardening publications in the 1800s. Technical advances brought down the cost of printing and producing color illustrations, leading to an explosion of journals, periodicals, and books. Changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution had led to an emerging urban and educated middle class, with an interest in gardening on a smaller scale. They eagerly sought out the new gardening publications.

Two prolific publishers of the time were Joseph Paxton (we learned about him in Garden History Innovations – Glass Houses), and John Claudius Loudon (1783 – 1845). Loudon was born to a farming family in Scotland, and became an influential horticulturist. He visited many of the great gardens of England and Europe, and understood their historical context. He also built glass houses, helped develop the Victorian suburban garden, and was an advocate for large public parks for recreation and nature. (Frederick Law Olmstead, who designed New York’s Central Park and the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, was influenced by his ideas).

Loudon wrote prolifically about old and new plant species, and how to grow them successfully using innovative techniques. His audience included those with grand estate gardens as well as small suburban gardens. Loudon’s publications include (dates vary by various sources):

• Encyclopedia of Gardening (1822)
• The Green-House Companion (1824)
• Gardener’s Magazine (founded in 1826)
• Arboretum et Fruiticetum Britannicum (1830)
• Remarks on Laying Out Public Gardens and Promenades (1835)
• Suburban Gardener, and Villa Companion (1838)

Gardening publication by John C. Loudon (No copyright, distributed by Google)

In 1830 Loudon met and married Jane C. Webb Loudon (1807 – 1858), who was already a published author of an early work of science fiction (The Mummy!). She worked closely with Loudon, and soon became a prolific garden writer in her own right. After Loudon’s death Ms. Loudon had continued success publishing books for women gardeners. Ms. Loudon’s publications include (dates vary by various sources):

• Young Ladies Book of Botany (1838)
• Gardening for Ladies (1840)
• Botany for Ladies (1842)
• The Ladies Magazine of Gardening (1842)
• The Ladies Companion to the Flower Garden (1840 – 44, four volumes)
• My Own Garden (1855)
• Amateur Gardener’s Calendar

Gardening publication by Jane Loudon (Creative Commons)

Many other gardening journals, periodicals, and books were available in the 1800s, but the Loudon’s had a major impact. They educated and influenced gardeners across gender and socio-economic lines via their many garden publications.

Learn More:

• The Green-House Companion (John Loudon)
• The Ladies Companion to the Flower Garden (Jane Loudon)