Breaking the Rules

Author Not Specified

Country Living Gardener Magazine

March/April 2000 Edition

 In a cliffside California garden, foliage steals the show

Flowers are okay, but to Roger Raiche, a field botanist and garden designer in Berkeley, Calif., they're hardly the point. Fantastic foliage offers more drama, Roger believes, so do rusty shovels, wire coat hangers, and slabs of recycled concrete. Roger's highly individualistic garden ideal was born of necessity, after long years spent with little disposable income. He learned to use what he could find, and, slowly, over the course of a dozen years, transformed his modest hillside plot into an iconoclast's Eden. His is a garden that blurs the boundary between art and landscape, where personal quirks become virtues. Here, ceramic flue pipes rescued from the dump serve as earth-toned pedestal-planters for shapely ,succulents. Concrete slabs chanced upon years ago form serpentine paths connecting the U-shaped garden's diverse enclaves. Consistently, Roger works with nature rather than against it, selecting tough plants that don't mind what he terms "horrible" soil.

Before one can break the rules, one must know them, and Roger knows them well: For 21 years he has supervised the California Native Collection at the University Of California Botanical Gardens at Berkeley. (His own discoveries include the rare annual wild- flower Clarkia concina ssp. raichei and the equally elusive manzanita Arctostaphylos stanfordiana ssp. raichei.) When not prowling his own garden or collecting seed from the wild for distribution to the world's botanical parks, Roger can be found at Planet Horticulture, the landscape design venture he co-owns with horticulturist David McCrory. Together, the two plantsmen are helping gardeners see the land in new, environmentally conscious ways.

Creating interest year-round: Garden designers Roger Raiche and David McCrory urge clients to follow five rules for a landscape that's never dull:

Be creative. Add interest with perennials and shrubs in contrasting heights, shapes, and textures. Remember that flowers are fleeting but foliage isn't, leaves in shades other than green (burgundy Heucherea micrantha 'Palace Purple', for example) will ensure months of color.

Be personal. Objects (especially found ones) that please you will give your landscape special meaning and establish a garden narrative. Don't worry that others may dub your work 'radical,, or 'ugly.' It is your garden.

Use natives. Plants native to the United States and accustomed to making it on their own in a region similar to yours will mean less work for you. They'll use less water, too.

Be local. When Possible, use native plants with origins close to home, ones that have already proven themselves hardy in your specific climate. You'll be celebrating the often overlooked treasures to be found in your own region.

Avoid empty spaces between plants. There's nothing special about dirt. Filler plants, including ornamental grasses, help complete the picture, linking plant groups and tying them together disparate hues. Potted ornamentals can be used to augment immature plantings and moved at will.