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A glimpse into the wilderness
(Filed: 08/02/2003)
These 500 mineral-rich acres support plants that are found
nowhere else in the world. Noel Kingsbury visits
What defines a garden? How large can be it be before it is called something
else? Or how wild? Our 18th-century ancestors, who were responsible for the
landscaping that made many of Britain's finest country-house gardens, thought
they had the answer.
"All nature is a garden" declared Horace Walpole. But what about 500 acres of
raw wilderness? Californian garden designer and botanist Roger Raiche, who
bought this extraordinary tract of land with his business partner David McCrory
five years ago, is emphatic: "We definitely like to think of this as a garden,"
he says.
To the British ear The Cedars conjures up a large Victorian house on the edge of
town, perhaps next door to The Laurels. The reality could not be more different:
this is pristine wilderness. Although dry only in summer, it is very barren.
Incredibly steep slopes of shattered rock plunge down to narrow streambeds. It
is just possible to walk along the ridges at the top of the canyon.
From here the view ranges over peak after peak, with sparse woodland along some
of the lower slopes. Even towards the top, thin tenacious plants can just be
seen sprouting on the scree slopes and there is the occasional twisted shrub,
its wood bleached by the sun.
Getting to The Cedars is part of the experience. A two-hour drive from down-town
San Francisco, it is surrounded by country roads, farms and the vineyards of the
Napa and Sonoma Valleys. The final route covers four miles of rough dirt-track
that crosses and re-crosses the same stream seven times. As the canyon walls
close in something changes: the weedy grasses and dense scrub along the sides of
the stream are suddenly replaced by totally different vegetation.
There are no grasses and few broad-leaf trees, only the ascetic-looking Sargent
cypress, clumps of sedge and the beautiful manzanita. An open-growing relative
of the rhododendron, the manzanita has small, leathery grey-green leaves and
curving branches with the smoothest, most tactile red-brown bark. One of the
manzanitas here, Arctostaphylos bakeri subsp. sublaevis, is found nowhere else
in the world.
The sudden change in vegetation is all to do with the rock. The Cedars and the
surrounding land - several thousand acres altogether - is on serpentine. This
dense rock is normally found 12 miles down - where it forms the upper layer of
the earth's mantle - or on the ocean floor. But here it has been thrust upwards
and inland.
Where it is exposed to ground water it becomes fractured and expands. This
chemical change creates an excess of magnesium - which upsets the physiology of
most plants - and appreciable quantities of toxic heavy metals, particularly
nickel and chromium.
The springs here contain a wide range of minerals. Though most plants cannot
survive on serpentine, some - such as the California lady slipper orchid
Cypripedium californicum - have adapted to growing where there are year-round
springs. While many invasive non-native species such as agricultural grasses,
weeds and escaped garden plants have wreaked havoc with the native flora in
California, this is a botanical paradise.
Since 1978 Roger has run the California Plant Collections at the University of
California Berkeley Botanical Gardens. And it was while exploring California's
rich botany - it contains 5,000 species, of which a third are unique to the
state (Britain has 1,500 species and virtually no endemics) - that he first
discovered this extraordinary place. It inspired him to start a company with
David in 1997 - Planet Horticulture, a garden design and construction business
that specialises in unusual and diverse plantings.
Dry and parched in summer, the winter rains bring life to the canyon, resulting
in a colourful spread of wild flowers in spring. Orchids are particularly
noticeable, a purple-leaved form of Epipactis gigantea is unique to the canyon.
Epipactis are robust enough to make good garden plants and Roger has introduced
a dark-purple foliage form to cultivation - E. 'Serpentine Night'.
The Californian calochortus bulbs, with their attractive pendant yellow flowers,
also flourish here. But Calochortus raichei, named after him, is found here and
only here. Not so rare but similarly eye-catching is a columbine, Aquilegia
eximia, with greyish leaves and red and yellow flowers.
As makers of gardens in the San Franciso Bay area, Roger and David are always on
the look out for suitable new plants. The aquilegia would certainly be one; they
have also introduced a golden-leaved sedge, Carex mendocinensis 'Cedar's Gold'.
Another choice is Salix breweri 'Salal', a local willow with narrow green leaves
and dark stems, which they hope will soon be commercially available in Britain.
It is even possible that plants able to thrive here may have physiological
mechanisms that would allow them to flourish in polluted industrial
environments.
Having bought the central tract of The Cedars in 1997, Roger and David want to
preserve it as best they can. They plan to build trails to enable visitors to
explore the area safely - a feature they already employ when designing gardens.
The bay area is extremely steep but rather than install expensive terracing,
David and Roger try to persuade clients to use a system of paths that criss-cross
the slope, encouraging access to all areas of the property.
Long-term plans for The Cedars are to establish a centre where artists,
scientists and writers can work and share ideas. But this is too fragile an
environment for public access. In an overcrowded world, unique places such as
The Cedars must be preserved and protected - the very essence of Walpole's
"garden".
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Telegraph Group Limited 2003.
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