Being Inspired!
Article and photo by Monika Smith, Master Gardener
There’s a lot happening with Naturally, Glendale. We’re at a stage where we are working with Parks Foundation to have the concept vision turn into reality; see the last issue of The Thumper. With a big budget to match.
As someone who has always thought our valley as special but figured out that we were missing a key component to biodiversity: native flowering perennial plants. The grass was blah, old, and needed to be constantly cut. It was also weedy, but amazingly, white clover established and is advancing, with the benefit that bees were showing up. That’s nature for you, it isn’t static; things will move, grow, die back, just show up, without us doing anything.
I have been looking at parks and green spaces for years, often vicariously in books and have been enchanted and amazed by horticulturalists, botanists, definitely entomologists, biologists, and gardeners who interact, encourage, and study the life around us. We can make our park amazing. I’m especially joyful that people are embracing native plants and a naturalized look. We might be the first community association to aim to be a very large native plant garden.
As for inspiration? At the top of my list is the High Line, New York, www.thehighline.org, created on an old abandoned elevated freight train track. Too much bother to tear the whole thing down once it served its purpose, parts were left and just closed off by 1980. People noticed that things grew up there: trees; and growing wild for 25 years after the trains stopped running. It took a long time, great political will, and a jaw dropping amount of money to develop the 2.33 km length into the ‘park in the sky’. Seven to eight million visit every year. To see a garden.
According to Piet Oudolf, who designed the gardens, “My biggest inspiration is nature. I do not want to copy it, but to recreate the emotion.” Today’s High Line gardeners allow natural processes and have a very good understanding of how plants evolve. The High Line concept has expanded into other areas, turning dull, industrial space into welcoming, green spaces. Many things have been embraced: environmental sustainability and maintenance, composting on-site, and pollinator-friendly practices. During the winter, dried leaves, stalks, and seedheads are left standing. This fourth season is loved by visitors and is important habitat for birds and other animals. In the spring, as new growth shows, hundreds of volunteers cut back the plants by hand, composted and returned to the soil.
Those points are part of how our ‘yard’ will evolve. As our climate is very different from coastal NY, our choices for plants are of course different, but we all consider appropriate, local species, which are hardy and water wise; leaving plants to reseed; enjoy the increased insect, critter and bird life; create educational programs and a fun learning environment. We will create zones to take advantage of our bowl shape; and like the High Line, designed to be a bit on the wild side to let us have a bit of nature to relax, breathe and enjoy low key activities in a beautiful space. Join us in this journey to do something wonderful in our yard.
If anyone is interested in having a plant share event next spring? Contact me. For more information about Naturally, Glendale, contact: Monika Smith at [email protected].
Image from Piet Oudolf’s book ‘Gardens of the High Line’. It’s available through your local library. Share your story if you’ve visited The Highline.
Click here to the Glendale Community News home page for the latest Glendale community updates.
