casa coniglio

Living in Albuquerque, one of the things about the landscape that I miss most is winter growth. That’s not to say that the winter landscape here doesn’t have it’s own charm and beauty. It is a quieter time. The wild space around my home is filled with the light tans of grasses, with a few spots of yellow green Juniperus monosperma and Nolina microcarpa, dark greens of Pinus edulis, all contrasting with the bright blue skies, dark mountains and fiery sunsets. But this expansive beauty doesn’t translate well into my postage stamp yard. A few Stipa neomexicana don’t make a rippling grassland.

But why not a garden of dormant grass textures? I imagine the bright yellow-tan of the dormant Stipa neomexicana, in waves behind Schizachyrium scoparium’s russet and red. Smaller blonde waves could be Aristida purpurea. Add the sparkle of Silver Beardgrass (Andropogon saccharoides) and the fluff of either Sand lovegrass (Eragrostis trichodes) or Indian Ricegrass (Oryzopsis hymenoides). For contrast, would it be over the top to add the evergreen blue fescue (Festuca ovina glauca) or the bigger Festuca idahoensis? For height and background, Calamagrostis x acutifolia ‘Karl Foerster’ can add its waving wands, faded to a pale shade by winter, or the similar but native Bull Muhly (Muhlenbergia emerslii). Switchgrass (varieties of Panicum) would add variety to this section of the garden, with fluffy panicles of seeds remaining through the winter, contrasting with the sheafs of wheatgrass (such as Elytrigia elongate ‘Jose Select’). Even taller, would be Sporobolus wrightii at up to six to eight feet tall. The possibilities are immense in this land of many beautiful grasses. This is a garden that I hope someday to implement somewhere. Not my own yard, though. I’m allergic to grasses and summer would be miserable. I would also long for some winter green.

In my sheltered courtyard, is my ‘California Dreaming’ garden. I realized this year that the herbaceous perennials left holes in the winter landscape, and ruined the effect, even though in the summer I could imagine that I am on the California coast, Provence or Italy. I’ll have to replace them with plants that retain winter leaves. The rosemary, lavender, culinary sage and cypress tree keep good form and leaf integrity. But the Salvia nemerosa will need to be replaced, perhaps with evergreen Euphorbia rigida or the low growing blue snakes of Euphorbia myrsites or even the blue tufts of Dianthus which have the advantage of fragrant flowers, but the disadvantage of being attractive to rabbits. Veronica tauricula has similar winter leaf color as Lavandula x intermedia ‘Provence’ but as a two-inch tall shrublet and sky blue early spring flowers. Rabbits avoid it, and it is also amazingly drought tolerant. The evergreen leaves of Iris foetidissima are still a glossy green in the winter, even though its size will never match a Phormium.

My old rose ‘Madame Isaac Pereire’ has incredibly fragrant flowers, but the flowers burn in even the early summer sun, and the leafless winter branches make me sad. Maybe I’ll replace it with the evergreen Osmanthus heterophyllus which as holly-like leaves when young, changing to oak-like leaves as the plant matures. The fall flowers are deliciously fragrant. Another option is to replace it with Cistus x aguilarii which has done well on even the north side of my house, blooming in the early summer with irresistible four-inch white fried-egg flowers, and a wonderful foliage aroma. This could also replace the Caryopteris x clandonensis ‘Dark Knight’ which also has fragrant foliage, but is leafless in winter.

What about color for the xeric portions of the garden? It’s fun to look at gardens and the local landscape during the winter and find what provides winter structure. I don’t mean more Photinia, or‘Tam’ junipers, enough already (although Junipers such as J. scopulorum ‘Moonglow’, J. deppeana, or J. monosperma are awfully nice)! Native plants for winter green could include Opuntia (and the glorious winter purple of ‘Santa Rita’), Beargrass (Nolina species) retains good green in winter, as do various Yucca species. Pinus edulis of course provides that familiar great dark green if you want to take that risk, or try some of the other pines such as Limber pine. I’d forgotten about the rich green of snakeweed (Gutierrezia sarothrae), though it may need the brown flower stems trimmed to show the green. Turpentine bush (Ericameria laricifolia) retained good winter green in my yard last year, not as good this year. Many Penstemon retain leaves through the winter in various colors of blue (Penstemon palmeri), burgundy (Penstemon clutei), or dark green (Penstemon strictus). Many Eriogonum species retain grey leaves through the winter, but Eriogonum umbellatum can turn a rich burgundy. Cercocarpus breviflorus and Cercocarpus ledifolius keep olive green leaves in the winter.

It’s fun to design a garden with the Winter structure first. After all, Winter lasts for months and who wants the garden to be ugly for all that time? With all these choices, I can make my garden have lots of green, and plenty of color in the winter. I’ll have to give up the complaining.

It’s funny how life can bring you back full circle. It’s strange how childhood impressions run so deep, even if you fight them or ignore them. It’s been quite a few years since I made a “real” trip back to California, the place I was born and the place where I grew up. On most trips, I had been simply passing through in an airport, or in the bowels of a hotel in the conference rooms. It was this way partly by accident, partly by design. This trip, however, is partly for pleasure, a trip for doing nothing in preparation for a new semester. It is also partly for another purpose: for visiting once-close family.

Now on this trip, more than 20 years after I last lived here, driving through the crowded streets and the congested gardens, I realize this is my home turf. My partner and I later walk through my sister’s neighborhood. I’m saying “hello” to all the familiar plants that I rarely see now: Olea, Tibouchinia, Ceanothus, Aeonium, Phormium, Heteromeles, Grevillea, Eucalyptus, Protea and on. We take a whiff of Coleonema, and Will decides that the name “Breath of Heaven” is more appropriate than “Wet Dog Plant.” I agree. We reach high to pull down a branch of Pittosporum undulatum, and sniff January’s citrus-sweet white bells hanging between the wavy-edged lime green leaves.

I have been living in Albuquerque for five years. Before that I lived in Palm Springs, California and before that, Philadelphia. Although I could happily garden in all of these places, my recent trip brought upon me a sudden and intense realization, that these places, while pleasurable in their own right, were not my personal ideal. What was missing from those places? Perhaps it is the year-round growth and bloom of plants, that incessant push of green life. It is what invigorates me, it is what settles me, it is what sustains me.

I am reminded of my first trip to Hawaii, as a child of 10. When I stepped off the plane, I took a deep breath of the flower-scented humid air and thought, “I am finally home.” At first this was simply a subconscious thought. Dreams of this place haunt me still, and I awake with longing. Although it wasn’t California, in Hawaii there is that vigor of plant growth, and the plant energy. In the science fiction book Red Mars, a woman calls the energy of life and growth “Viriditas.” In Chinese medicine, it is the energy of Qi. It abounds in the plant life of these areas.

Then I remember Florida. Lush, dense, heavy, oppressive. It’s like putting your key into your car in the parking lot only to realize that it’s not your car. I realize that it isn’t only plant growth that drives me on. It’s some time before I realize the difference: the terrain. In the places I love, the land and its texture is visible. Light plays on the slopes in a multitude of colors, clouds play among ridge and swale, trees cluster in the mysterious valleys.

There is something in the aroma that rises off the damp earth and the soft calls of birds or the noisy ones of cows. There is something in the warm afternoon sun as it drives off the damp of night. These morning mists, these rolling hills, and the power of green are within me.