BACKGROUND INFO VICTORIA GARDEN

Nine years we owned a property near Redding CA. Nine long years in wich I was allowed to transforme the original yard into the now existing Victoria garden.

This wasn't an easy process.  I grew up in the Netherlands, lived in England and my idea of a garden was a place with lush borders full with different colors, textures and heights. A garden should be exiting, lead you from one area into another. It is a place where plants are dominant and we as people may walk in between, may tend the plants and admire their show from our sitting areas. Gardening is often a hobby done by the homeowners with love.

 Slideshow, showing my inspiration: English gardens (just wait till it start). All pictures © Barbara Kapsenberg

Here I came in a culture where yards are seen as outside summer chambers. A center to entertain guests, to grill and cook, a place to relax, to swim, to keep the dogs, to park your boats, mobiles, quads etc. Gardens are often designed by landscapers. Plants don't play a dominant role. Of course this a very white and black picture, but English gardens and an American yards are different.

So I wanted an English garden. "You can't have a English garden in Redding", I was told, "It is too hot to have a lush garden". Yes it is hot, weeks over 110 (40 grade Celsius) and on the other hand we get in winter regularly frost. (up to -10 C.) To make things worse, between May and October we hardly get  a drop of rain. In Northern Europe I grew up with the notion always to be wise with water and I didn't like the idea of spending a lot of water to get a lush garden.   
The soil was a nightmare, best describes as decomposed granite with a minimum of clay. Partly the soil was nearly absent and some parts of the garden even got serpentine soil, on which hardly any plants will grow. But surprisingly there were also parts with nice river-clay, coming from the seasonal stream running in the winter through the garden.
Part of the garden was nicely shaded by native oaks. Unfortunately we bought the house in January when the blue oaks had no leaves and we didn't noticed that some of them were already dead. It turned out the previous owners wanted a nice looking lawn and watered the lawn three times a day, summer and winter. Native oaks don't like overwatering. They are masters in living through the long hot summers and are prone to illnesses if they get too much water. After years of overwatering the oak-rot fungus killed nearly all the native trees.        

 The precondition for an English garden were not great. This was a challenge, but I was stubborn and still wanted an exciting "English" garden: I longed for the abundance of color, the different textures and heights, I missed from home. It was time to get an idea what was possible. I needed plant knowledge and find out what plants would do well here under these conditions.

So I became a volunteer at Turtle Bay Arboretum and joined the native plant society. Turtle Bay is specialized in plants that grow well in Redding. I took a year time to explore its plant world. How did the plants grow, what did they like, how did they react on the heat in the summer and the frost in the winter? A weekly tour in the gardens to observe the plants, helping with pruning, weeding, deadheading and propagation and asking a thousand questions gave me a treasure of information. Thanks Don, Lisa, Bea and all my fellow volunteers!!! Whiteout you all, Victoria Gardens would not exist.
(http://www.turtlebay.org/gardens, to become a volunteer come to the nursery and ask for Lisa Endicott)

The native plant society introduced me to the Californian natives. They organize walks to explore the local plant world and lectures in with most interesting background information. Susan became a dear friend and she explained how natives survived this extreme climate, what they needed and most important what can harm them. It is most fascinating to learn how plants are "working together", form plant communities who are depending on each other. It showed me the immense diversity of plants that grow in California. Many reasons for me to fall in love with natives.
(http://www.cnps.org/cnps/chapters/pages/shasta.php)

With all this information in my head, I started slowly to create the garden. Bit by bit I prepared the soil. Digging and adding loads of compost form Turtle Bay. This amount of manual labor saved me trips to the gym and gave me loads of time contemplating what to plant. The compost of Turtle Bay was very rich and had loads of seeds in them. Most I had to weed out by hand, but some became the most beautiful free plants. Some plants needed extra food and got a place enriched with mature manure. In other parts of the garden, I deliberately didn't enhance the soil to give natives the conditions they needed.
To water the plants, I laid an automatic mini spray and drip water system in the garden. This saves a lot of water and makes it possible to give all plants exactly the amount of water they need.
After planting we added "sterile" compost from the city of Redding on top of the borders. This last layer prevents weeds coming up and the soil from drying out.

The most exciting task was to choose the plants. To think what would do best, which architectural plants have interesting leaf texture, how to combine colors in the differents borders, which plants could be combined water wise etc.
Most plants flourished well. Some plants turned out not to be as frost-hardy as said by the nurseries. It always saddens me if I lose a plant, but to see it from the optimistic side, it gives you the opportunity to plant a new species.

I enjoy gardening and I am pleased with the "English" garden I created. A colorful garden fully packed with plants, but adapted to local conditions.

Barbara Kapsenberg