Give em an inch

Garnett Creek is about 6 miles long, a relatively small tributary of the upper Napa River. (The Napa River travels the length of the Napa Valley, in Napa County, CA.) The creek has two branches, one originates in the N end of the plateau called The Palisades, behind Table Rock. A shorter branch originates at the N end of the facade of the rock escarpment called The Palisades. Our property is bisected by Garnett Creek just about 2+ miles down from the watershed ridge. I have spent considerable time in the creekbed at all times of the year and enjoy experiencing its many moods and appearances.

For most of the summer and fall, Garnett Creek is dry except at seepage pools which are rare. In the winter and spring its flow can be great or absent, depending on rainfall frequency and amounts. It has been interesting to see what it takes to get the water flowing.

At the end of the dry season, it usually takes 3 to 4 inches of rain in a short period of time (a few days) to recharge the creekbed and have obvious flow through our property.

Dec. 11 09, showing dry creekbed after only 0.2" of rain that day.

Because it takes percipitation to keep the system flowing, during long dry periods - such as are common before the New Year, the water often disappears after about 2 weeks of decreasing flow. But it is clear the water does linger underground because it may take only 0.3" afterward to get it flowing again.

Dec 12 09 after 1" of rain, creek is now actively flowing.

The watershed does benefit from several factors that tend to exaggerate the rainfall. The ridge is nearly 1,500'+ feet higher than our house, thus the clouds have to lift to get over them and often drop moisture. Most of the upper watershed is hard volcanic rocks with only shallow soil or gravel pockets, thus what rain falls, typically quickly sheets off and down the creek. And importantly, the upper watershed is dominated by knobcone pine, Pinus attenuata, in thick stands. Knobcone pine, as with many conifers, is very effective at turning aerial moisture into dripping water, thus even a thick cloud-cover on the ridge can produce "rain".

So it is very likely - although I don't have any proof - that the actual rainfall, or precipitation reaching the ground in the headwater zone could be double, or more, what my rain gauge records at my house. At least twice, when there had been barely measurable rain in my gauge, the creek has mysteriously come back to a low flow - and the water has to come from somewhere.

Closer view Dec 11th

Same view next morning.

The transformation seems almost miraculous. There is nothing unattractive about the dry creekbed, but the look and sound of flowing water is another dimension to the landscape, and one that we crave. Almost by definition, the presence of life on Earth is inextricably tied to water, thus it seems no great surprise that we get so much pleasure from the sound of it. We need it, we can not survive without it.

California polypody fern, Polypodium californicum, on bluff above a small waterfall at the N end of our property along Garnett Creek. While the fronds of this fern are present for about 6 months, it is never lovelier than when freshened by rain.

I always cheer when it rains - although I don't enjoy being damp or chilled - because it is almost invariably good for both the garden and natural areas. It kicks into gear the whole chain of life that burgeons into springtime and then sears into summer and fall. It revives the creeks and makes a music all too rare in our predominantly arid climate.

One of today's rainbows across the canyon.

I can complain with the best of them, but I often feel a little anger when I hear folks moan and whine about the rain, especially newscasters who exaggerate the supposed misery. We couldn't be here without it.

Room with a view

Moonnrise above The Palisades, 30 Nov 09.

I've been very fortunate in my life to have lived in a number of exceptionally scenic spots. During college in Ithaca NY I shared an apartment in a rather funky building perched above Ithaca Falls with views out over the valley - though not of the lake. Ithaca Falls is one of the Finger Lakes regions' many scenic waterfalls but is within the city limits and was exceptionally lovely when frozen in winter, or swollen with spring rains.

View across the San Francisco Bay from the Maybeck Cottage garden, 11 Jan 2000.

While in Berkeley CA, during part of my career at the UC Botanical Garden, I lived for 14 years in the Maybeck Cottage in North Berkeley. This was another rather funky structure - though with great charm and the historical association with architect Bernard Maybeck and his family - but it also was sited directly across the bay, with an unobstructed view of the Golden Gate Bridge connecting San Francisco with the Marin headlands. I could watch the sunset move N to S (and vice-versa) as the seasons changed, and I believe it was around Nov 5th when it set in the middle of the bridge from my perspective (the spring counterpart was in early Feb.) First as a renter and later as an owner with David McCrory, the Maybeck Cottage was the place I was able to really explore the horticultural possibilities of living in the Bay Area of California, as well as explore my concept of gardening itself. (check out our website for more pictures of the Maybeck Cottage garden, www.planethorticulture.com.) While at the UC Bot Garden, another great viewspot, I was able to explore the full spectrum of California native plants - or at least those I could successfully grow. Though of "lesser" importance, I also took care of the Bot Garden's Eastern North American collection of plants. In Berkeley my "horticultural plate" always looked like Thanksgiving Dinner, seemingly way too much, but all delicious stuff.

Daytime view of The Palisades above Calistoga, from our deck, 3 Dec 09.

Now we live in Calistoga CA at the N end of the famous Napa Valley. Our house looks directly E and NE toward The Palisades, a long escarpment of volcanic rock S of Mt. St. Helena (the highest point in the county at 4300'). Although the term, The Palisades, specifically applies to the stretch of cliffs, most folks, myself included, use the name to refer to the entire plateau stretching S of Mt. St. Helena to just S of the gap where the old Oat Hill Mine Rd. (now a trail) passes E through the cliffs toward Aetna Springs. Most of this plateau is in the 2400' - 3,000' range. Palisade is a term originally applied to fences, barriers or fortifications made out of pales or stakes, usually sharpened at the top and set into the ground. We have all seen movies with re-created forts employing this technique. Later the term was put on long stretches of cliffs, often along riverbanks, that resembled this type of fortification. I am not sure when the name was applied to the cliffs above Calistoga, but it was probably early on in European settlement of the valley. Every sunny day, from our house, we can watch the last sunlight move up the cliff-face, usually accompanied by a color change as it approaches true sunset; first golden, then orange, then reddish. Once the sun has set in the W, the rock turns back to a cold gray color with amethyst tints. Thus, although we can't watch the true sunset, we get a reflected sunset on the cliffs.

The Palisades in the orange phase with rising moon above, 29 Nov 09.

Because I look out at The Palisades every day, I tend to take a lot of pictures of it. Rather than bore you with endless sets of similar pictures, I chose some of my favorites from the last 4 months. This is my favorite time of year as the latest sun hits the cliffs directly and the moon moves to the N to rise above the cliffs (whereas in the peak of summer the cliffs are in shadow from Mt. St. Helena at sunset and the moon rises over the ridge to the S).

Late light on storm clouds, 22 Nov 09, just before sunset.

(same as above)

Same date as above but more to the S where the Oat Hill Mine Rd. pierces the facade of The Palisades to continue eastward (now a popular hiking/biking trail).

Moon above at very last light, 31 Oct 09.

Date as in previous, but moon appearing to be ready to roll off cliffs.

A slice of late light as sun gets below ceiling of clouds, illuminating the central cliff portion, 18 Oct 09.

As above but near the N end of cliffs.

Last light and rising moon, 2 Sept 09. Here the moon is still S of the main cliff section.

Nearly the full escarpment, 26 Aug 09.

Post sunset cloud glow, 31 Aug 09.

Slipping into darkness, post sunset glow and moon over Oat Hill Mine Rd. ridge.

Blue and Weeping

It was love at first sight; the Atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica) and I go way back. I vividly remember when I first saw this tree as a child, probably about 1962, because three had just been planted on a lovely estate, Elmcourt, on Belleview Avenue. in Newport, RI (I grew up in Newport). Although many of the grand old estates in Newport had magnificent trees, I had never seen this icy blue conifer before, and there were no old ones that I knew about. I was so taken by its distinctive color and look, I eventually convinced my dad, Raymond, to plant one on our humble - though lovely- suburban yard. The last I saw, that one had become a magnificent tree. I was always proud of that tree since I had learned my love and enthusiasm for plants and the techniques of gardening from my late dad, yet he had listened to my advice. I don't recall when I first saw the weeping or pendulous variety, 'Glauca Pendulum', but I'm sure it only increased my appreciation of this magnificent conifer. And although it was rare when I was a child, it has become quite widespread in temperate climate horticulture since then. I have always had a weakness for pendulous or "weeping" plants, coniferous or otherwise. Again, as a child, my favorite plant in Newport was the magnificent weeping European beech (Fagus sylvatica 'Pendula') so common on the large estates. But it could be a hemlock (Tsuga), mulberry (Morus) or elm (Ulmus); if it weeped, I loved it. I think, as a child, the space created underneath these pendulous plants was special - as adults seldom thought it worth going there, yet it was like a secret space that I could enjoy. I've tried since, to mimic this "space within a space" concept in many landscapes Planet Horticulture (www.planethorticulture.com) has created.

A lovely old farmhouse in Western Sonoma County, CA. In front of the house is a raised terrace, separating the house from the driveway, but the terrace and house were largely exposed to the frequent "traffic" on the driveway. We had the fortune of working for a wonderful couple who own a 6 acre parcel in Graton Valley, part of the greater Russian River drainage, located in a very scenic part of Sonoma County between the small towns of Graton and Occidental. (Some of you may be familiar with Occidental as it was closest town to the famous Western Hills Nursery (www.westernhillsnursery.com), founded by the late Lester Hawkins and Marshall Olbrich. The garden serves as an inspiration for generations of horticultural enthusiasts).

The yard presented many interesting design challenges, many which I'll discuss in future blogs, but linking disparate spaces and structures, and providing more privacy were two crucial issues with the clients. The elevated terrace on the S side of the house was previously planted with blocks of lavender (Lavandula) and the so-called lavender cotton, (Santolina) (see first photo.) Using lavender in big planting blocks became popular in California about 2 decades ago, and seems to have become de rigeur in estate-type plantings. Our clients gave the nod to our suggestions to move on to a new layout and plant palette. The clients wanted to spend more time on this sunny front yard terrace, especially in the winter months, but there was no privacy from the driveway. It was frustrating for them to be in such a remote location, yet feel like they were visible to anyone driving in. Even with rural properties, screening and privacy are a primary concern.

The solution came while I was visiting Sweet Lane Nursery (www.sweetlanenursery.com) E of Petaluma. This nursery specializes in specimen plants. Generally in Planet Horticulture designs, we prefer to use 30 or 40 moderately sized plants, to one large specimen. This permits the clients to have greater diversity with a moderate budget, as specimen sized plants, while more immediate in effect, are typically high priced. Because of my love of the Atlas cedar, particularly the weeping variety, when I saw the above specimen I took some pictures, as I wanted to show Dave this gorgeous specimen. I remember thinking, "It would be so wonderful to use a plant like this in one of our gardens" as the "value" of specimen plants is that you can get age without waiting; this plant is estimated to be 70 years old. Whoever started this, obviously never lived to enjoy its current beauty.

What I also like about this is that it hadn't been trained into the "S" curve trunk that seems to be standard in the nursery trade today - why I've never been sure as it gets tiresome to see such a plastic and variable shaped plant trained into some boring cliche. This specimen had been grafted onto a vertical trunk at about 5' tall, thus formed a lovely, irregular umbrella effect, longer than wide, thus also had potential as a living curtain.

As you probably guessed, Dave sent some pictures of the plant in the nursery to our client, and they loved it and decided to "splurge", since it seemed to fit the aesthetic of their 19th century farmhouse look, and would screen off a large stretch of the terrace from the driveway immediately. In the above picture the previously boxed specimen had been placed at the top of the terrace wall. Instead of planting it in a hole in the ground, we decide to add greater height to the screening effect by building a mound around the root mass, thus gaining another 3' or more. It also meant that the trailing branches could be left on the plant rather than trimmed up which would have been necessary if planted at ground level.

Another picture from within the terrace showing the root mass set at soil level before the mound was created. You will also note from the picture that we had replaced the block of lavenders with a naturalistic planting. With paths and seating areas carved out, the area became a stroll garden with hang-out spaces rather than some simple pattern to be looked at from a distance.

Looking N toward the house from a meadow on the other side of the drive. Note how perfectly this weeping blue Atlas cedar fits the scale of the house, as if some foresightful early resident had planted it decades ago. Although there are still some evident gaps in the screening, these have been planted with a variety of screening shrubs of smaller size, chosen mostly to play off of the sculptural and colorful cedar.

Looking toward the weeping Atlas cedar from the sitting area nearby. Here you can see the mound planted with a mosaic of low herbaceous plants that can tolerate the shadowy understory. The elevation of the mound also reinforces the enclosing aspect of the tree. The beautiful foliage of the lotus banana (Musella lasiocarpa) is on the left. (More on that remarkable hardy plant in a future blog.) The front yard terrace is now a pleasantly private space, part garden, part living area. Making spaces of any size more usable by the folks who own them is one of Planet Horticulture's favorite achievements.

This garden has been an exciting and fun project to work on and this landscape will become one of the great gardens of Sonoma County as it matures.

Origin of a Species; the story of a new species for The Cedars, Sonoma Co.

Looking down into extensive serpentine rock barrens at The Cedars, habitat for the new species of buckwheat (Eriogonum).

It is always fascinating to look back and realize that something you initially thought was trivial has progressed into something quite important. The story of a new species to be named at The Cedars - that amazing serpentine canyon N of Cazadero in Sonoma Co., CA - began that way.

Ternate buckwheat, Eriogonum ternatum, Sanger Peak, Del Norte Co., CA

Pete Vielleux, a friend who runs a native plant nursery and landscape business, and who also regularly posts excellent photos of native plants and landscapes, eastbaywilds@sbcglobal.net , happened to be growing a selection of creambush, genus Holodiscus, called 'Shangri-La'. In July 2008, Peter Gonzalves from the USDA contacted him about the status of this name, 'Shangri-La', as he was compiling information on the widespread Western species of creambush, H. discolor and wanted to trace all the official cultivars (cultivated selections) of that species.

Snow Mountain buckwheat, Eriogonum nervulosum, Hyphyus Creek, Colusa Co. CA.

Pete V. forwarded the query to me as he knew I was likely to know more about it. I did know about this, as Shangri-La is a local place name at The Cedars, and a friend, Dan Segal, now of Plantsman Nursery in Ithaca, NY, dan@plantsmen.com, had put that name on a seed batch of Holodiscus he collected and grew when he was working for North Coast Natives nursery near Petaluma, CA. The Shangri-La site is the first parcel as one enters the serpentine canyon at The Cedars, and has been used by residents of this area to refer to a cluster of buildings that are said to be an old resort set adjacent to a marvelous swimming hole.

The Cedars buckwheat, Eriogonum cedrorum, at type locality across from the Upper Mine (site) at The Cedars, Sonoma Co., CA

The Holodiscus that this name, Shangri-La, was applied to has always intrigued me, as it doesn't fit any described Californian species, nor for that matter, any species I know about. It is sometimes lumped into the widespread coastal species of creambush, H. discolor, but differs greatly in most features. I have wondered about what name to put on The Cedars creambush since I first saw it in July 1981, but haven't yet found an answer. However, The Cedars creambush is another story and merely the background for the subsequent events.

Dr. James L. Reveal, authority on the genus Eriogonum, collecting specimens of The Cedars buckwheat, July 28, 2009.

Severe serpentine barrens of the type locality with several mats of The Cedars buckwheat visible below the rock outcrop.

So I conveyed the essence of this story to Peter Gonzalves, but mentioned that maybe Dan Segal could elaborate, and I cc'd my response to Dan. In one of those strange coincidences, Dan Segal was installing a garden in Ithaca NY for Rose Broome, the wife of the world's authority on the genus Eriogonum, Dr. James L. Reveal, of the Bailey Hortorium at Cornell. Dan had been telling Jim Reveal about The Cedars, and had mentioned that there was an unusual buckwheat there, which he remembered to be Eriogonum nervulosum, the Snow Mt. buckwheat (picture 3 above.)

Mat of The Cedars buckwheat showing fresh flowers (yellow) and scarlet aging flower heads.

Close ups of the flower heads of The Cedars buckwheat, showing mostly new yellow flowers. Each flower head is composed of several smaller clusters on separate branches that originate at a cluster of bracts that resemble narrow leaves.

In a reply to Dan, I mentioned that the buckwheat he was referring to was ternate buckwheat (see picture 2 above) and I sent a set of email pictures I had taken the week before at The Cedars to Dan who forwarded them to Jim. I nearly immediately get an email back from Jim Reveal politely telling me that my buckwheat name was wrong, that it almost certainly couldn't be ternate buckwheat at The Cedars. I was wise enough to know that one doesn't argue with an "authority", especially in a group as large and complicated as the genus Eriogonum. So I inquired, what is it then?

Close up of fresh and aging flower heads. Each "head" is composed of several clusters of flowers held in small cup-like structures called involucres. Each involucral cup contains many individual flowers that emerge for several weeks. In the head with the yellow flowers, note that each ring of flowers represents one involucral cup with more buds in the center. In peak flower (when the anthers and/or stigma are ripe), the individual flowers are held upright. Pollinated flowers age red as they get larger, their pedicels get longer, as they turn downward and hang over the side of the involucre.

I had long considered the buckwheat to be ternate buckwheat, E. ternatum, a species generally considered to be restricted to the Klamath region of NW CA. The population at The Cedars had been considered "extra-limital", a plant outside its normal range or at an extreme.

Another close up of the flowering heads. In the upper right you can see one involucral cup with 4 yellow flowers in the center surrounded by a ring of reddening aging flowers.

Thus began a correspondence; by sending pictures, making herbarium vouchers (dried specimens) that I mailed to him, and trying to make observations in the field at The Cedars. Being uncertain about some of the complex features specific to this genus that I was trying to observe, I made some mistakes, but Jim very patiently kept me on track. He also requested a number of Herbaria to send him their herbarium sheets of the two entities in question, E. ternatum and E. nervulousm. Because he was very busy with other work relating to the genus, and because it was also getting quite late in the season for flowering plants, he said, "Let's plan to look at it next July (2009)".

Two views of the full mat-forming plants with mostly finishing flowers or ripening seed. Note the foliage is covered with hairs giving a silvery or gray-green color to the plant. These hair typically will often fall off the upper surface by winter.

The history of our awareness of this buckwheat at The Cedars goes back to 1947, when Freedom Hoffman - the first botanist to explore and document the plants of The Cedars thoroughly - collected a non-flowering mat of foliage as an herbarium specimen. The Eriogonum authority at that time, Susan Stokes, annotated it (i.e, identified it officially) as E. nervulosum, the Snow Mt. buckwheat. Snow Mt. buckwheat is a gorgeous but rare species from extreme eastern Sonoma Co. (The Geysers) and also various isolated serpentine barrens of the Inner North Coast Ranges where it is a low to mid elevation species - except at the eponymous Snow Mt. where it occurs at 5,000' to 6,000' elev.

By mid-winter, here in early February, most of the hairs on the upper leaf surface have fallen off leaving a glossy, heart-shaped leaf. The bright red color is atypical, this plant being in a very stressful site, or perhaps it is preparing for Valentine's Day.

I was the first to collect the plant in flower at The Cedars. I had seen it on my first trip in 1981, but not in flower, and it wasn't until 1983 that I made a trip specifically to collect it in flower. I was surprised, as I was expecting the lovely fluffy pink flower heads of E. nervulosum, but instead the plants at The Cedars had fresh flowers of bright yellow which soon aged to maroon or burgundy-red. Back then, I sent herbarium specimens to the late Walter Knight, an authority on the flora of Sonoma County, and he identified it as E. ternatum, and indeed, it did "key out" to that as the primary distinction separating E. ternatum from E. nervulosum was flower color (yellow vs. whitish pink).

Looking across a canyon from one site of The Cedars buckwheat to another, however at this distance the plants are not visible. In The Cedars there is an enormous amount of bare rock which is highly fractured and thus falls apart constantly producing large talus slopes in the gullies and swales. These talus slopes are the preferred habitat for the buckwheat, yet only a small percentage have the buckwheat. The reasons for its limited distribution is unknown.

I have always been a little tentative about putting a name on buckwheats simply because there are so many, nearly 260 species in all, and almost 200 named taxa (named entities of any rank) in California. The features used to distinguish one from another are often quite small and variable, making it hard to feel certain that you've gotten it right. But I've always loved them as a group, enormously variable from annuals to tiny mats to 4' shrubs; but almost always lovely. Early on in my career in California I used to joke with Richard Turner (now editor of Pacific Horticulture magazine, http://www.pacifichorticulture.org/ ) that we should form an "Eriogonum Society" much like there is a Rhododendon Society or Primrose Society, etc. to highlight the horticultural wonders of the group. Jim Reveal now tells me that there is an Eriogonum Society at: http://eriogonum.org/.

While at the UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley, I tried growing as many as I could collect or get seed of. Some were quite successful, others less so, but their typical summer-flowering habit made them an important component of the summer garden.

Looking across a canyon at a serpentine barren and talus slope; this view is a close up of the previous picture's upper right quarter's central section. With binoculars one could see perhaps 15 flowering plants, but in this image only about 5 are visible as red or yellowish mounds. The closely related Snow Mt. buckwheat grows in nearly identical sites, but in more interior terrain. The Cedars is less than 9 miles from the Pacific Ocean by air.

In late July Jim Reveal made a trip to the West Coast to look at several populations of buckwheats. On July 27th he visited a site on Walker Ridge in Colusa Co. in the Complexion Creek drainage to view and collect some Eriogonum nervulosum, the species he felt The Cedars entity belonged to botanically. We then drove up to The Cedars that evening to get an early start, as the next day was predicted to be in the high 90's F. Our neighbor up there, Bette Campbell was kind enough to let Jim stay in her guest cabin, while I "roughed it" up at our camp with the dogs.

Steep to shallow serpentine talus slopes seem to be where the Cedars buckwheat is happiest, forming sizable mats. The mats, a collection of small foliage rosettes with horizontal connecting stems is well adapted to shifting talus as the rock particles can filter through the mat and essentially "layer" the outer rosettes without burying them. In this view (not great) there are probably at least two dozen or more mats, though only about 8 show well.

Early the next morning, we met and hiked up to our Upper Mine site (one of two abandoned chromite mines on our parcel at The Cedars). Across from the mining scars is a 70 degree slope of bare rock and talus extending several hundred feet above the creekbed, the site this buckwheat calls home. We looked, photographed and collected some flowering specimens, but initially Jim realized that this was definitely not E. nervulosum, and in most features, quite similar to E. ternatum. It seemed, this was not going to be a new species; a little disappointing from my perspective, as field botanists always love to find that "new species". However I knew that the ultimate objective of taxonomic botany is to describe what is there, not what we want to be there. Dr. Reveal needed to fly back to Ithaca, so we left by late morning.

A week of so later, I received an email from Jim, saying that he studied both species (E. ternatum and E. nervulosum) and decided that The Cedars Eriogonum was indeed distinct. He asked if I would be a co-author of this new species. For me this was exciting and a great honor. It was exciting for The Cedars, as now it would have an 8th endemic taxon (endemic = restricted to; taxon = singular of described botanical entity of any rank, taxa = plural). It would also be quite rare, as the plant only occurs on a small fraction of what seems like suitable habitat within The Cedars.

Full circle. You may remember this story was prefaced by another story about The Cedars creambush, a mysterious Holodiscus species that intiated this sequence of events. The only woody shrub that occurs within the populations of The Cedars buckwheat, is this very Holodiscus. Here you can see a very old and largely dead shrub with dried flower heads growing amongst dozens of the Eriogonum, though in this picture only a few are faintly visible (one is in the shadow on the left of the creambush). Here we are looking down a large talus slope about 150' high where at least 200 buckwheats grow, though they do not register visibly. The previous picture was taken near the bottom of this slope but horizontal to this view.

In two weeks we had the botanical description written up; Jim did the taxonomic description, I did the habitat, ecological information and distribution map. It was submitted to the Journal of Botanical Research at Texas, reviewed, accepted and is already on its way to getting published. So now we can welcome to the botanical world, The Cedars buckwheat, Eriogonum cedrorum!

And what of the curious Holodiscus? Jim Reveal and I are currently investigating this entity as a possible new species, but more research needs to be done. Stay tuned!

Postscript: Pete Vielleux mentioned at the beginning of this story has just posted a large set of pictures from The Cedars for anyone wanting to see more of this terrain and its plants at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eastbaywilds/sets/72157622299892126/

For anyone using a topographic program, the type locality of this new buckwheat species is: 38degrees37'16"N, 123degrees07'37"W (sorry, still can't find the degree symbol - or any symbol - in this program).

Silverado Brewery beer garden

It may seem to some that read my blogs (and previously my emailings) that my primary occupation is observing plants in the wild; this unfortunately is not the truth. Designing landscapes and gardens with my partner, David McCrory, is my actual profession. There are a number of common threads in the two activities based on perception and the implications of a given site. But one is concerned with observing what is there and the other is about creating what someone will observe.

We recently completed a project in the Napa Valley just N of St. Helena, located at a historical stone building now housing a micro-brewery and restaurant. The restaurant has a outdoor eating and drinking area in front of the building but separated from busy Rt. 29 by an old, low stone wall. The outdoor space is dominated by a huge valley oak (Quercus lobata).

One of the problems with the site is that the brewery building is connected to a whole series of other buildings that form a complex, with multiple parking lots and many different entrances, thus it is confusing where one should go if one wants a beer or meal.

The entry we first encountered was a wide gravel road off of the parking lot. Although the outdoor picnic tables were evident, it was unclear if this was the main entrance or a service entry.

To improve the perception of this as the main entrance the proprietor had a wide, yet narrower concrete walkway poured to lead to the front door (in the center of the facade). Another improvement was removing a strip of asphalt to separate the parking area from the building, which while creating some strange-shaped gaps, did make it clear that one should not drive up the walkway.

We took his concrete walk several steps further. First the concrete was stained with iron sulphate to give a warm rust color that picked up on the brownish red of the stone facade. A ranch-style gate frame was built to give the parking area an obvious entrance directing traffic to the front door. A sign saying Silverado Brewery will hang from the top piece, re-affirming that this is indeed the path to the brewery. We also extended the planting along the walkway to make the first part of the passage more of garden experience.

(above) Entry walk and beer garden tables before.

Same view after new planting.

A view inside the gate. The plantings along the entry walk were part previous plantings, but edited and supplemented with many new items. We used a number of edible shrub/trees such as black mission fig (on left), Santa Rosa weeping plum, two citrus and many herbs that could be harvested for the restaurant. Golden leafed hops were used repeatedly as vines.

One plant we featured, although it is currently not conspicuous in the pictures are 8 golden leafed Robinia 'Frisia', a type of black locust. These were used outside the skirt of the large valley oak, to provide summer shade for the outdoor tables, as sitting in the sun when the temperature is 85 degrees (F) or greater - a common occurrence in the summer here - is unbearable.

I first became enamoured with the Frisia golden locust nearly 3 decades ago when I saw them at Western Hills Nursery in Occidental CA in Sonoma Co. The golden-hued light that streamed through the lacy foliage reminded me of autumn under a Norway maple "back East" where I grew up. However with Frisia, you have that golden light from leaf break in early May through October when the leaflets fall. Unlike many golden-leafed trees, this one does not turn green a month after leafing out, nor does one have to wait until fall, as with some trees. Other pluses this tree has is it is deciduous, thus the welcome winter sun will not be blocked, it is quite drought tolerant, it grows quickly, takes pruning well, and does not sucker from the roots as do some locust, and rarely sets seeds. But it is the radiant glowing golden light that really sets this tree apart. Some diners and/or drinkers, will probably feel like they are reaching that pleasant euphoric glow that good food and beer can create.

While nearly all the plantings have flowers, we did not want to create a flowery effect, as the owner wanted the beer garden to have a masculine feel. Thus the plantings are meant more for foliar effects and to create separation and shade. We also emphasized the edible potential by using many vegetables - at least as temporary fillers as the more permanent elements grow in. Corn, squash, tomatoes, etc., along with the herbs and fruit trees, should give the garden a practical, casual, grounded feel quite different from the fluffy yet stiff formal landscapes you see everywhere else in the valley around wineries.

On axis with the main walk we placed a large beer barrel made into a recirculating fountain, both as a focal point while walking to the main door, and to provide visual and audible pleasure of water. The main door is to the right of this picture and not seen. The doorway behind the fountain is not used by the public but allows a view into the beer making section of the building.

A view from the N end of the building before showing the recent concrete walkway to the front doors, and the parking lot in the distance. In this picture the nearer door (where the concrete walk meets the asphalt walk) is used primarily as a service entrance and as a view into the brewery section of the building, and is not used by the public as an entrance.

Same view afterward. The odd asphalt section was removed and turned into a foundation planting bed, as is the next strip against the building. The half wine barrels were removed. Most of the beer garden space is to the right of this view, and is not substantially changed except for the over-story golden locust trees added to provide shade. After all, the primary need of a beer garden/outdoor eating space is space and flexibility for good food and good beer. Though it is also nice to find the front door.