The American Meadow Garden: Creating a Natural Alternative to the Traditional Lawn by John Greenlee and Saxon Holt

364 Pages·2010·20.5 MB·English

by  John Greenlee

The AMERICAN MEADOW GARDEN
The AMERICAN MEADOW GARDEN
Creating a Natural Alternative to the Traditional Lawn
JOHN GREENLEE
Photography by SAXON HOLT
Copyright © 2009 by John Greenlee. All rights reserved.
Photographs copyright © 2009 by Saxon Holt.
Published in 2009 by Timber Press, Inc.
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Printed in China
Second printing 2010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Greenlee, John.
The American meadow garden : creating a natural alternative to the traditional
lawn / John Greenlee ; photography by Saxon Holt. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-88192-871-6
1. Meadow gardening—United States. 2. Grasses—United States. 3. Natural
landscaping—United States. I. Holt, Saxon. II. Title.
SB439.G737 2009
635.9'64—dc22 2009019438
A catalog record for this book is also available from the British Library.
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. The Lure of the Meadow
Chapter 2. How and Where Grasses Grow
Chapter 3. Meadows for a Purpose
Chapter 4. Accent on Design
Chapter 5. A Portfolio of Meadow Gardens
Chapter 6. Grasses for Meadows
Chapter 7. Making a Meadow
Chapter 8. Establishing and Maintaining a Meadow
Resources
Meadows to Visit
Bibliography
Index
This was my first meadow garden. it was an urban southern california oasis—you’d never know you
were surrounded by concrete and three million people.
PREFACE
WHY CREATE MEADOWS? For me, the reasons are many. Meadows are far more
satisfying than either a lawn or traditional border, combining the best attributes
of both: like a lawn, a calming place for the eye to rest, yet with the richness and
complexity of a border. Unlike lawns, meadows are better for the environment, a
safe habitat for beneficial insects and pollinators, a place where native ecology
can thrive. Meadows, by attracting a diversity of “life,” are animated, alive with
rhythmic movement, catching both wind and light. No lawn can do that. And—
properly designed—meadows require less maintenance and consume
significantly less resources than lawn or border.
I hope this book explains my passion for meadows and persuades readers to
make meadow gardens of their own. I cannot tell you when, exactly, in my adult
life I became aware of my love for meadows; I can tell you that my love for
these special spaces continues as strong as ever. You see, I’ve been growing
grasses as a nurseryman for more than two decades, yet it seems like only
yesterday that my affair with them began. I say “affair” because a meadow is
like a seductive mistress. Grasses are sensual. You can smell them, and hear
them, and watch them move. Meadows are sexy, just like lovers—they never
stop changing, never ceasing to surprise. My love affair with meadows has
stop changing, never ceasing to surprise. My love affair with meadows has
become my life’s work. Now I make meadow gardens for a living.
Kurt Bluemel’s poolside garden. Kurt was a great inspiration to me—he really got the grass movement
going in America.
Looking at where I grew up—the most sterile, “natureless” surroundings you
could imagine—you might wonder how I ever wound up being called the Grass
Guru. Our house was a ’60s cookie-cutter tract home in Fullerton, California—
Orange County before it was the O.C. In those days, developers were busy
building Everyman’s vision of the American Dream. They couldn’t cut down
orange groves fast enough. Each L-shaped house had its own patch of lawn and
a lollipop tree newly planted in the front. This was before “planned
communities,” with few parks and no real nature, at least from a kid’s
standpoint, as far as the eye could see. No tree was taller than an 8-foot stake,
and no leaf ever turned a fall color that matched our third-grade reader.
Remember your winding childhood creek? Ours was turned into a straight
concrete storm drain. Our natural streams were literally paved into gutters.
But. On the edge of the development, on a phase not yet built, was what we
called “The Field.” It was our favorite play spot: there the street ended, and the
gutter just spilled water out, making what seemed like a natural stream cutting
through a seasonal meadow of grass. The field was bordered by a row of big old
eucalyptus trees, a classic California windbreak for the remaining citrus groves.
They made that field seem a thousand miles away from the new houses they hid.
Some scientists say that we humans all have “The Savannah Syndrome,” a DNA
chip passed on by our African ancestors, who began on the savannahs, that
chip passed on by our African ancestors, who began on the savannahs, that
draws us to the grasslands. But I think our instinctive love of grass happens
when, as a child, you’re just as tall as the grass. I’ll never forget being flat on my
back in that field, almost hypnotised by the swaying back and forth of grasses
and staring at the clouds moving overhead. The wind, noisy in the eucalyptus
trees and whispering in the grasses, is a song that still plays in my head. Late
afternoons, catching the light, the grasses just seemed to glow. In the rainy
season, we could pull up clumps of grass with small chunks of moist earth and
lob them at each other. My brothers and I would play hide and seek, make trails
and forts, and just enjoy being in the tall grass. I also remember the
meadowlarks, and that indescribable liquid trill they make. You only find
meadowlarks where you find grass; they make their nests on the ground, in the
grass. I stumbled upon their sky-blue speckled eggs and wondered, why were
they there? In that field, I think, is where meadows got under my skin.
The first “real” nature I encountered came through summers spent at our Boy
Scout Camp in the nearby San Bernardino Mountains. My favorite hike ended at
a meadow opening in a Jeffrey pine forest. Jeffrey pines smell like vanilla on a
hot summer’s day, and I vividly recall sitting there, out of sight in an old tree
stump, watching hummingbirds fight over the nectar of the native scarlet
columbines and purple penstemons that were sprinkled throughout this golden,
scented meadow. I’d watch their acrobatics until it was time to head back to
camp.
At summer’s end it was back down the mountain to the smoggy suburbs
below. I cut lawns on Saturdays and after school, and pulled weeds in people’s
yards for money. I hated lawn mowers—for some reason, I never learned to love
machines. I’d rather have been in that mountain meadow than chopping nature
into oblivion. Half the “weeds” I pulled looked prettier than the gardens around
them.
The first Earth Day ever was during my senior year of high school. The
environmental movement was just beginning, and my ecological awareness was
beginning to clash with my declared college major—ornamental horticulture, at
Cal Poly, Pomona. Most of my friends were majoring in turf grass management,
but turf grass and I just never hit it off. To me, turf management classes seemed
to be about “controlling” nature, a better living through chemistry approach—as
if horticulture spelled danger and always required protective gear. But from
where I stood, horticulture opened me up to the amazing world of plants.
A whimsical piece by the garden artist Simple. This gate leads to a sunken garden, surroundedby bamboo
to cool and screen me from the surrounding concrete jungle. I think Simple wasmaking fun of my always
being trapped on L.A.freeways.
Remember, I grew up near Los Angeles—the Cuyahoga River may have
caught fire but the Los Angeles River was paved! Today, most of Los Angeles
bears little resemblance to the ecology it once was. Much of southern California
was originally oak savannah—grassland dotted with oaks. They say ships at sea
could find the port of Los Angeles from 50 miles away, by seeing the poppy
fields of Altadena blazing 30 miles inland. Poppies grow in grass. Los Angeles
used to be grass. As a horticulture student, for the first time I began to
understand the eclectic urban ecology around me. I also began to understand the
world of gardening. Sure, lawns look great, but at what cost to the environment?
My better living through chemistry college degree didn’t jibe with my growing
awareness of the natural world. As a student, I put lawns in for clients, but what
I really wanted to do was to fill their gardens with plants. Why plant a boring
lawn bordered by unimaginative shrubs when you could fill a garden with
flowers and create garden spaces with birds and butterflies—just like nature? I
began to learn about plants, of all types—bulbs and perennials and palms and
succulents. I fancied myself quite the plantsman when I got out of school. I
thought I knew my plants. As it turned out, I had a lot more to learn.
My epiphany came in 1984 at Kurt Bluemel’s nursery near Baltimore,
Maryland. There—for the first time in a nursery—were the plants I’d played in,
in “The Field.” The grasses. How I remember feeling cheated by my college
plant ID professors! Where were those grasses from? How could they have
hidden from me for so long? There in front of me were hundreds of varieties,
row after row of grasses, waving in the wind. I remember saying to myself,
“This is it.” That day in Kurt’s nursery, my love affair with meadows was
sealed. Since no one on the West Coast was then growing these plants, I decided
to do so myself. I made my first grass garden with my business partner at the
time, Mike Sullivan, in San Marino, California. Greenlee Nursery was founded
time, Mike Sullivan, in San Marino, California. Greenlee Nursery was founded
in 1987 and continues to this day, the oldest specialty grass nursery on the West
Coast.
I’ve continued to make meadow gardens ever since, and I suppose I will till
my dying day. I’ve never lost my sense of wonder and affection for meadows.
I’ve created them in Florida, St. Louis, British Columbia, and Hawaii. I’ve made
them on dune sand in Malibu and in the desert at Death Valley. Wherever you
travel, if you look hard enough, you’ll find meadow grasses growing. Wherever
you garden, there will be grasses that thrive and bring you joy. I’ve spent a good
deal of my life making meadows. Let me help you make one.