A CITY OF FLOWERS

A trip to Santa Barbara California at any season is a garden trip indeed. The town is awash in flowers, shrubs, and blossoming trees. The main street, State Street, which runs for two miles back from the ocean, is a dream of landscaping, lined on the road edge with palms and plantings and on the business side with more flowers and plants. Interspersed among the wide sidewalks are benches and fountains. Every tiny space is used for plants, mostly perennials.

Even the parking lots are ringed with hedges and shrubs and the spaces between the rows of cars have narrow beds of roses, hibiscus, potentilla and dwarf palms. Away from the main street, the flower feast continues. Many homeowners fill their small front gardens with calendula, impatience, primrose and daisies of various colours. I loved the beds of primroses, a flower dear to my heart and not easy to grow in Thunder Bay.

Santa Barbara business owners are obviously gardeners as well. Pots of flowers grace every door. And shrubs are tucked into the smallest spaces. No one covers the earth with asphalt, the Thunder Bay solution to extra space that cannot be used for parking. I was amazed to see that even the banks, the most butt-ugly businesses in Thunder Bay, are awash in plantings.

The Santa Barbara Botanical Garden is set in the hills above the city. It emphasizes native plants. The policy is to encourage gardeners to switch to the local plants which attract birds and use less water. A shop sells specimens to help people get started. However, as in Northern Ontario, woodland shade plants often have small and insignificant flowers with a short bloom period and need a special environment.

What amazed me, as I wandered around the grounds, was the extensive use of rocks in the landscaping. Rocks were everywhere, bordering the beds, outlining the walk ways, clustering at the corners. Most of the beds were surrounded by foot-high walls created by large attractive boulders. Rocks the size of tables dotted the banks of the streams and ponds. Pathways and outdoor steps were made of rough flags and lined with interesting boulders. The Santa Barbara Botanical Garden is as much about rocks as it is about plants.

I made a decision to get more rocks in my own garden. I have some – who doesn’t? – and like most northerners, I have carted a rock to two back from the bush. I even have a few rounded boulders from Marathon’s Pebble Beach before rock picking there was declared illegal. Some years ago I bought a large rock from LCR Estates on Oliver Road. My friends and family were amused that I paid three hundred dollars for a rock (including transport). However, this rock has become a wonderful focus in my small front garden. That is because it is a so big, over three feet high, big enough for the kids to climb on. What I need are more large rocks although how I will transport them is another problem.