Ruth Bancroft
Garden
Walnut Creek, California
September 2007
Their
website says it is internationally recognized as one of the finest
dry gardens in the world. It was also the first garden in the U.S.
to be sponsored by The Garden Conservancy. With those credentials,
who wouldn’t be anxious to see it?
Our first impression on driving up to “Ruth’s Folly” was that this
was someone’s backyard, not a public garden.
The
two greenhouses at the entrance are of the wooden lath structure
that backyard gardeners everywhere erect, and there is really no
entrance-just an opening between the greenhouses. When we actually
entered the garden, we were pleasantly surprised to find it
attractively laid out with a very interesting collection of plants.
At the same time, we were a bit disappointed at how small it
seemed. However, the diversity of plant material on display is
astonishing for such a small area.
Numerous species of
palms and eucalyptus provide shade for beds of cacti and
succulents. At a time when almost nothing was in flower, the array
of shapes and colors was still almost overwhelming. Where else
would one see an alpine plant like Bristlecone Pine growing amidst
cacti and palms?
The diversity of plant material is amazing and exciting but there
are no plant labels to tell you what anything is, and there is
almost no interpretive material to anything about the garden. I’m
sure this is a conscious decision so as not to clutter the garden,
but it left us very dissatisfied. Why is this such an eclectic
collection of plants? Was it just serendipity? Did they just plant
everything they came across and keep everything that survived? Or
is there some unifying theme that wasn’t obvious to us? Without
some interpretation, the garden is nice, but I have friends in
Arizona with desert gardens about as nice. I certainly enjoyed the
visit, but left slightly disappointed.
Click here for more pictures of the Ruth Bancroft
Garden.
To visit the official website of the Ruth Bancroft Garden,
click here.