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Principles of succession
were used in this garden located in the east foothills
above San Jose. The house is part of a new development
where a great deal of grading and cut and fill was used to
create home sites on the existing steep slopes.
Conditions there are extreme, and include high winds and
poor soil conditions. If the site were evolving naturally
into a mature woodland garden, Chaparral species would
have germinated first because of the southern exposure of
the site.
The goal was to reclaim
this garden site as an Oak Woodland with an under-story of
Grassland Meadow. The design incorporates natural
features such as rocky outcroppings and escarpments that
existed prior to development and were still evident in
adjacent undeveloped areas. Chaparral species were then
planted between the rocks. In nature, this successional
process from Chaparral/Grassland to Oak Woodland would
have taken several generations.
Trying
to reclaim these areas by using successional planting is a
challenge, but the effort pays off and the soils benefit,
which in the end, produces a healthy shade giving oak tree
in a very short time. It also helps homeowners understand
what an ecologically disturbed site is and how nature
reclaims it. The landscape designer tries to make the
process as physically pleasing to the eye as possible,
while the real, important work goes on in the soils. |
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