THE COASTAL GARDENER:Some great thoughts about Great Park

Gardens are a great place to think. While outdoors, breathing in the fresh, pure oxygen of the trees and plants around us, our minds seem to work more clearly. For me, it is the difference between thinking and thoughts coming to me.

I’m walking through the Washington Park Arboretum, one of America’s great urban gardens. It was designed a hundred years ago by John Charles Olmsted of the famous Olmsted family, long regarded as the patriarchs of American landscape architecture. Their resume includes New York’s Central Park and the grounds of the U.S. Capitol.

Today, 24 hours later, I am back in Newport Beach talking about gardens and plants with Mia Lehrer, the landscape architect commissioned to turn an abandoned military base in Irvine into our version of Washington Park. Lehrer is the landscape architect of Orange County’s Great Park, the park that will come to be over the next 20 years or so.

The Great Park will be exactly that. It is immense; a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Lehrer and the rest of the design team, including team leader Ken Smith; architect Enrique Norton; engineer Pat Fuscoe; ecologist Steven Handel and project manager Yehudi Gaffen. I have had a unique opportunity to survey the 1,347-acre site firsthand, driving the runways, inspecting the trees, imagining a botanical garden — and thinking.

The Great Park site is a massive space. Frederick Law Olmsted’s Central Park and John Charles Olmsted’s Washington Park would both fit comfortably inside The Great Park with 247 acres remaining. Orange County’s Great Park, upon its completion, will stand as one of the great green urban spaces in America.

Orange County has stood by while other cities have enjoyed their big urban green spaces. San Francisco has its Golden Gate Park, while San Diego citizens enjoy Balboa Park. Soon it will be our turn.

Orange County, despite its near-perfect climate, still has a long way to go before it can approach the garden and plant fanaticism of the Northwest.

Plants and flowers seem to be everywhere in Seattle. Green roofs are going in at an alarming rate, and groups like the Northwest Perennial Alliance and The Northwest Horticultural Society are swelling with memberships.

Will gardeners in Southern California and Orange County catch up to their friends in the Northwest? That would be hard to predict, but I suspect that we could at least close the gap some, and the Great Park is a big step in that direction.

Imagine an enormous green space just a few miles from where you are right now. A place where you can walk all day and never see the same tree twice. A place where the air is fresh and clean, where oxygen is abundant and you can really think without trying — and where the thoughts are pleasant ones. This is the type of thinking that happens in a park — a Great Park.

Question: I have a large Plumeria, about 8 years old, that has not leafed out — just immature ones not developing. Yet I see that it’s starting to develop flower buds. My other Plumerias are doing fine. What gives?

Terry

Answer: Not to worry. Although not normal, this is also not too uncommon. Weather conditions, especially nighttime temperatures, will occasionally confuse a Plumeria, and blooms will appear early in the season, even before the foliage. Just enjoy the show; the leaves will appear soon. In the meantime, while the plant is leafless, be careful not to water it too often. Without leaves, it will not need much water.

ASK RON your toughest gardening questions, and the expert nursery staff at Roger’s Gardens will come up with an answer. Please include your name, phone number and city, and limit queries to 30 words or fewer. E-mail stumpthegardener@ rogersgardens.com, or write to Plant Talk at Roger’s Gardens, 2301 San Joaquin Hills Road, Corona del Mar, CA 92625.