Redwood Journey
My fellow adventurer and I sat on the top step of her little wooden entry deck's flight of stairs, earplugs in place, gesturing at one another frantically in pidgin sign language. Three bulldozers were simultaneously tormenting us that day: one at what's purported to be a church but looks suspiciously like an outlet mall; the other at the Trailerview Estates site (the developer seems to prefer "The Eight at Mulholland"); and the third at Hearst Castle South, a mysterious never-ending project that's displaced enough earth to fill in the Grand Canyon twice.
So I gesture to my friend the old hitchhiker's hooked thumb sign and mouth the words Let's split! Meanwhile she's flailing her arms outward from her body, pantomiming something that defies my level of interpretation until she picks up a stick and scratches an impressive rendering of a tree in the dirt, then taps the deck, which is constructed of redwood.
"You want to go see redwood trees?" I ask. She nods vigorously, clapping her hands, as if I have just been crowned the Charades champion. "Girl, Yosemite's at least a seven-hour drive!" I tell her. She frowns at my discouraging tone. Then I have an inspiration, where we can find a redwood grove with
out having to surrender a month's salary to a gas station attendant to reach it.
My co-adventurer does the driving but casts me in the dubious role of navigator. Geography is not my bag. Neither is cartography. Personnel at our destination have provided a computer printout of directions from the 101 Freeway. There are nine sets of directions including squeeze right, sharp left, and proceed through roundabout. Our destination is the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden in the city's Mission Canyon area, reached finally after stop-and-go city traffic gives way to weaving along claustrophobic lanes that veer past heavily wooded estates.
It is a very gray day and it's evident a downpour has preceded us, bejeweling all the silvery foliage of the many sages to be found in this mecca for native plant enthusiasts. Laced with dirt trails or brick pathways, the garden is dedicated to a display of native flora only-California and Channel Islands endemics. Plantings are in beds, meadows, terraces; beneath trees, among rocks or boulders, along the creek. There's very little sense of artifice, of a carefully orchestrated presentation. Paths meander through what appears to be a wild natural setting, with views to mountains or the sea on fogfree days.
We eat our lunch on one of the many benches set out for a visitor's idyll, beneath a coast live oak that occasionally pelts us with raindrops shaken loose by a gust. Rainwater has filled a depression in a large rock and we rinse our hands in this. Because it is so overcast the scores of California poppies have their sun-loving petals furled, yet still add a vibrant blast of color to planting beds. A popular shrub at the garden is Fremontia (also known as California glory or flannel bush), which smothers itself in waxy yellow flowers. Many hybrids of low-growing native iris are planted in a startling spectrum of exotic colors, suggesting horticultural peacocks. Along with us a thousand birds seem to be visiting the garden, singing, chit-chatting, scooting across the path, landing on quivering branches.
Tragically for two escapees from Bulldozer Hell, a bulldozer is going full-tilt boogie upon our arrival, working on a hillside lot, and garden maintenance adds some monstrous power tool racket. But save for the birds and maintenance workers we have these forested and flowerful
acres entirely to ourselves on a weekday. A wondrous, whimsical edifice constructed entirely from rooted willow saplings and cut willow branches rises above a lawn area fringed in pink coral bells, purple phacelia, tall yellow evening primrose and a mosaic of plants that appear as colorful and intricate as a Persian carpet's design. It is named Toad Hall in honor of Mr. Toad's home in "The Wind in the Willows." Beyond this a rustic stairway descends into the redwood grove. The day's misty weather is actually the right touch, because coast redwoods often grow in such soggy circumstances. In the heart of Mission Canyon the effect is shrouded but not gloomy, heightening the cloistered sense.
Beneath the trees' furrowed trunks grow several species of ferns, wild ginger and redwood sorrel bearing dainty white or lilac flowers. Mission Creek tumbles beneath a bridge into a clear deep pool that on a hot summer's day would've been too alluring to resist. I'd told my friend not only of the existence of a mature redwood grove in Santa Barbara but also of a purple-flowered Rhododendron I'd found blooming in a small bright clearing there, just above the boulder-strewn creek bed. At first we encounter only a few spindly specimens of Rhododendron devoid of buds, making my friend suspicious of my claim.
But then there it is! The same shrub I recalled seeing years ago, covered in flouncy trusses of purple flowers, framed against the soaring russet trunks of redwood. Sunlight pulses into the grove a moment, creating a luminous secluded haven for the two redwood sojourners.
