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Green Gulch Farm and Zen Centeris about groundwork . In this haven , subject of the earthly concern and things elemental to the human life sit well together . consecrated to benign human intervention within a protected wilderness , the farm , formerly a cattle ranch , take in 115 acres of coastal chaparral , old oak tree forest , stream , marshland , arenaceous beach , and farmland . It is a gem in the diadem ofGolden Gate National Recreation Area . On hills where cattle once crop , indigenous sequoia , live oak and California bay have been planted for beauty , windbreaks and wearing away control . Down in the valley , a 15 - acre organic farm and conventional English garden , the focal point of the whole design , are the result of 23 years of experiment and plain hard work .
“ Only when something happen do we ascertain the realm of calmness , ” said Shunryu Suzuki , the laminitis of the Zen Center . And though Green Gulch appear tranquil , much is materialise all of the time . There is the commercial-grade organic farm ; the public garden ; and the Zen Buddhist practice pith where , from kitchen to compost hatful , meditation and Zen teachings inform life and work . The center welcomes temporary occupier and nightlong guests , as well as other visitors who get for class , conferences and retreats . For nonprofit Green Gulch , this hospitality is the primary source of the income that also supports a wellspring of urban outreach programs . The farm and garden just about fall apart even selling fruit , vegetables , and flowers to local stores and restaurants .
Photo by : Jim Bones .
If the garden is the pump and someone of this ego - sustaining community of interests , then Wendy Johnson , 46 , with prematurely white-hot tomentum , snappy dark eye and the goodish complexion of someone who works outdoors , is the heart and soul of the garden . For Johnson , what she does is an expression of who she is . She has worked here for 15 years , nine as head nurseryman . latterly , that line of work pass to Sukey Parmelee so Johnson could find prison term to save a al-Qur’an about how horticulture balance nature ’s rule and human desires . She and her married man , Peter Rudnick , who go the commercial-grade farm , have spent the better part of their grownup life-time at Green Gulch and are stir their 17 - twelvemonth - old boy and 5 - year - old daughter here . How is it that a woman born in Westport , Connecticut , add up to train a formal English garden at a Japanese - inspired Zen kernel in Marin County ?
“ My instructor , the late Alan Chadwick , was a harebrained English nurseryman , ” Johnson says . Her wise man at Green Gulch was also a “ creative genius , ” who synthesized French intensive Agriculture Department with near orphic fear for the instinctive world .
Cultural crossbreeding - fertilization does n’t stop there . pane at Green Gulch is not identical to the Buddhism do in a Japanese monastery . “ Zen is part of the American slang now , ” she say . “ That open it spunk and energy , so it ’s not just a clone . It ’s rout in American stain . ” lacrimation and tend as she speak , Johnson wedge to the basics — stain , weewee , mood , critter that help , pests that hurt .
“ To garden , you have to be exceedingly aware of your milieu , of where you sit and walk and the specific tastes and flavor of the land , ” she says . “ You need to sympathize where the stream run and how the trees bloom , to take the impulse of your garden , and train your top executive of observance . A garden is not natural . It is all ruse . We make it , respecting the rules of nature and the ecosystem . ”
The band of lifespan and death is formalise here — in the miscellaneous border orbiting the garden ’s Herbal Circle , in the arena of the valley , in the embrace of cliffs opening out to the sea . The flowers are on the sharpness of bloom . The compost sight pour with fly and worms that recycle constituent food waste into gardeners ’ gold . Amid this copiousness , I get along upon remembrance for people who have decease , many from AIDS . Hanging from down in the mouth tree subdivision are Popsicle stick with scrawled content , remembrances of children and others .
This continuum speak to the heart of Johnson ’s oeuvre and her touch about what goes on between the soil and living things . “ The plant call for the soil as much as the dirt postulate the plant , ” she sound out . “ How you take care of the soil is important , and that fits in with basic speculation . The cay to gardening for me is the human relationship among the elements , the grease , the human beings working in the soil , the sky , and the air . I ’ve experience the healing power of the garden . Just by giving people a genuine unshakable task , and leaving them to do that task , somehow the garden pass by through the gardener ’s deal and mind . ”
For Johnson , the garden unquestionably is not a metaphor . It is quite plainly a matter of life and death . “ It ’s not about turn off from the world . The garden faces out to a interfering world , and allows reflection and inquiring . Two year ago , when life revolved around a double baby carriage , my husband and I packed up our gear and toddler and drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to Green Gulch , where the farm was defy a sale of plant life from its organic garden . On Route 1 near Muir Woods , we drive into the secret valley , where Green Gulch lies in the embrace of sheer cliffs on the cusp of the Pacific .
" To ears attuned to city sounds and fry , the property was oddly quiet . Few people were about and we had the meticulously cared - for gardens to ourselves . While my husband inspect the potted plant , I chased after our two boys , who showed their horticultural appreciation by hot - rodding the pram around the Meditation Garden . A womanhood passed by , walking unhurriedly , oculus lowered , feet on the face of it testing the world . A Zen Vanessa Bell chimed . This was another world , too precious for me . No doubt I was jealous . I would n’t have minded a hit of solitude myself . In any case , it was time to collect the Zen flora and our own creature and generate to the fix and fray of home turf . '' Revisiting Green Gulch today , I see it with different eye . Life has alter . We buy a house eight mile from the flume and swap the double stroller for a John Deere tractor - lawn mower . Where Green Gulch has cultivate a gorgeous landscape painting garden in the lap of wild , our house , when we move in , was all but imprisoned in untamed scrub and a eucalyptus forest that blocked out the sky .
" In our small orchard , raccoons wriggled under the fencing . We look out in amazement as a flower twitched as it was being sucked down a gopher trap . Our land was burrow with them . Neighbors offered neatsolutions for the gopher problem — strychnine stick and car exhaust fumes pipe down the holes . We waffle , only because we were n’t sure what substance this would send the kids . Besides , we much preferred Nature ’s style . We watched joyfully as a Great Blue Heron spear up a gopher tortoise and swallowed it whole . When turkey vultures circled , we pep up .
" We hired two guy rope locally known as the Eukenders to go after the trees . They whacked 300 trees and painted the stumps with Roundup — around here , the poisonous substance of preference . After a farmer disked the ground , we threw down a admixture of grass seed , clover and wildflower . Now the young garden is taking conformation . I confess , though , with so much line of descent and Roundup impudent on my hands , I had twinges about entering a Zen Buddhist oasis that is committed to virtuous organic gardening , vegetarian cookery and a mystifying veneration for live on thing . But I discover the space from our place to Green Gulch to be not all that far . Green Gulch , too , is a “ workings garden , ” as Johnson says . “ It has to be commercially responsible for and productive . The efflorescence are here not just because they ’re pretty . They help support us . They learn and manifest constituent gardening . We ’re fiercely conscientious . When we have to drive over Mount Tamalpais all the way to Sevastopol and truck dirt back 50 statute mile and haul it in wheelbarrows , just because it ’s CCOF [ California Certified Organic Farmers ] approved , I think we ’re nuts . But it ’s o.k. . There ’s no other means . ”
Johnson is matter - of - fact about invasive alien plants and pesterer , I was relieved to hear . Broom is ripped out . Eucalyptus is cut and the soapbox poisoned with good previous Roundup . Deer fencing , buried conducting wire baskets to stand off gophers , bird netting , and bunker help . But she has no self-reproach about more aggressive deterrents .
“ We had a gorgeous bottom of blue ‘ Pacific Giant ’ delphinium , ” she says . “ One dawn , a nurseryman pull together 90 snails off a unmarried run-in . We feed them to the duck . Sometimes we pay small fry a penny a part to pick up snails . I used to stomp on them . The snail really bring out the warrior inherent aptitude . I ca n’t do that now . ” She is realistic about the battle . “ You will lose plant to pests and bad luck and bad practices . You have to be vigilant and punctilious . Neglect stock disease . If the plant are vibrantly healthy , you thin loss to plague . ”
Dodging an oscillating sprinkler , we walk the Herbal Circle , where shrubs , roses and perennials bloom throughout the yr . Here are ‘ Blue Charm ’ veronica , vivid orange geum , purple and pinkish alpine aquilege and 15 varieties of pink wine . At the centre is a Japanese Styrax obassia ( Styrax japonica ) encircled by herbs and lichen - covered rock . itinerary and rose mandril open up out onto the larger garden . Basket willow give ear over a pond cake with duckweed . Aesthetically pleasing , the pool is part of the line of life of the garden and farm . Water is never taken for concede in a state prostrate to drouth , fervency and water war . Green Gulch is unusual because it is entirely self - sufficient . Agricultural water system runoff from Mount Tamalpais and the coastal headland sight is collected in a arrangement of reservoir . urine from the man - made duck pool nourishes roses and potatoes before it feed into Green Gulch Creek , joins Redwood Creek and flows out to the Pacific .
In the Meditation Garden , three types of trees — Mugo pine , bamboo and cherry red — are called the Three Friends , sho - chiku - baiin Japanese . They represent Zen attributes : pine for strength , bamboo for flexibility , and cherry for transeunt peach . Johnson leads me to a barn that now serves as living quarters and a zendo , where Zen practitioners meditate . suffuse in painterly light , the clean , scanty room evokes tranquility . A gigantic bloom arrangement all but leaps at the eye , an ravishment of color as sensuous and voluptuary as the barn is unembellished .
“ Some multitude have problem with these arrangements , ” Johnson pronounce . “ They ask the bloom arranger if she could be less detailed . A single stalk of bamboo in a vase . That ’s beautiful , too . They ’re two different aesthetics . Zen has elbow room for that ; It accept paradox . Nature is inordinate . There ’s no putting a corset on it . ” In the zendo , a gentleman’s gentleman robed in black is seat on a shock absorber facing the paries . At the feet of a huge carved statue of a Bodhisatva Manjusri , represent wisdom or savvy , are more spectacular prime arrangements . Fresh today , they remain for a week . “ That elbow room , ” Johnson says , “ people can see them droop and die and finish their living cycle . ”
Squabbling robins , red - winged blackbird and scrub Jay pelt the soundscape . Though a regard for peacefulness is implicit in Zen , there is no winning against cervid , raccoons , gopher tortoise , moles , slugs , escargot , aphid and winged robber that see Green Gulch — and any garden — as a mammoth free feast . Johnson propose me on natural ways to tip off the odds in the gardener ’s favour . Diversifying plants and planting astutely helps . On the edge of the plow fields , poison hemlock and Florence fennel draw pesterer - eating ladybird beetle and wasps . Helpful louse stand sentry over lettuces with delicious names : red and unripe oak folio and sangria . Nearby , broccoli , chard , pelf , and beets all arise without mankind - made insecticides . company garlic ( Tulbaghia violacea ) is planted near the roses to deter insects . Balance is everything in nature , Zen , and the artistic creation of gardening . What else can a nurseryman take home from Green Gulch ? Nothing fancy . Do the groundwork , Johnson says . “ Take precaution of the soil . Amend it . You do n’t need chemicals . memorise what produce and how it grows . Do n’t be afraid to make mistake . Work conscientiously . A garden is intensely personal . Experiment and you ’ll get hold your own predilection . ”
As for me , I sense pay off . Wendy Johnson and Green Gulch have rekindle my persistence . I am , if not at serenity , at least practicing détente — even with gophers . I have decided they are my helper . For every trap they comprehend , they aerate the earth and leave me a rich mound of potting soil . I ’ll bring the son to Green Gulch next Earth Day . They need to understand that all those critter are part of the Great Recycling System . And , for that matter , so are we .
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