This half-acre plot of Walnut Creek School District (WCSD) property, once a mustard field, has been evolving with my conscious guidance. Without a source of water for irrigation in a somewhat arid part of California, I am shaping it as a dry garden. This means that there is no supplemental water, only what falls as rain. I plant in the fall. The landscape reflects what survives without artificial inputs. In a sense it is a default landscape. It affords many exploration opportunities for children and learning possibilities for adults who use it as a link to and from the adjoining public open space area.

A small botanical preserve, it offers plants from the Mediterranean climates of the world and includes many native Californian species.

  My vision for this field of my dreams is to:

• Create a model of planting practices appropriate to the climate, topography and soil conditions      (physical and chemical) of this region.

•  Feature California natives and other plants from similar climates i.e. Mediterranean

•  Attract wildlife through diverse plantings and attention to the habitat needs of all living things.

•  Provide opportunities for children to make a visceral connection with nature through observation and play.

•  Highlight plants of historical significance

•  Display geological elements e.g. fossils, that tell the story of the seashore environment that existed here in the distant past.

• Make a case for foraging and fostering the reconnection of culture and the culinary arts with native plants; begin a “food forest”.

• Replicate elements of a Volvon village site in a county in which indigenous peoples had a significant presence.

• Promote healthy pollinator populations through offering great variety in flower types, forms and colors and by creating a native plant hedge row.

• Plant host species for butterflies. Because I planted an abundance of milkweed in the field, children from the adjacent elementary school, their teachers, neighbors and I were able to observe the truly magical emergence of monarch butterflies. This space has become a destination for members of the community.

• Demonstrate land management practices that offset climate change and foster water retention.

  • Carbon sequestration through mulching, composting, tree planting

  •  Contouring the land with swales and mounds and using plant anchors for water capture and storage; hugelkultur

• Model what is possible when Nature is left alone.

• Take pleasure in how much joy the beauty and ecological function of the park-like place I have created brings to those who pass through it or make it their destination.

• Observe how one can vastly increase floral and faunal richness through a few simple educated acts.