Redmond’s Spruce Park looking NNE from the SW corner toward Gray Butte and Smith Rock in the background. The border beds which follow much of the loop path are ‘native’ plantings according to the conceptual plan. It is common to claim that most of the plants are natives in designed natural areas, but native is not synonymous with ‘natural’. Although natives are used here concessions have been made including such plants as Echinacea purpurea ‘Pow Wow Wildberry’ and Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’. In a strict sense Ponderosa Pine aren’t native to this immediate locale either, they require more precipitation than we normally get and the Autumn Blaze Maples are a hybrid of two northeastern North American species.

A landscape, in nature, is a whole, functioning system, capable of perpetuating itself, through out the seasons and years, relying entirely on its own conditions and the cycling of energy and resources occurring on and within it. This is also the definition of a modern sustainable landscape. Ideally they require no inputs or energies supplied from offsite aside from the sun, precipitation and the normal cycling onsite of nutrients and water. A human made, contrived landscape, as all of those built by us today are, may be ‘judged’ by how well they function on ‘their own’, by how well they fit this ideal. Labor and outside inputs necessary to maintain a landscape are then indicators of how out of balance, how far from ‘ideal’ nature and genuine sustainability, a landscape is. A contrived landscape, which ignores the relationships integral to a healthy landscape community ‘demands’ more and more maintenance and support. Given its design and use, a landscape which ignores its site and relationship requirements will deteriorate from the intended design, losing to death component plants while gaining, increasingly, more unwanted available weed species. Design, conditions and use are essential to determine, in this sense, what a ‘good’ landscape is. Continue reading →