Secrets of the garden masters

Sunset, Sept, 1996 by Sharon Cohoon, Jim McCausland, Lauren Bonar Swezey

What does it take to make a gorgeous garden? Five passionate plant lovers reveal their secrets

Passionate gardeners have one thing in common - a need for plants in their lives. Their gardens are often filled with horticultural gems collected from specialty nurseries, botanical garden plant sales, and friends' backyards. Within this group of gardeners are the true masters: those who put plants together in such artful ways that they appear unstudied, almost spontaneous - as though planted by nature. On the following pages, we meet five such gardeners: Michael Barclay, creator of a lush woodland garden, Dan Heims, who skillfully weaves foliage plants into a living tapestry of green, Judy Wigand, who combines perennials with great flourish, and Gwen and Panayoti Kelaidis, alpine rock-garden enthusiasts.

"Some of us get so carried away, our lives and gardens become inseparable," says plantsman extraordinaire and garden designer Michael Barclay.

One glance at Barclay's 1/5-acre garden in the East Bay hills overlooking the San Francisco Bay tells you that this kindly, exuberant man is obsessed. You could call his garden the wild kingdom or the Garden of Eden: it doesn't contain a single patch of bare earth.

"When you're a collector nut, there's no cure. Even if I had more space to garden, it would look like this," he says, gesturing toward the layers of 1,800 species and varieties that make up his woodland garden.

Gardening has been in Barclay's blood since he was a boy in New York and his grandfather showed him how to grow vegetables. Although he didn't make a career of gardening until years later, those early lessons stayed with him.

The gardening bug resurfaced when he purchased his double-lot home in Kensington in 1968. "I knew nothing about West Coast gardening, but I couldn't wait to get a trowel in the ground. I really misunderstood the climate." He started with a tropical garden that "looked like Miami Beach."

Four years later, he lost almost everything in the big freeze of '72. "I was so miserable, I sat down and read everything about my climate zone and analyzed the few things that had survived." Barclay then decided that what the front yard needed was a woodland. But it contained only one spruce tree.

Now the woodland garden runs the length of his house, including the parking strip. "It's a crazy space, 126 feet long and 12 feet wide at its widest, so I wanted it to be playful." Before planting, Barclay dug out all of the soil and replaced it with an acid soil mix. During the next year or two, he spent every available cent on bags of oak leaf mold and soil blend for rhododendrons.

To develop quick shade, he planted some fast-growing conifers. Then, using 'Pink Pearl' rhododendron and common snowball as the lead colors, Barclay planted a pink- and white-flowered woodland garden accented with blue and purple.

He set out trees and shrubs "in as many heights as possible" to create density and layers. The top layer consists of flowering deciduous magnolias - Magnolia 'Iolanthe', M. ashei, and M. watsonii.

Next are the Japanese maples. "I adore the fernleaf fullmoon maple (Acer japonicum 'Aconitifolium') and tricolored A. palmatum 'Shishihengen'," says Barclay. Mixed among them are 60 species and varieties of rhododendrons.

Dwarf and slow-growing conifers add distinctive texture to the magnolias and rhododendrons. Barclay is especially fond of dwarf cryptomerias, such as 'Elegans' and 'Vilmoriniana', for their wonderful foliage color and texture.

The soil is crammed with bulbs, perennials, and woodland ground covers - species primroses and sweet woodruff. Three kinds of bulbs naturalize successfully in the garden - snowflake (Leucojum), Asiatic lilies and Lilium regale, and narcissus in cream, pink, salmon, or white.

Hellebores are favorites because of their early bloom, starting in October. The yellow, green, and white flower color of Helleborus niger 'Potter's Wheel' echoes the flower color of its neighbor 'Jury's Yellow' camellia.

The rest of Barclay's eclectic garden is filled with hundreds of plants. In the backyard, 'Altissimo' and 'Veilchenblau' roses intertwine over an old plum tree, and a mayten tree supports 'Cl. Cecile Brunner' ("the trees and shrubs become hat racks").

Also scattered about are fragrant shrubs such as Daphne burkwoodii 'Albert Burkwood', D. caucasica, Michelia doltsopa, and wintersweet. "You can hardly see wintersweet's flowers, but one January day walking in the garden an unearthly fragrance floats up in the air and you know it's in bloom."

BARCLAY'S SECRETS

* Forget stakes. Plant tall lilies such as Lilium regale behind rhododendrons. Grow clematis on other plants instead of structures. Let rhododendrons support them. Allow purple Clematis 'Jackmanii' to tangle with tall climbing roses, such as apricot yellow 'Jaune Desprez'. "You need a clematis you can cut almost to the ground every year or two when cleaning up your roses. C. 'Jackmanii' can easily handle it."

* The best daphne. D. caucasica. "Sometimes daphnes commit daphnecide, but [this one] doesn't."