Down-to-Earth Visionary

Karl Linn cultivates community in his urban gardens

In a quiet neighborhood in Berkeley, California, there is a handmade iron gate so beautiful, with whimsically wrought dragonflies and arcing sunflower patterns, you don't even mind being locked out. You get the sense that a secret password rather than a key would open it. Behind the gate (which is unlocked during the frequent visiting hours), a community garden flourishes. Members navigate the terrain on gravel paths wide enough for wheelchairs. As they work, either in their own allotted plots or in the communal space that contains endangered and threatened native plants and flowers, a fountain powered by the sun provides a trickling soundtrack. On the morning I visit, sagey smells of native salvia waft by with bits of conversation from gardeners harvesting winter vegetables, while a little kid with sandy curls and rosy cheeks points at a coveted lettuce leaf she'd like permission to pick.

When garden regular Karl Linn spies 18-month-old Kyla Rain tromping toward her mom with a kid-size plastic trowel in hand, he breaks into an avuncular smile. "She's the most important thing growing here," the 78-year-old says.

Much of the Peralta Community Garden is perched near the yawning mouth of a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) tunnel in the neighborhood of North Berkeley. When trains swoosh by, they temporarily drown out the birds and force gardeners to either stop talking or yell to be heard above the din. For years the strangely shaped piece of BART-owned land was fenced off with barbed wire, accumulating weeds and junk. Linn had spotted the property as he worked across the street at another once-blighted plot--now the Karl Linn Community Garden, dedicated in his name at a surprise 70th birthday celebration honoring his lifelong dedication to putting beauty and nature back into cities. After the ceremony, Linn and others got the city of Berkeley, which owns the property, to pony up $10,000 for building materials; then they spent nearly two years making it into a vibrant community garden with 15 individual plots. Today, a small shed in the garden serves as a demonstration station for sustainable ecological innovations. Its green roof sprouts various kinds of succulents, while a cutaway in the wall reveals its adobe-like "cob" construction of earth, sand, and straw.

From North Berkeley to the South Bronx, Linn has seen latent beauty in urban blight. A landscape architect, educator, and psychotherapist, he has transformed his vision into activism, helping create garden "commons" in redlined as well as tree-lined neighborhoods from coast to coast. "One can always turn a liability into an asset," says Linn in a thick German accent from beneath his floppy green gardening hat. It's hard to argue with his optimism--coming as it does from a man who survived Nazi persecution and exile--or with his success.

Linn was born in 1923 to the only Jewish family in the tiny village of Dessow in northern Germany. He grew up on a tree farm--an accredited training center for gardening and "horticultural therapy" that his mother established in 1910. Students would mingle with the mentally ill, and all tended the orchard's 2,000 cherry, apple, plum, and pear trees. Emphasizing digging in the dirt rather than into the psyche, horticultural therapy is one of the oldest healing arts, with benefits not restricted to the sick. "Growing up as an only child I established a deep ecological connection with whatever natural elements and creatures were around me," Linn remembers. "I had wonderful relationships with cats and dogs, mother hens and trees. They were my companions and my source of inspiration and peace--all contributing to my mental health--and remain so to this very day." Linn adds that since all the adults in his life were careful farmers, tilling the land responsibly has also remained important to him.

Linn's idyllic childhood came to a crushing end with the rise of Hitler; his family's stewardship of the land and good standing in the community were unable to protect them from German soldiers. "Our house was a mile up the road from the Village and we could hear the Nazis marching in goose-step on the cobblestones," recalls Linn. "Even now, when I hear ladies in high heels on pavement, I experience a shock." His family lost their orchards but saved their lives. They escaped to Palestine in 1934 and settled a new farm, which the young Linn began managing at the age of 14, after his parents became too sick to work. "I enjoyed growing plants but I couldn't stand harvest time--the fields looked plundered," Linn remembers. "I yearned to grow plants and let them unfold in their own beauty."

Linn attended agricultural school and concentrated on the study of ornamental horticulture. After graduating he cofounded a kibbutz, working with others to transform deserts into green pastures and orchards. "It was during this time that I began to see the importance of creating places for privacy and contemplation but also for community participation," says Linn. "Places where young and old could be in each other's presence but not in each other's way."