A Rose in Marin - Gardenista
Photography by Tricia Rose, except where noted. The other day, we asked our friend Tricia Rose of Rough Linen, who has a hunting cabin and a garden in Northern California—on San Francisco Bay, no less— to send us a report. “My 1946 hunting cabin is on a double block, which is mostly under water,” Tricia says. Photograph by Stefan Sargent. “Some mornings you just can’t wait,” Tricia says. “In the beginning, the bank depends entirely on natural water. Only pigface and pickleweed survive in the salt marsh.” “Coming from London, I was starry eyed at the prospect of growing lemons, olives—figs! I built a long bed against my high front fence and planted the trees in half barrels to give them some depth of soil.” “Gardening is always the art of the possible, and some of my sentimental choices have not survived. One week of Sirocco-like winds reduced my thirty foot clematis armandii to a bizarre wall of death, bronzed intact like a baby’s bootie. A New Dawn rose struggles, but rosa mutabilis chinensis is rampant.” “Gophers wolf all the bulbs except for freesias, which have multiplied (taste no good? “My cosseted kadota fig remains biblically barren, but a Mission fig rescued from a dumpster gives abundantly.” “Nepeta mussinii—catmint, which the cat ignores completely.” “I am not too proud to grow easy plants. Many of my plants started as cast offs and cuttings—iris corms, gazaneas, euphorbias—I am part of a local trade potlatch. Thompson’s grapes, not roses, twine around my front door.” “My garden and I are compatible, intimate and interdependent. Handing it over to a landscaper would be like renting out my children.” “So I planted Queensland Blue pumpkin too late this year? I still have seed. Do I feel jaded? Water and weed. Feel like splurging? Buy more manure! There is a dead branch outside my kitchen window but I won’t cut it. That’s where the mockingbird sits.” (N.B.