Mansion With a Mission

Editor, Stephen Kelly

Potted Bougainvillea spectabilis on the upper terrace at the rear of the main house, looking south, announce the center set of steps leading down to the pond. These fast growing plants are almost insect-free thanks to their thorns, but require frequent pruning with hand trimmers to keep under control. An obscured Lycianthes rantonnei (Potato tree) is in the foreground. On the left is one of a number of draught tolerant coastal live oak Quercus agrifolia, part of the native environment.

Austin Val Verde in Montecito, Calif., about four miles from Santa Barbara, is described by the Austin Val Verde Foundation (AVVF) as a ?EUR??,,????'??mansion with a mission.?EUR??,,????'??

The AVVF preserves the estate?EUR??,,????'???s 17.4 acres of grounds, gardens, fountains, pools, pathways, antiquities, exotic specimen trees and buildings, but also its ?EUR??,,????'??cultural landscape?EUR??,,????'???EUR??,,????'??+ encouraging people to participate in educational forums lead by the AVVF team and helping visitors explore the estate?EUR??,,????'???s resources?EUR??,,????'??+from art and architecture to plants, technology and science. Gail Jansen, AVVF executive director and an architectural historian, explains that Val Verde?EUR??,,????'???s architects and landscape architects specifically created beautiful spaces for people to meet and mix.

From the southern exposure of the main house are views of the shallow pool and urn flanked by orange topiaries, which require regular string trimming and hand clipping. Between the topiaries are low growing Aizoaceae Rosea ice plants (Drosanthemum floribundum)?EUR??,,????'??+low maintenance succulents whose extraordinary brilliance and high flower to foliage ratio is legendary in Southern California gardens. Coastal live oaks and Mexican fan palms are in back. Some of the palms have been cut down because of senescence and their attendant danger to persons and property.

Gardeners Gerardo (l) and Enrique take pride in the rose garden. Roses generally grow best with at least five to six hours of sun. In southern California, however, they also need a bit of afternoon shade, which helps blossoms last longer and keeps colors from fading. Roses prefer a slightly acid soil (6.5 pH) enriched with well-composted manures?EUR??,,????'??+some think chicken guano is even better. Weekly infusions of fish emulsion, cottonseed meal, processed kelp, or blood meal are alternatives. Early spring is the time for the first fertilizer application. A top-dressing of 1-2 inches of organic mulch helps keep water available.

Val Verde?EUR??,,????'???s landscaped grounds have views of the mountains on one side and the Pacific on the other. The garden layout and Mexican villa were designed in 1915 by American architect, Bertram Goodhue (1869-1924). But in 1927, the property passed to Wright Ludington, a collector of antiquities who turned the villa into a Greek-Roman ruin-inspired creation called Val Verde. Ludington?EUR??,,????'???s designer was American landscape architect Lockwood de Forest Jr. (1896-1949). De Forest Jr. was one of Southern California?EUR??,,????'???s premier landscape architects in the 1920s, ?EUR??,,????'???30s and ?EUR??,,????'???40s. He spent from 1929 to his death in 1949 on the care and upgrading of the Val Verde flora. He was particularly fond of terracing of plants. De Forest Jr. also had a brief career as a landscape artist and painter. His landscape architecture archives are today housed at the University of California at Berkeley.

The Austins married and lived at Val Verde until their deaths and created the foundation.

Gerardo inspects the recently installed dwarf variegated box-leaf euonymus (Euonymus japonica ?EUR??,,????'??Microphylla Variegata?EUR??,,????'???) on the east terrace. This was an English-styled maze installed by landscape architect Lockwood de Forest in the 1940s with Buxaceae siblings (boxwods). The new plantings should grow to two feet, the original height of the boxwoods. Much of the boxwood remains in
other locations.

Gerardo (pictured) does the soil and fertilizer mixing, and Enrique the pruning of the oaks and hedges. They also have to keep the pools at the house free of debris and leaves. The challenge for the lower pool, a deeper natural pond, requires aerators and manually pulling algae from the waters.

The Horticulture

The AVVF horticulturist is Allen Braithwaite, who trained as a florist from age 11 and practiced his craft into his late 20s. He then became an engineer and founded an engineering consulting company, but continued his education and practice in botany, horticulture and floristry. Today, he is a naturalist with 25 years of conducting tours and giving lectures about the flora of Santa Barbara and the canyons and watersheds of the San Rafael and Dick Smith wildernesses. His audiences range from fourth graders to city college students, the University of California?EUR??,,????'???s Education Abroad staff/faculty from seven campuses and the staff of a religious retreat in a 50-acre woodland garden. His goal is to bring enthusiasm and research to an interested public.

His involvement with the Austin Val Verde estate began as a flora consultant, making recommendations on what should be preserved and what enhancements made. He has complied about 500 pages of material on the Val Verde flora, a work he hopes to have published. The horticulture section of the estate?EUR??,,????'???s website (austinvalverdefoundation.com) will soon contain 300-400 pages dedicated to its flora, what Mr. Braithwaite calls the ?EUR??,,????'??public plants,?EUR??,,????'?? those that visitors to the estate normally see when wandering the grounds. At 17 acres, the majority of the property is not viewed by the visitor. Much of the property is a wilderness with largely native species. He is also working on documenting that natural environment, aimed specifically for garden professionals and naturalists. Mr. Braithwaite has also done research on the estate?EUR??,,????'???s early landscape architecture by Lockwood de Forest Jr.

The garden crew keeps the English boxwood (Buxus sempervirens) between the colonnades on the upper 110-ft. long terrace at the rear of the main house in neat trim. Note: The square-trimmed Valencia orange trees (left) line the wading pools. Coastal live oaks dominate the view at the end of the brick walk. To the far right (back) is one of several specimen Monterey cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa), an endangered species. Allen Braithwaite says there are only about 2,700 left in their native environment of Monterey, Calif. On the far left back, you espy the tops of Mexican fan palms (Washingtonia robusta).

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Two potted juvenile century plants Agave Americana and coastal live oaks frame the arch that connects steps to a north/south service road to the motor court. There are dozens more century plants interspersed with Italian cypress (Cupressus sempervirens) that line the elliptical motor court. Century plants have no stems and develop from a basal rosette. The leaves get up to 6?EUR??,,????'??? long and 10?EUR??,,????'?? wide, and have sharp spines on the margins and tips. They thrive in full sun and very well-drained, slightly acidic, sandy or gravely soil.

Flora Care

Mr. Braithwaite explains the hours of maintenance of the property, irrigation and specialized turf care procedures are the province of the gardeners. In the old days, the estate grounds required about 14 people, plus supplemental seasonal labor. Today, the Val Verde estate landscape is tended to by head gardener Luis Almanza and his nephews, Gerardo and Enrique, all from La Luz, a village in northeast Mexico. The Almanza connection goes back to Luis?EUR??,,????'??? father, Augustin, who started at Val Verde by pulling weeds for .25 cents an hour and stayed for 30 years, becoming the head gardener for the estate and at St. Francis Hospital in Santa Barbara. Augustin?EUR??,,????'???s son, Luis, continued the tradition and has led the gardening crew for over 40 years. Luis?EUR??,,????'??? son, Jose, worked the grounds for over 10 years and brought his cousins, Gerardo and Enrique, to the estate in the 1970s.

There are 10 acres of formal garden surrounding the home.

The view from the back of the main house reveals the substantially mature coastal live oaks that complement the age of the structure built in 1915 by New York architect Bertram Goodhue. From the foreground up, the first hedge is a sculpted Japanese or wax leaf privet (Ligustrum japonicum) that surrounds the pond; a gray-green cast is signature of the second hedge?EUR??,,????'??? Pfitzer juniper (Juniperus chinensis ?EUR??,,????'??Pfitzerana?EUR??,,????'???). Beyond the slope above the wall is the first of a Lockwood de Forest favorite, Buxus sempervirens, B. microphylla japonica and an occasional B.m.j. ?EUR??,,????'??Green Mountain.?EUR??,,????'??? Lockwood de Forest, landscape architect, spent from 1929 until his death in 1949 on the care and upgrading of the Val Verde flora.

Val Verde combines formal gardens with Southern California native woodlands, complete with mesquite, riparian floral communities that are, essentially, untouched. While there is an incursion of Hedera sp. cascading into the creek here and there, the singular fascination of this culture is its mixture of historical introductions that would be found in a Montecito garden of 1895 and the flora associated with a riparian series of plants that do not invade the formal gardens.

The crew keeps the main gardens fertilized and pruned. They are experts on keeping up the 60 species and 150 plants of the rose garden. Mr. Braithwaite notes that a distinguished expert on roses upon visiting the garden expressed how well maintained the roses were.

Surprises await the estate visitor, like the Moreton Bay figs (ficus macrophylla), large evergreens named for the eponymous bay in Queensland, Australia. Allen Braithwaite, the horticultural curator at the Austin Val Verde estate, explains the trunks of these trees become the surface roots, sometimes four feet above the ground and 50 feet in all directions, a phenomenon called banyaning. These trees were planted on the property in the early 1900s with the mistaken belief they would supply raw rubber. The trees do bleed a milky latex, but the tree sourced for commercial rubber is Hevea brasiliensis. A tree surgeon comes in for big pruning jobs, but the gardeners do prune limbs lower than eight feet from the ground along the paths for pedestrian safety.

The Woodlands

Coursing through the back of the estate?EUR??,,????'???s woodlands is Montecito Creek. AVVF is collaborating with Santa Barbara Fish and Game and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association to establish refuge pools for steelhead trout, an endangered species. Mr. Braithwaite explains they must ready the creek by ridding it of English ivy, a nortorious invasive plant.

Tucked within the woodlands are such rarities as macadamia trees. Mr. Braithwaite acknowledges these are not particularly attractive trees, and that the public doesn?EUR??,,????'???t usually venture far enough afield to see them, yet it is important for the foundation to log them and all flora on the property.

A sampling of other flora on the Austin Val Verde Estate.

Giant Bird of Paradise Strelitzia nicolai

The Japanese plum, loquat Eriobotrya japonica does best in well drained soil, in sun to partial shade.

A Candelabra cactus Myrtillocactus cochal. You don?EUR??,,????'???t need a green thumb to grow cacti, but don?EUR??,,????'???t overwater them, keep them in the sun and make sure the soil is well drained.

An Abyssinian banana Ensete ventricosum, aka red banana, is a fast grower and can soar to 20 feet. After growing for several years it will bud. The fruit looks like one-inch long bananas and contains small black seeds.