Climate-Resilient Gardening, with Cricket Riley (Best of The Secrets of Mastery)

On this episode of The Secrets of Mastery, we walk into the world of drought-resistant gardening at the Ruth Bancroft Garden and Nursery in Walnut Creek, California.

Cricket Riley, former design services director for the garden, gives us a tour of the 3-acre oasis of succulents, cacti, and herbaceous plants that need very little water. Then we sit down for a chat about the unique horticultural design principles of the late Ruth Bancroft, and how her love of succulents turned into an international model of climate-resilient gardening.

When she died in 2017, Ruth Bancroft was 109 years old. She worked in the garden 8 to 10 hours a day into her late 80s, according to a New York Times profile. 

Ruth Bancroft’s garden design sensibility was unusual for her time. She started planting succulents back in the early 1970s, when succulents weren't in style. 

Ruth created visual interest, Riley says, by blending plant texture, such as the angular, coarse texture of agaves with the finer texture of herbaceous plants. 

The Bancroft garden is also noted for a sense of seamlessness. There are no retaining walls or landscaping edging. Three-to-four-foot mounds provide plants with adequate drainage and create smaller “rooms” for visitors to wind through. 

When Ruth started the succulent garden, her family was limiting water use on the part of the farm designated for her pleasure garden. Instead of seeing that as a limitation, Ruth used the parameter to create a stunning landscape for any Mediterranean climate. 

“She didn't do it for like an altruistic idea,” said Riley. “It was this idea that ‘I'm going to create this garden that will be able to withstand the conditions of this place.’ And isn't that what climate resilience is?”

Over the years, Ruth Bancroft took meticulous notes about the horticulture project and the trial and error she practiced. In the 1990s, the garden opened to the public. And since then it has become an example of what everyone can do to reduce their carbon footprint and use fewer resources in the garden. 

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The “Secrets of Mastery” podcast is a production of Craftsmanship Magazine. It's a series of conversations with artisans and innovators about what it takes to master their craft, and what their journey has taught them.

Craftsmanship Magazine is a multimedia publication about artisans and innovators who are creating a world built to last. For more Secrets of Mastery episodes, or more stories about craft, check out Craftsmanship.net. 

Music in this series is from Blue Dot Sessions. Pauline Bartolone is the senior audio editor for Craftsmanship.net. Managing editor for the magazine is Laurie Weed, and Todd Oppenheimer is the founding editor and executive director. 

LINKS: 

Ruth Bancroft Garden and Nursery

Cricket Riley’s forthcoming book, “Designing The Lush Dry Garden,” co-authored with Alice Kitajima & Kier Holmes.