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Maybe you've seen them. You're out hiking or hunting or taking a drive in the country and there it is. It would look right at home in your garden but looks so incongruous out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe it's an apple tree in a clearing, a rose bush leaning against a crooked fence post, or a clump of narcissus by a jumble of rocks. These could not have been transported by birds or wind. You know immediately that someone used to live here, but there are many questions. Who used to live here? What did they do? Why did they leave? How can these plants survive on their own?
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I am fascinated by abandoned places. I can't pass up a ghost town or cliff dwelling, but I also enjoy minor, little-known places that you won't find in a guide book or on a map. I feel almost like an archaeologist discovering a lost civilization. Sometimes the human artifacts like foundations, fences, or bits of metal give away the site, but sometimes the first things to be noticed are the plants. One of my favorite small abandoned places is the Serrano home site. I first saw it around 1990. Out in the wild, in the middle of a bowl-shaped valley was a farm or ranch with a couple barns, some scattered machinery, a house, and a lot of fencing. I checked out the machinery, the barns were locked, but the house was open. It was just a simple, one-storey, front-gabled wooden house, probably built some time between 1920 and 1945. I went inside. It was empty but looked completely intact. There were the things you would expect - living room, dining room, kitchen, two bedrooms, a bathroom. I looked in the medicine cabinet and there was a bottle of vitamins that expired in 1975. It has been a while since anyone had lived there. Because of the needle-like seeds in the tall grass, we didn't poke around outside the house much, but there was something very interesting by the front door - a geranium! What was so amazing was that no one had lived here for 15 years or so but the plant was still alive. There was no one to water it during the annual dry season and no one to cover it during a cold snap, but there it was, about knee high and alive as myself. Geraniums (Pelargoniums) are more rugged than I ever expected.   Domesticated plants are most likely to survive in the wild when they are native to climates and conditions roughly similar to what they find in their new home. In southern California where I live, a lot of the survivors are native to the Mediterranean region, the Middle East, and South Africa where they have the same type of wet winter and dry summer climate as I do. Also, these landscaping and food plants were cared for by people during the most vulnerable stage in their lives, as germinating seeds, seedlings, or transplants. Still, I find it amazing that the native California plants, let alone the "exotics", can survive the brutal dry season.
In 1993, there was a fierce brush fire over a large area that included the Serrano home site. It was all firefighters could do to save inhabited houses. They weren't going to bother with an abandoned house and the house and barns were lost. We went there a few days after the fire and nothing wooden remained of the house. The geranium was gone, too.   Soon other things were happening in my life and we didn't get back to the Serrano home site until 2007. The concrete and metal ruins were still there. It has been a very dry year and the nasty grass seeds were not a problem so we poked around a bit. The remains of the house were pretty subtle - a number of concrete piers, some corrugated metal that had been around the crawlspace, shattered ceramics, the heat-warped and rusty remains of the refrigerator, and some nails. What was much more noticeable were the landscaping plants. There were several patches of bearded iris, a very healthy clump of variegated century plants, some aloes, and what looked like resurrection lily (Lycoris). It was a window, or rather a peephole, into the past. I don't know anything about the Serranos, but I do know that they grew some of the same kinds of plants that I do. I felt a little bit of kinship with them and I think that's what good history does. It helps you relate to the past.
 The next time you are out and find an abandoned garden, try to take the time to explore it. See what landscaping and food plants were important to the prior residents. If you're fortunate, you might even find some information on those residents in a park visitor center, a local library, or from a local historical society. Enjoy your peephole into the past.
Safety tip: Watch out for snakes, scorpions, spiders, ticks, open wells or mine shafts, rusty metal, nails, and broken glass. In other words, watch where you put your hands and feet and where your children put their hands and feet. Legal tip: In some parks, the abandoned plants may be considered cultural resources and if so, it is illegal to remove them. Also be sure to heed "no trespassing" signs. The pictures in this article, from top to bottom and left to right are of variegated century plant (Agave americana), chasmanthe, apricot, bearded iris, aloe (species unknown) with native laurel sumac (Malosma laurina), and an agave (species unknown). All pictures were taken at various abandoned home sites in the Santa Monica Mountains of California.
 | I have lived in California for 20 years and really enjoy the climate and all of the varied natural ecosystems. |
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Subject: Good Job!
Posted by Elena (from Nashville, TN) on April 2, 2008 at 1:55 PM:Congratulations on an excellent article. You did your usual great job with the plant details and the photos. Keep up the good work. I look forward to more of your articles and photos. ... Posted by MaryE (from Baker City, OR) on April 2, 2008 at 3:18 PM: Very nice, great information, good photos, and a very enjoyable read. After you told about the geranium being lost on the first visit after the fire, I found myself hoping you would find it again when you went back years later. ... Posted by Kelli (from Los Angeles (Canoga , CA) on April 2, 2008 at 3:59 PM: Thank you.
The geranium was gone. I have seen many kinds of plants come back after a fire so it wouldn't have surprised me if it grew back, but it didn't. ... Posted by carrielamont (from Milton, MA) on April 2, 2008 at 6:14 PM: The geranium made me sad, but your tip about mine shafts reminded me of when in 1989, my brilliant father took my two little brothers, my two little step-brothers, and my step-mother adventuring down an an abandoned mine shaft in New Mexico. Why? I'll never know. My brothers fell 30 feet, and one broke his hip. Almost twenty years later, it's a distant memory; my father and step-mother didn't stay married, my brother had his hip replaced, my father is in a doddering post-stroke state, BUT MINE SHAFTS ARE DANGEROUS! Thank you, Kelli, for the reminder.
xx, Carrie ...
Subject: Amazing
Posted by doccat5 (from Fredericksburg, VA) on April 2, 2008 at 11:24 AM:That's just amazing. Thanks for sharing the information. ... Posted by Kelli (from Los Angeles (Canoga , CA) on April 2, 2008 at 4:06 PM: You're welcome ... Posted by Sharran (from Calvert City, KY) on April 2, 2008 at 5:44 PM: Nice article. Thank you ...
Subject: So interesting!
Posted by marsue (from Cabot, AR) on April 2, 2008 at 9:38 AM:Kelli, this was a very interesting and informative article! --Loved the photos, too. Thanks!
Marilyn ... Posted by Dutchlady1 (from Naples, FL) on April 2, 2008 at 10:54 AM: Yes, very nice!
Hetty ... Posted by adinamiti (from Bucuresti
(Romania)) on April 2, 2008 at 12:38 PM: Kelli, congratulations for a very interesting and sweet article! You are a good writer, I could see those places in my mind as I was reading, great!
Hugs,
Adina ... Posted by Kelli (from Los Angeles (Canoga , CA) on April 2, 2008 at 4:05 PM: Thank you ...
Subject: A lovely article!
Posted by CapeCodGardener (from Yarmouthport, MA) on April 2, 2008 at 8:55 AM:This was a lovely article, and one that is going to make me be much more observant as I hike around. I grew up in So.Cal, and your photos were so evocative. Thanks for the safety and legal tips, too. ... Posted by darius (from Appalachian Mtns, VA) on April 2, 2008 at 9:47 AM: I also love to poke around old homesteads like that!
Years ago, long before I ever thought of gardening, I read some of Eric Sloan's books on early America. In one, he mentioned that sometimes you will see a pair of mature trees sitting all by themselves out in a field... and you can deduce that they were once in front of a home, flanking the doorway. ... Posted by leaflady (from Hughesville, MO) on April 2, 2008 at 1:43 PM: I have been able over the course of many years to salvage plants from abandoned homesteads. Always with permission of course. I consider it a privlege to help carry on the heritage of the communtiy and those who were settlers and part of the community long before my time. I have an old fashion lilac I call the Earl Crawford lilac because it came from the home place of an attorney whose family had lived there for many years. He thought it was hilarious that I wanted plants from there for a memorial to his family. Just a few months later he died. I know the man who farmed the land and maybe even purchased it and he would not have allowed me to take a start of the bush. I have a yucca plant from another homestead. I don't really care for yuccas but it was going to be bulldozed under and I just couldn't let that happen. I also got some early spring bulbs, common yellow iris, and a rose that is probably a type of the multifloral that is now so hated. But this one is relatively well behaved and I keep it pruned to a nice size. These are plants that are older than me, maybe a hundred years old or more in origin. ... Posted by Kelli (from Los Angeles (Canoga , CA) on April 2, 2008 at 4:05 PM: Thank you.
Leaflady, that's neat that you were able to get those plants. ...
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