Thundering wings and a flurry of feathers; white blurs in the cool, darkened coop on a dusty, hot afternoon. Roughly 300 birds are roosting, resting from their travels earlier in the day. I just didn’t expect to come across homing pigeons in the course of a recent outing to the The Getty Center, a bastion of art and architecture, on the outskirts of Los Angeles.
Blindingly white in the southern California sun, The Getty’s imposing walls loom over our heads as we approach the broad staircase that leads us to the first of several massive buildings which house the galleries, offices, and public spaces that make up this walled city-like compound devoted to Culture, History and permanence. Architect Richard Meier manifests these heroic concepts in roughly hewn travertine - 1.2 million square feet of it; nothing says permanence like stone! Sightlines are tightly focused, artfully directed and frame a murky diorama of LA and the Pacific Ocean in the near distance. Nearby hills are still smoldering from a wildfire the day before. Epic scale made this visitor feel like an ant; the reflected light and the 90 heat were oppressive. I was impressed - as I was clearly meant to be, just hot! The Central Garden designed by artist Robert Irwin, forms a lush, always changing, sensuous contrast to the monolithic surroundings; a live, pulsing vein coursing through stone.
It’s nothing shy of a marvel to inhabit a space so familiar from pictures; very Alice-through-the-looking-glass. Irwin’s gardens made quite a splash in the garden press when they were first unveiled 10 years ago. I was fortunate to be with garden writer and friend Paula Panich who has made a study of the Getty gardens, traveling from her home nearby to visit the site once a week over the course of 6 months. Her intimate observations and experience of this landscape throughout the seasons (such as they have in LA) and in different light was a gift and greatly enhanced my visit adding layers and layers of perception to my sun-stroked mind - did I mention it was hot?
Renowned artist, Robert Irwin began as a painter in the Abstract Expressionist movement. He later turned to sculpture and installation art in an exploration of light and space. He was a somewhat controversial choice for the garden project but the Getty was committed to the creation of a space that would bridge their art collections indoors and out. And so it was that a sculptor - not a garden designer- was selected to create the environment using plants, water, stone and hardscape materials as his medium. (Remember this was in the early 90’s; today more and more garden designers are working in a sculptural fashion to create temporary and permanent garden/art installations domestically and abroad. See Chaumount, Cornerstone, Martha Shwartz, Topher Delaney, Andy Goldworthy, Charles Jenks, et.al.)
The scale, colors, textures, sounds, fragrance, everything is managed and controlled, yes maybe even manipulated, to Irwin’s vision. But all gardeners, even the most “naturalistic” among us, insert our ideas and impose our constraints on the process. Maybe we don’t all pluck our London plane trees (Platanus acerifolia ‘Yarwood’) to affect the “correct” level of dappled shade but every time I cut back a fading fall perennial, or trim a shrub so we can get past it on the pathway I am interfering in some way with the natural course of growth, fruition, decay and senescence.
Water is the lifeblood of this garden. It spills from a font in the wall at the top of the hillside, the “Amphora” or “Urinal” depending on who’s doing the naming, (apparently there wasn’t a lot of love lost between Meier and Irwin.) Huge, craggy boulders break and direct its flow producing a deep, throaty rumbling. Paved diagonal paths lead into the (most welcome) shade only to immediately emerge back into the glare on the other side of this narrow falling rill of trees, water and stone. Beneath the canopy of oh-so-perfectly calibrated shade, intricate woven tapestries of mixed plantings draw the eye down to an intimate human scale; leaving this relatively cool glade you are face to face with the tall imposing creamy stone walls and swards of turf that defy nature in their manicured state. The effect is to be embraced and briefly sheltered by plants, cushioned with the sound of running water and surrounded by thousands of shades of green only to be reduced once again to insect scale in the face of the beautifully textured but imposing walls; strangely, I don’t remember the sound of the water carrying beyond the shade.
And so it goes all down the hill, zigzagging in and out of the light until I’m delivered, slightly dazzled, to the Plaza level garden. Park-like and restful by comparison, the Plaza is furnished with HUGE playful tuteurs of rusted steel; tall columns of bougainvillea fizz from their tops in hot tropical colors. In the shade beneath these bowers intimate seating areas are created with simple woven wicker chairs that would be perfectly at home in a European park or under a shade tree in your own backyard; a pleasantly pedestrian touch within this monumental environment.
The plaza terrace also forms a viewing platform from which to look down on the Bowl garden, perhaps the 
most talked about, debated, and sometimes derided element of this amazing landscape. A large circular pool is centered by what appears to be a floating knot garden of heavily sheared evergreen plant material. The sinuous forms are rounded, curved, interlocking and absolutely perfect in their symmetry. The choice of evergreen azaleas as the foundation for this feature attracted a great deal of scorn from critics and “haughty-culturalists” as my friend Linda used to so aptly name them; “gardeners” who felt deeply wounded and offended at what seemed to be such an inappropriate plant choice for such an exposed, hot and dry exposure. Cool, northwest woodland glade this is NOT!
The question begs, why so threatened by these choices? If gardening is - by definition - interfering with the natural process isn’t everything else only a matter of degree? And where do the moral issues figure into this equation? We used to have a saying when I had the nursery, “grow it, kill it, know it” - as in push the limits, explore the boundaries, try things on, surprise yourself and move on or get over yourself! Actually, we didn’t say “get over yourself” out loud as we prided ourselves on our sensitive customer service. But we were always trying to lure people out of their comfort zone. Hey, this is horticulture not medicine! We’re allowed casualties; it’s a sign of growth! Remember? It’s supposed to be FUN.
So, back to the birds and FUN. Generally speaking I’m not a big fan of birds; they’re too close to the reptile end of the spectrum for my comfort level. I suppose that means I don’t like snakes but frankly, I never come across snakes or any other reptile in my cool, temperate, rainy western Washington garden, so I can afford to be magnanimous with cold-blooded creatures. So the very notion that I might find myself in a coop with 300 pigeons, beating their wings against my head and shoulders is worth noting.
After spending the day confronting that line where culture meets horticulture we stopped for a quick visit with a local garden designer who was hosting a lovely luncheon on her back patio for some colleagues. I should note that while in SoCal, I was the guest of my friend Debra Prinzing, an indefatigable woman if ever there was one. Debra gets a lot done and knows how to fill the day with interesting people, beautiful gardens and new experiences - and still get home in time to crank out a couple of batches of fresh persimmon cookies!
Our generous hostess for the afternoon plied us with cool rose wine and fruit tart. We lounged on cushy chairs with a view out over the neighboring hills and watched a small contingent of pigeons (perhaps only 50) swoop and dive in expansive figure eights, their pure white bodies stark against the afternoon blue sky. Later, during a tour of her garden - is there a more beautiful tree than a California Coastal Live Oak?!? - the mistress of the acrobatic flock encouraged us to take a couple of the birds home to Thousand Oaks about a half hours drive away. Once released, their homing instinct would lead them back in no time at all; literally she said they’d probably be home in 10 minutes! Her only stipulation was that we had to capture the birds ourselves. Our only instruction was to pick birds with an identifying pink bracelet. Have you ever tried to pick out a teeny tiny pink bird bracelet in the midst of a whirling storm of feathers?!? It was exhilarating. Unlike anything I’ve ever experienced - very, VERY “bird-y.”
With the birds tucked safely into an animal crate in the back of the Subaru we drove up hwy 101 amidst the din of pigeon protests. Once home, we took them into the backyard and quickly posed for a few pictures, marveling at their skeletal frames, their wing strength, scratchy feet and perfectly round eyes, (their lids close from the bottom up - it’s a little thing - but very “other”.) Alex, Debra’s 11-year old son and I counted to 3 and with a whoop of laughter tossed the birds into flight while Debra shot a mini-movie. As a couple they swooped in controlled yet incomprehensible formation; they circled a few times and were off. We assume they went home. I was left with a huge grin on my face and the sense I had just touched something much, much bigger than I. Between the grandeur of the Getty and the pigeons I’d say it was a toss up; both were truly magnificent.
Here’s a bonus add on…Debra just sent me a link to her video of Alex and I releasing the birds…short and sweet but filled with laughter, blue skies… and D’s toes!
Pigeon release on YouTube
