As the drumbeat for sustainable housing quickens and the green marketplace spreads, and drought-tolerant landscapes appear, it’s instructive to go right to the source’the natural world.   The Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden provides a living workshop for a range of plant choices adapted to the region: those that thrive in the typically dry summers, rainy winters of Southern California, others that are resistant to pollution and stingy soils, others that are ideal for construction, or offer new food sources.   No doubt, the 127-acre ‘garden’ in Arcadia has over the years been a showcase for the whims of its early benefactors and continues to nurture stunning examples of flowering trees and exotic specimens, but the Arboretum staff also pioneered the use of Mediterranean plants as appropriate water-saving varieties. In fact, in the early days, when the Arboretum was under joint state and county ownership, its botanists were consulted on vigorous landscape choices to be used for the perimeters and medians of state highways.   On a recent visit to the Arboretum, I met with botanical information consultant Frank McDonough, who displayed not only a comprehensive overview of the resource but also a dazzling knowledge of the plant community, providing specific species habits in their environmental context.   McDonough will share his knowledge and offer a visual tour of the Arboretum to Palisades Garden Club members and guests on Monday, October 4, at 7:30 p.m. at the Woman’s Club, 901 Haverford.   Any discussion of the Arboretum must begin with its ideal location, which the Tongva called Aleupkigna, ‘the place of many waters.’ The area lies on an artesian belt and is shielded from the high winds of the San Gabriel Valley. The E. J. Baldwin portion of the Santa Anita Ranch, which includes the present-day Arboretum, was once home to a artesian belt spanning 450 to 500 acres (about 0.75 square miles). One dry summer in the late 1880s, the total of all the sources on this portion of the Santa Anita Ranch, including flows from Santa Anita and Little Santa Anita Canyons, was measured at about 16 gallons per minute.   Theoretically, plants and trees from around the world could grow at the Arboretum, except true tropicals. In fact, there are 14,000 plants within the 6,000 to 7,000 plant taxonomies, including hybrids and varieties.   The history of the Arboretum charts the pioneers’ response to this ‘fairy spot of the Valley.’ During the rancho period (full title was granted to Hugo Reid in 1845), mission plantings flourished in the benevolent climate. After Rancho Santa Anita was divided in 1865, Leonard Rose raised grapes and citrus on the property, but it wasn’t until Elias ‘Lucky’ Baldwin bought 8,500 acres for $200,000 in 1875 that the potential value of the property was exploited. Baldwin was primarily a speculator and entrepreneur with a penchant for fast horses and women. He built the Santa Anita racetrack, which today is directly across the street from the Arboretum, and accommodated his lifestyle by building the few structures on the property that stand as landmarks to this day. He renovated and expanded Reid’s adobe, built the red-and-white coach barn, and probably, most famously, imported peafowl from India, which today number about 400.   These early landowners’rancheros and entrepreneurs’gravitated to the land not only for its attractions, both natural and artificial, but inevitably for its lucrative land value as well. In 1934, Anita Baldwin, Lucky’s youngest daughter, suffering from setbacks from the Depression economy, began selling various parcels as home and business sites. Two years later, she sold the remaining 1,300 acres of the Baldwin ranch, excluding her 20-acre home site, to a real estate syndicate headed by Harry Chandler of the Los Angeles Times. The next chapter in the Arboretum’s history must have been sprinkled with fairy dust, given the miraculous turn-around in Chandler’s plans. As related by Sandy Snider in ‘Historic Santa Anita: The Development of the Land,’ Chandler’s syndicate had moved ahead with plans to subdivide and sell the old ranch lands in several residential districts. Sales were underway, and one satisfied owner invited friends out to view his new Arcadia lot. One of the visitors happened to be Dr. Samuel Ayers, Jr., who was head of the Horticultural Institute committee seeking possible locations for a Southern California arboretum. The old site at Chavez Ravine, founded in 1893 by the Los Angeles Horticultural Society and named a historic monument in 1967, still retains a handsome collection of over 120 trees.   ’I’d never heard of Lucky Baldwin,’ wrote Dr. Ayres, ‘but we thought it would be a nice outing, so we accepted. We drove out there and when I saw it, I said to myself, ‘This is it.’ I told the tract manager, Wesley Davies, what I had in mind and he said he thought a few acres might be set aside for our project. I told him I wasn’t talking about a few acres. I was talking about the whole thing!’   The whole thing is what he got. Chandler took the property off the market while negotiating with the state, county and the Arboretum committee to sell the property. In 1947, the state and county jointly purchased 111 acres in the heart of the old rancho. Two additional parcels were added to the park, bringing it to its current 127 acres. In 1953, the state turned over management of the Arboretum to the county, which established a Department of Arboreta and Botanic Gardens.   A director and horticulturalist took up their duties and slowly began building the collection. ‘They had to remove some palm trees,’ McDonough says. ‘Baldwin loved palms.’   In 1951, the first permanent plantings on the grounds were initiated with some 1,000 trees, some of which remain the most spectacular blooming trees in the collection. But, equally impressive are the particularities of each species, exhaustive information McDonough has stored in his head and at the ready. Examples include: ‘ The Engelmann oak grove comprises the last remaining intact stand of Engelmann woodland in L.A. County. Unlike the live oak, the Engelmann oak grows well in shallow soil and tolerates summer water. ‘ There is a Monterey pine that is found on the central California coast and on Guadalupe and Cedros Islands off Baja California. ‘ The Flor de Cacao, a member of the kapok tree family, produces a sweet-smelling flower that when dried is used to flavor the traditional chocolate-maize drink known as tejate. ‘ The punt pole bamboo, which blooms every 40 years, is currently blooming at the Arboretum and elsewhere in the world where it grows in a process called simultaneous bloom.   The Arboretum, McDonough likes to say, is a blue-collar, hands-on demonstration garden. It’s a public institution now owned and managed by the County and encourages the public to become inspired. ‘Horticulture comes with civilization,’ he says. ‘It re-establishes the relationship we had as hunter gatherers.’ For more information on the Arboretum, visit arboretum.org.

  In honor of the Feast of St. Francis, Corpus Christi Church and St. Matthew’s will hold a Blessing of the Animals ceremony this weekend, October 2-3.   Corpus Christi has scheduled the blessing for Saturday at noon on the church patio, 880 Toyopa. The blessing at St. Matthew’s is at 4 p.m. in the main meadow at the church, 1031 Bienveneda.   Each church will accompany the blessing with a prayer service. Animals (and photos of deceased pets) will receive a blessing. For mutual safety, animals should be on a leash.   The custom of blessing animals is a remembrance of St. Francis of Assisi’s love for all creatures, and reflects the belief that the love we give and receive from a pet can draw us more deeply into the larger circle of life.

The Grape Vine

By Merv Hecht Since 1975 my wife and I have taken about a dozen cruises on small ships to many interesting places: Alaska, Indonesia, canals in Burgundy, rivers through East Germany, even to Yemen and a group of Arab countries. These trips were primarily ‘destination’ oriented. Suddenly last year we discovered a very different cruising life’cruising on large ships where the destination is secondary to the ‘on-board’ life. Our first experience was on the Queen Victoria, part of the Cunard line. While there were interesting destinations, for us life on-board was the highlight of the voyage. When the trip ended in Southampton, we immediately boarded the Queen Mary II and sailed for a week to New York. And that really was the highlight of the vacation! Think of living with your own chef, maid, butler, masseuse, golf pro and a big staff of others dedicated to your every need’plus movies and Broadway Las Vegas-style shows every day and night. Add a duplicate bridge tournament a short walk away every afternoon, and several sommeliers with whom I discussed our selection of the wine of the evening. For some (not us) the fully equipped exercise room and afternoon dance lessons were a draw.   We met a large group of ‘professional cruisers’ out there. On each cruise there: people who go on a long cruise once or twice a year. Some had racked up more than 30 cruises on the same boat. On the Cunard line, a number of retired people from northern England typically take a month-long cruise each winter: it’s cheaper for them than to stay at home in the winter and pay to heat their homes.   We took the Queen Mary once again as an alternative to flying back to the U.S. from Europe, and again loved the six days at sea. But after hearing a number of friends say that Crystal Cruises was even better, we journeyed on the Crystal Symphony from San Pedro to New Zealand, via Hawaii and Australia. That meant about 15 days at sea without seeing land, a pretty good test of life on board.   And we loved it. But, our friends ask, which line did you like better? So I thought about it and here are my thoughts:   Cost. The first lesson I learned was that no one with a decent travel agent pays anywhere near the listed price. We ended up on both lines getting ‘two for one’ pricing, an upgraded cabin and thousands of dollars of shipboard credits to cover the cost of wine (mostly), tips, and various purchases on board. In spite of that, we found that we ended up paying about $600 per day in total for the two of us. That’s more than we spend when traveling on land. But we don’t live as well on land. Food and wine   This seems to be the most interesting feature of cruising for many people. Especially the drinking. While each group of dedicated devotees claims that his cruise line has the better cuisine, both are so excellent that it hardly matters. On the Cunard line there are two classes of passengers (although they carefully never say this: the first-class passengers eat in one dining room, and all the others eat in another much larger room.   Through connections we were able to eat in the first-class dining room once, and to our amazement we read the same menu and were served the same food! But the service was a bit better and there was tableside preparation of some dishes. On the Crystal there is one class which can only be described as first class. Nothing on the menu that appeals to you this evening? ‘Bring me another chateaubriand then, please Anthony.’ The Queen Mary has a bigger variety of food destinations, a pizza and pasta bar which the kids love, and a much larger buffet. But how much can you eat?   One significant difference: on the Cunard ship, there is an alternate premier restaurant, the Todd English (a famous British chef), but, passengers pay a surcharge of $30 per person to dine there. On the Crystal there are two alternate premier restaurants with no surcharge (except a recommended extra tip of $7 per person), one Italian and one Asian/sushi bar operated by the famous Nobu. Although we didn’t care for the Italian restaurant Prego, we LOVED the Japanese restaurant. For us, because of this, the Crystal line wins this competition. The wine list on the Queens was mediocre and over-priced. The list on the Symphony was excellent, including a number of reasonably priced wines, along with an expensive list of top Bordeaux selections. The ‘wines of the evening’ on the Symphony were well selected, and there was always something of interest by the glass. Although there was only one Armagnac and one Calvados, each was excellent and reasonably priced. There was more selection of liquors on the Queens but the pricing was not as favorable. Stability   That’s where size matters! In any event, don’t go on a cruise until you’ve tested yourself on a short cruise for a couple of days. Some people are unaffected by motion, and others are demobilized for the duration. Most feel some discomfort in rough weather, and on both cruises we experienced some rough going. The stabilizers on both vessels make a big difference, but because of her size, the Queen Mary took the waves much better, and there was less vibration. On the other hand, we never heard the engines. One tip: Get a cabin that’s low and central; on the Symphony the rooms in the bow were really rockin’ and rollin’. Culture   On the Queens there was a string quartet playing (somewhere on the boat) morning, noon and night. And, when asked to ditch the Hayden they would play some of the native tunes from their homeland (these musicians were from Eastern Europe). There was a terrific Spanish guitar player. And during dinner there was a harpist playing classical music. On the Symphony there were two piano players who are just what you find in an American hotel bar, a ‘Spanish’ guitar player from Italy who played the guitar much like a mandolin with canned music accompaniment, and a South American harp player with the volume of the canned accompaniment turned up so loud that a number of people walked out’even those, who like me, are hard of hearing.   On the other hand, both ships had good lecturers. The language class on the Symphony was a big hit with my wife, and both of us profited from computer classes. Both ships have excellent dance instructors, and dancing is very popular. But again, size matters: the library on both Queens was extensive; the library on the Symphony was very limited. Staff   The staff on both ships was very good, but the staff on the Crystal was better trained and they enjoy working a lot more than those on the Queens. The average passenger on both vessels was about 75 years old, with grey hair (if any) and about 50 pounds overweight. The people working on the cruise, particularly on the Symphony, were thin, very attractive young people, so it was no problem to tell who was who. Ambiance    In general, the people on the Symphony seemed more pleased with everything. A number of British people on the Queens were unhappy with the cost of beer. Seventy percent of the people on the Symphony were repeat customers who knew what to expect, and were happy with it. With almost 3,000 people on the Queens, there were lines and sometimes it was hard to find a table at lunch at the buffet. And to walk from one end of the ship to the other was quite a hike. The Symphony is much smaller, everything is close by, and with only 950 passengers there were never lines. On the other hand, the Queens are much more luxurious and refined’and just more beautiful.   Perhaps the biggest difference for me was the populations. On both Queens there were people from at least 25 countries. There was one dinner table where only Spanish-peaking people sat together. We sat at a table where French was spoken much of the time and at the ping-pong table we spoke German, since the top three players were from Germany.   On the Symphony there were a few Hawaiians and a few Japanese and a sprinkling of Canadians but almost everyone was from upper-middle class continental America. Personally, I prefer the international mix on the Queens. Technology. Both ships had electronics that made the cell phones work as if we were on land, and allowed for Internet access in the cabins. The cost was a bit pricey, but with a program to instantly download e-mails and work with them offline, such as Outlook, the cost was nominal. There were excellent movies on both ships, available both in the movie theaters and in the cabins, but the sound system on the Queens left much to be desired. So which is the better cruise? Bonnie preferred the Symphony. I preferred either of the Queens. I especially like the idea of returning from Europe after a stay there on the Queen Mary 2; it’s a relaxing way to end a tour or business trip in Europe, returning without jet lag. If you’ve never cruised, you might want to try it; it’s like a fantasy world.