A Secret Garden
One day, while walking the dog near the Chain of Lakes, I happened across this wonderful little garden. It was an inviting gem of a space with winding paths bordered by woven cane fences, gnarled tea trees, and beds overflowing with blooming native plants. You could tell it had been made with care.
In this massive park with its massive trees, it had a delicacy that made it feel like the garden equivalent of a dollhouse. And unlike most attractions in the park, it was totally unmarked. That hiddenness, too, made it feel special.
Yet when I went searching for it again, I could not find it. Then on a walk with my husband months later, we stumbled upon the garden again. Like me, he thought it was charming. The next time I tried to show it to someone, we wandered in circles fruitlessly and were headed for home when lo and behold: there it was again.
By then I had begun calling it the Brigadoon garden—a reference probably lost on anyone under the age of 50 or who’s not a musical theater nerd. In the show, two tourists chance upon a mysterious Scottish village called Brigadoon that’s not on any map. As they soon discover, it appears only once every 100 years.
But this garden is real. I have a terrible sense of direction. And its gardener, Jason Martinez, likes the idea of serendipitous discovery.
“It’s a good little secret space,” he said. “It doesn't really have a name. And, you know, I don't really want it to have a name either. I want people to stroll in on it, kind of unassuming, you know, so they can discover it like by themselves.”
Martinez began working in the garden in 2019, after spending nearly 15 years tending different parts of the Botanical Garden. His predecessor had already begun building it, reclaiming the space from weeds and neglect -- it had been an informal dumping ground for old equipment and garbage. She created ”the bones of the garden” he said, ”All I did was elaborate on it.”
He created more paths, expanded the plantings, put in a concave stone that works as a birdbath, and stumps and benches for human visitors. He nabbed branches from the pollarded sycamores in the Music Concourse to make his woven fences, cadged stones from the tulip garden to line paths. “You know using what you find, kind of creating something from nothing.”
Helping him in all this is a crew of steady volunteers, including one woman with whom he’s worked with for over a dozen years.
It’s designed to be a habitat garden for the wildlife of the park. There are flowering plants that provide nectar, and fruiting plants, like snowberry bushes, coffeeberry bushes, and toyans that offer up berries for birds in winter.
As we talk, he points to a hummingbird sipping nectar from the pink blossoms of a flowering red currant. A pair of ravens perched on the branches of a eucalyptus squawk at one another and the shrill screech of a red-tailed hawk sounds every so often. The spot draws native birds, as well as those passing through during winter migration. “There’s been a Lucy's warbler, which I think is a small desert bird that came through here and everybody's been going nuts over. Also, the grey cat bird, which has a very catlike call, has been spotted here recently,” he said.
Because it’s invisible from the roads and main pedestrian paths, the garden feels more peaceful than many parts of the park. People “come here and hang out and just relax and you know, read a book or get on their Merlin app and try and hear the birds.” Even he and his wife sometimes come on his days off to have breakfast and watch the birds.
Martinez was reluctant to have me write about the garden and asked me not to identify its location. He and his volunteers feel protective about the space. It’s too easy for something good to get “ blown out,” he said. “And then it's not special anymore. You know, it becomes too popular, it becomes overrun, it gets trashed. And then there's no more peace. And that's what we want to keep for this space.“
Spend enough time in the park and you too can find this hidden wonder -- and I promise you won’t have to wait 100 years.
Thank you all for your support of 1,017 Acres. Happy holidays!
Jason is the best! We worked with him at the Botanical garden as docents and bird walk leaders . He has a special skill to make things happen as he did with other staff and volunteers to create the Mediterranean garden there - he even joined us on a Christmas bird count a few years back!
Helen& Allan Ridley
The search begins...