Shasta Chapter CNPS and the North Valley Art League are renewing their efforts to maintain the native Matson-Mowder-Howe (MMH) Celebration Garden at the Carter House Gallery. Sue Mandel is the contact for the North Valley Art League’s part of the partnership. For the last few months, Sue has been maintaining the garden and has uncovered the original landscape plans and plant lists. New Member-at-Large Sarah Jarrett is representing the Chapter, and together they will lead volunteer maintenance sessions. Look for up-coming work session announcements, join us in working in one of the best native demonstration gardens in the North State, and increase your own gardening knowledge and skills with natives.
A Short History by Michele Driggs
You may remember the MMH Celebration Garden from our native Garden Tour a few years ago. Here is an updated version of the Garden’s history that Michele Driggs prepared for that event.
This garden originated in the early 1980s at the Carter House Science Museum, in Redding’s Caldwell Park. During that time, Gary Matson, horticulturist and co-creator of the science museum, began planting California native plants at the west end of the building. The Fremontodendron, Sambucus, Dendromecon, and Aesculus species that you see there are all from those original plantings. There is also a blanket of Dicentra that dances with flowers from March to June, and a stand of Matilija poppies that blooms prolifically in June and July.
In the late 1990s, the museum was absorbed into the Turtle Bay Exploration Park and the Carter House building was abandoned. Neglected and over-run with weeds, many of the original plantings were choked out. In 2004, the North Valley Art League (NVAL) leased the Carter House building as their art studio and gallery. At this same time, a community group began looking for a location for a memorial garden for Gary, Winfield Mowder, and Marcia Howe. Both Gary and Winfield were avid native plant enthusiasts and avid members of CNPS. With synergy and collaboration, NVAL and this community group resurrected and expanded the original garden. More recently, in 2010, with the help from a CNPS grant, we landscaped the east end of the building with mostly native plants. The garden contains shade-loving natives on the building’s west side and a mixed representation of native and non-native perennials on the south side. The soil is silty and rich and many of the plants thrive and grow larger there than in the heavier soils prevalent in Shasta County.
Enjoy the garden and spend some time by the river and in the art gallery.