p11, v6.47 — Homes & Property — Mountain Views News

Homes & Property

Mountain Views News Saturday, November 24, 2012

MVNews this week: Page 11

HOMES & PROPERTY

Mountain Views News Saturday, November 24, 2012

One Of A Kind: Featuring unique homes and gardens and the people who create them

Story by Chris Bertrand Photography courtesy of the Ruth Bancroft Garden

RUTH BANCROFT’S GARDEN… AN OASIS OF INSPIRATION AND LEARNING FOR 40 YEARS

A true “dirt gardener”
is one who plants and
weeds their own garden.
I met Ruth Bancroft,
now 104, back over
a decade ago, in, of
course, her garden. In
her nineties, she was still
one of those true dirt
gardeners, a name I also assign to myself.

Somewhat to my husband’s and neighbors’
puzzlements, I live to garden, divide, propagate,
prune, weed and fuss in the garden, occasionally
way after dark by the light of the outdoor
spotlights, if that’s all that time allows. Ruth and I
are a rarified breed, I guess. But I digress.

Ruth and I were introduced while she was busy
on some horticultural project, in the now historic
garden bearing her name, in the middle of Walnut
Creek subdivisions in the suburbia of East Bay
San Francisco. Known to start gardening around
eight nearly daily, she was dressed, as usual, in
a tailored shirt, white, I think, working beside a
large wheeled yard cart.

“Mother wasn’t one for t-shirts,” chuckled
her daughter, Nina Dickerson. I was almost
completely unschooled and unexposed on the
topic of succulents. It was this visit, and this
garden that sparked my own interest in the
amazing diversity of succulents, as well as the
drive to incorporate more and more succulents
into my Sierra Madre landscape when we moved
to LA shortly thereafter.

Imagine my surprise when a clipping about an
“interesting garden” arrived in the mail last year
from my mother in Chicago. The masthead said
Wall Street Journal, which immediately caught
my attention, as the paper isn’t known for its hefty
horticultural coverage. As my eyes scrolled down
the article, I realized I was reading about Ruth and
her garden.

The Bancrofts are a pedigreed academic family,
with ties to UC Berkeley, where Ruth’s father
in law was a classics professor. Today, the
university’s Bancroft library, named after Hubert
Bancroft, holds many of the volumes from the
elder Bancroft’s collection, donated in 1905. Most
of Hubert’s 39 volume, California History series
still lines the shelves of the 4,000 square foot main
home at the six acre family compound in Walnut
Creek.

Ruth’s garden journey is eloquently summed
up on the garden’s website. “In 1972, at age
64, Ruth Bancroft planted the first plants in
her soon to be dry garden oasis. This year it
will be 40 years ago that Ruth embarked upon
her masterpiece of garden design. Throughout
its history, The Ruth Bancroft Garden has
continued to inspire and educate its visitors.
Ruth’s vision is as alive and relevant as ever.”

Ruth’s gardening migrated from collecting
trillium in the Berkeley Hills toward
succulents, when she bought a few of the
plants from a gardener in Berkeley, decades
before they became a fascination and gained
wide acceptance, especially in minimal water
environments.

In 1972, as suburbia encroached on the
Bancroft’s walnut farm, subdivisions
advanced. “Mom had already begun her
succulent collection when the family farm had
to be sold,” according to Dickerson, “but it
was all in pots in a protected area. My father
offered to let Mom develop a garden there
after the trees were removed. Previously her
entire garden had to be watered by moving
hoses and sprinklers around. This new garden
would have an automatic sprinkler system,
which would save Mom lots of work.”

Already in her sixties, Ruth proceeded
through trial and error over the next decades,
collecting specimens from around the world, and
learning what would survive in the Walnut Creek
microclimate.

A big undertaking, “The folly,” an English term
for outdoor pavilion,” in the garden was designed
by a family friend, and then built over a summer
“with the help of a teenage boy. He worked all
summer and at the end, Dad gave him a flatbed
truck that had been used on the farm, according
to Dickerson.”

It is said that this unusual garden, ahead of its
time in many ways, helped spark the Garden
Conservancy, which is “dedicated to creating
an organization that would identify the best
American gardens and find ways to save them for
the education and enjoyment of the public. Since
1989, the Garden Conservancy has helped over 90
exceptional gardens across America survive and
prosper,” according to the group’s website, www.
GardenConservancy.org.

According to Dickerson, “Mom continued to
work in and direct the gardeners well into her
90’s. At age 96, she complained to her doctor that
she tired so easily. ‘I was out in the garden spading
for three hours and I had to go into the house and
rest.’ Remembers Dickerson. Remember what
I said about being a true dirt gardener? Even
after she was no longer able to go out much, the
head gardener, Charlotte consulted with her on a
weekly basis, getting her ideas.”

Ruth’s garden was eventually deeded to The
Ruth Bancroft Garden, Inc. in 1992, and many
preparations went into getting ready for the event,
a highlight of which was a dedication by author,
Angela Lansbury. Best laid gardening efforts
missed but one spot, remembers, Dickerson with
a smile. “Mom worked hard to get the garden
into tip top shape. When Angela Lansbury came
to the house, Mom looked up and out of the rain
gutter above the front door was growing a large
dandelion.”

Today, The Ruth Bancroft Garden, grown
from the tiny seed of one woman’s dream, has
been recognized as one of the best in the world
by various organizations including National
Geographic Traveler, according to Dickerson.
They have deemed their mission to “preserve
this exceptional example of garden design and
to continue to develop its collection of water-
conserving plants for the education and enjoyment
of the public,” according to their website.

What will you find on a visit to the garden? In
addition to enjoying a stroll through the cascades
of sometimes mountainous succulents, cacti and
other plants requiring minimal water, the garden
offers workshops, Sunset Socials, family events,
the Sculpture in the Garden, a plant nursery and
personalized dry-garden advice. All started with
“One Woman – One Vision – One Extraordinary
Garden.”

The Ruth Bancroft Garden is located at 1552 Bancroft
Road in Walnut Creek, CA. Visit their website at www.
RuthBancroftGarden.org or call them at 925-944-9352.

CRUNCHING THE NUMBERS

You recently read here about formulating your offer based on the information included
in a CMA (Comparative Market Analysis). You can fine-tune that offer by
applying current market trends. Trends may vary by region, state, city, and even the
neighborhood, so do your homework.

You and your agent can study a lot of available statistics - the CMA, local listings’
DOM (Days on Market), and list to sale price ratios. The CMA compares similar
properties, while the DOM figure gives you an idea of whether you’re looking at a
buyer’s market or a seller’s market (in which you’ll have more competition and less
negotiating power). If possible, look at DOM for listings within a mile of the home
you want to purchase - it’s that area-specific.

Let’s move on to the average “List Price to Sales Price Ratio” (LP:SP). Like it sounds,
it’s simply a percentage based on how closely the final sales price corresponds to the
price at which the home was listed. A house that sells for the asking price has an
LP:SP ratio of 100%. So a house that lists for $175,000 but sells for $160,000 has an
LP:SP of 91%.

Look at the these ratios for the homes on the CMA that most closely match yours,
and you’ll have a sound basis for what percentage of the list price to offer.

We’d like to hear from you! What’s on YOUR Mind?

Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com