FORT BRAGG, Calif. - By the time you've driven this far north of San Francisco (more than three hours), the ocean's rhythmic thunder against the cliffs lining Highway 1 has hammered your senses into a state of numb awe.
Along the way, you perhaps visited the gorgeous, if touristy, seaside village of Mendocino and sated your palate and your shopping habit.
Following the highway a little farther north into this more workaday town, it is easy to miss the entrance to the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens, although it is right beside the highway. But even those who don't know a dahlia from a calla lily will find it worthwhile to seek out this small but extraordinary public garden.
Beyond the fence that screens the site from the parking lot, visitors can pay a modest fee for a map, which outlines a looping trail through more than 20 plant collections on a 47-acre tract. The area closest to the lot has a cluster of mounded oval beds, an informal, yet traditional display. Clumps of heaths and heathers merge into undulating mounds of tiny blossoms. A cactus garden features specimens as squat as barrels and others reaching skyward with fingered limbs. In June, heritage roses spill over a trellised fence in an adjacent courtyard. California quail skitter among Pacific Coast perennials, and the constant drone of bees and blur of hummingbird wings threaten to induce a trance.
After threading the maze of planted mounds, the paths - which are wheelchair-accessible, save for a few side trails - coalesce before splitting into north and south branches. At first, both flank thickets of old camellias and rhododendrons, their slender trunks twining 20 feet high or more. Ernest and Betty Schoefer, the retired nursery owners who established the gardens in 1961, planted these and other imported species to see how they fared in the habitats of California natives with similar requirements, explains Nancy Morin, the gardens' interim executive director. She says the staff is now gradually removing nonnative species from the native-plant communities, with the exception of long-established plants now identified with the California landscape, such as rhododendron and eucalyptus.
The trail comes together briefly and passes through a gate in a deer fence, then splits again and the landscape takes another leap toward wildness. Though not yet visible, the ocean signals its presence through a moist breeze. The north trail crosses a tinkling creek through native coastal forest species. High-branching Bishop pines and shore pines soar straight up before sending out coiling branches to skirmish with the onshore wind. Overhead, hawks wheel against patches of blue.
Soon the ragged curtain of pines parts for a view of dark cliffs and rolling swells. The dirt path winds on - well graded and wide, like most of the paths - through openings that flash tantalizing views into forest clearings on one side, the sea on the other. Waves are audible now. As their boom and whoosh grow louder, the trail passes beneath Monterey cypress, the old sentinels of the California coast. At one point they enclose a small picnic area, the bark on their massive trunks folding like the skin on an elephant's knees.
Not long afterward a meadow opens on the left, rimmed by cypress. This headland plateau is the gardens' climax of wildness. Everywhere there is movement and light, a sensory blast of sea, sun, and wind-whipped grass. On the other side of the path, the familiar dark cliffs plunge into green-black water. In the distance the coastline ripples with a series of coves.
The trail narrows to a goat path of packed dirt skirting the cliffs, one of the few passages where access is limited to those with nimble feet. Up close, the cliffs are pocked and hummocky. Off the cliff loop, a side trail descends to Cliff House, a glass-enclosed pavilion housing tables and benches. Through the salt-splashed glass visitors can watch gorgon's tresses of kelp curling in foam at the edge of the rocks, spot seabirds, or witness the winter migration of California grey whales.
Back on the headland, the trail traces a semicircle around the coastal prairie and enters a deep pine forest, where water can be heard trickling over stones. A side path runs parallel to the source, a creek lined with waist-high ferns, before joining the South Trail. After crossing the water, the trail sprouts more offshoots, one of which leads to a formal garden in which borders composed of more than a hundred varieties of dahlia enclose a panel of turf. Another side path meanders to the Fern Canyon Trail, which crisscrosses another creek on wooden bridges overlooking rhododendrons, fuchsias, forest wildflowers, and Pacific iris. Winding paths wander through a lush glade of calla lilies before reentering the cultivated realm.
More than any single experience, the memorable aspect of this garden is the journey from traditional to wild and back, with spectacle and mystery in every step.
Jane Roy Brown, a writer in Western Massachusetts, can be reached at regan-brown.com.
