Ernest Hemingway, it turns out, had a knack for finding the best places in America. The author was among the first A-list celebrities to discover a magical area of Idaho known as Sun Valley. I hadn’t been there until this past weekend when the Sawtooth Botanical Garden invited me to talk about organic landscape principles, and also to screen the film A Chemical Reaction. With only five inches of annual rainfall and about 10 inches of equivalent precipitation from the snowpack, Sun Valley is not an easy — or natural — place to garden and grow a lawn . . . but of course the locals try to do it anyway.
My conclusion is that Sun Valley truly is one of the great wild areas of America, but some of the folks there still apply too many pesticides nontheless — as witnessed by the golf course that dominates the area when viewed from the high mountain ranges (warning: hiking in the high elevation that starts at 6,000 feet and goes up is not for the unprepared!).
I was impressed by the sustainability initiatives presented by the Sawtooth Botanical Garden. The 15-year-old garden achieved national acclaim a few years ago when the Dalai Lama christened the “Garden of Infinite Compassion.” I hope to get back to see the garden one day in the summer, but it’s a true four-season garden with year-round interest.
Sun, Oct 18, 2009
General