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Community Corner

Garden of Delights

The lovingly landscaped grounds of a local creative center are open to the public during an upcoming garden festival and tour.

The California Center for Creative Renewal is “a playground for adults,” says founder and director Ellen Speert, “a place where grownups would have the experience most of us had as children, being able to explore and create without the voice of criticism we put on ourselves as adults.”

And there is plenty to explore among the center’s magnificent gardens, which boast fruit trees, a labyrinth, canyon vistas and specially built nooks where Speert’s clients can commune both with nature and with their inner selves.

While the center is open to individual and group clients, and is the site of retreats, workshops and fundraisers, for the first time it is part of the annual Encinitas Garden Festival & Tour. The April 30 event opens up more than 20 private gardens to ticketholders to offer a glimpse of the horticultural treasures in the city.  

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The center’s grounds were far from a treasure when Speert and her husband purchased the property in 1981. “The garden was in total disarray; there were a lot of trees that had fallen or were dying,” Speert says. The one-bedroom cottage had been uninhabited for two years and trash was everywhere, left by people camping on the property. Speert and her husband got to work and paid special attention to the landscaping.

“People were beginning to be aware of the appropriate use of water,” she says. “Although we look like we live in the Garden of Eden, we’re in a desert. Water is not abundant in Southern California; it needs to be looked at as a precious resource. People started realizing gardens could be beautiful without being palm filled and water greedy.”

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Speert has spent the past 30 years developing and redesigning the gardens and now says, “At this point, it’s pretty much a finished piece of artwork that is always gently modified.” The center’s Crest Drive location was originally the site of avocado and orange orchards. Speert kept those trees and added a number of other fruit trees. The landscape teems with native plants. The labyrinth was added in 2000, with the help of 100 of Speert’s friends, and she calls it the biggest draw. It has different outdoor rooms, such as a tearoom with table and chairs, and a fire ring for burning rituals.

Throughout the garden are 20-plus alcoves that help reinforce the center’s mission to help participants overcome the obstacles of their stress-filled lives by enhancing their creativity. “I developed these metaphoric parallels,” Speert says. “For instance, a place really enclosed by the trees is a place of safety. On the other hand, a couple of vistas look out 25 miles over East County so those open vistas help people see the big picture and how it fits into a larger life vision. And rocks are a part of the world that is solid for people seeking stability. In many of the workshops I start with a meditation walk through the garden and give a handout about the metaphors so people notice where they feel drawn, or as they privately tell me their story we can move into the part of garden that supports that.”

Speert has discovered over the years that the beauty of nature has a universal power. “One of the interesting things that happens is that people come here who have grown up in different parts of the world—Europe, Japan, Australia, the East Coast—and over and over again they say, ‘This reminds me of where I grew up.’ I know this doesn’t look like Japan or the East Coast, but I think what happens is that they feel a sense of calm and they hear the quiet most places don’t afford us anymore.”

The Encinitas Garden Festival & Tour takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 30. The starting point for the self-guided tour is the Gardener’s Marketplace, which offers plants, seedlings, art and educational discussions. Parking and shuttle service are located at MiraCosta College at 3333 Manchester Ave. in Cardiff. Admission to the marketplace is free, and tour tickets are $7 to $21 in advance, and $10 to $25 if there are still tickets available the day of the event. Some of the proceeds go to a special Coastal Community Foundation fund that helps pay for garden-themed projects in Encinitas. To make reservations or get more information, visit encinitasgardenfestival.org or call 760-753-8615.

Garden Party

In other horticultural news, the public is invited to the dedication ceremony for the Centennial Commemorative Garden, honoring Cardiff’s 100th birthday, at Carpentier Parkway. The free event begins at 10 a.m. April 30, along San Elijo Avenue. For more information, visit cardiff101.com.

Altar Pieces

If you’re not exhausted from all the day’s events on April 30, save some time for the free opening reception of Sacred Altars, a group show of work using recycled materials. It takes place from 6 to 8 p.m. at the , located at 540 Cornish Dr. For more information, visit sacredaltars.blogspot.com.

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