Roger Raiche & David McCrory
McCrory met Raiche while interning at the Botanical Gardens in Berkeley, California, where Raiche was already well-known for both his encyclopedic knowledge of California plants and his garden design skills.
In 1997 they opened their design and construction firm, Planet Horticulture. The firm is noted for its plant-intensive designs, mixing native species, tropical plants, cactus, succulents, palms, shrubs, and perennials unique to each garden it creates. It is their intention to create landscapes that are dynamic and personal sanctuaries.
Their horticultural knowledge, expertise, and passion set them apart in the fi eld of landscape architecture and design. Their renovation of the Bernard Maybeck Cottage Garden in Berkeley, California, is now home to over 10,000 plants thriving in precise and intricate combination.
The two presently own a ten-acre site in Sebastopol, where they are able to experiment with new plant combinations. Roger Raiche has discovered three unknown native species and is presently in charge of the California Native Collection of the University of California Botanical Gardens, Berkeley.
The entry garden at the San Francisco Botanical Garden in Golden Gate Park is one of their most acclaimed works to date.
Working in the Bay Area, Raiche and McCrory are known for their use of a diverse plant palette. Here we are amazed at just how many kinds of plants can fit onto the 1600 squarefoot site. In fact, the garden is at once so abundant and so orderly that it scarcely seems real. Enjoy the fantastic growth, then step through the water main into a different (real) world. The water pipe/sound tunnel echoes several profound truths. For one, water is necessary to most plants, and irrigation is a must for the abundance we see onsite. For another, the pipe frames a beautiful view of the agricultural fields and the mountains of Planet Horticulture, a reminder that these on-site plants are but a very few of the region’s bounty.
As we emerge from the pipe, we see plants spread out all around us. Instead of a fantasy, the growth is natural, except for those odd-looking fl owers to our right. They turn out to be another sort of horticultural fertility-ceramic installations by Berkeley artist Marcia Donahue.