BOOKS by Judith M. Taylor
The Olive in California: History of an Immigrant Tree
Foreword by Dr Kevin Starr, State Librarian of California, emeritus
PURCHASE THIS BOOK
The olive tree, Olea europea L., is not native to California or the United States. This book tells the story of how these trees arrived in California to become a beloved part of the landscape and how succeeding groups of immigrant peoples built two great California industries with them.
PRAISE FOR The Olive in California: History of an Immigrant Tree
The Marin Independent Journal
The history and mystery of California’s olive trees
When London-born neurosurgeon Judith M. Taylor and her ophthalmologist husband, Irvin, moved from New York to Marin in 1994 to retire, they settled into a Tiburon home with a garden that needed attention.
With the help of San Rafael landscape architecture firm Pedersen Associates, the couple laid out a Mediterranean-inspired garden that included 24 olive trees similar to the ones she had admired at Strybing Arboretum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.
“Once all the trees were in the ground I was blown away by their beauty and rushed off to look for a book about them but could not find anything,” Taylor recalls. So, she set out to research their history and pen her first book, “The Olive in California: History of an Immigrant Tree” (Ten Speed Press, 2000).
On Feb. 25, Taylor, now a San Francisco resident and honorary librarian and book editor for the San Francisco Garden Club, will revisit the topic and her book in a free talk at the Corte Madera Library. She will trace the tree’s journey, beginning in the 16th century when it arrived in Mexico through the present day.
Taylor confesses that she loves everything about olive trees “but particularly their color and shape,” and hopes guests at her lecture will leave as enthused about the olive tree as she has become.
The trees in her Tiburon garden were all Mission olives. “It was only after I got the history of the trees that I found about the non-fruiting trees.”
Fruiting olives trees produce edible olives; non-fruiting trees, which are ornamental only, do not.
“The trees stirred something in me that was almost dreamlike,” she says. “Their leaves are not the color we call ‘olive drab,’ but soft green on one side and dull silver on the other.”
They carry with them a fascinating history, as well as a mystery. They “parallel our civilization, from before the time of the ancient Greeks to the present. Yet, there is still no clearly recognized endemic site of its origin. Most of the ideas are guesses,” she says.
“While we think of the olive tree as perfectly adapted to the wet winter/dry summer Mediterranean cycle, in fact, if you go back far enough into evolution, the tree developed in a summer wet environment,” she says.
This is why for a truly excellent crop it is necessary to irrigate the trees vigorously in the summer.
“The Olive in California” was the first of six horticultural history books that Taylor has authored. Details on each one can be found on her website at horthistoria.com.
“You cannot just write one book just as you cannot eat only one potato chip,” she quips. “It is almost an addiction.”
Her research into California’s olive trees took her on a journey through the state’s agricultural and horticultural history, which led to her second book, “Tangible Memories: Californians and Their Gardens 1800 to 1950” (Xlibris Press, 2003). This was the result of discovering Harry M. Butterfield’s unpublished manuscript in a box in the University of California’s archives.
“Butterfield, who spent his entire professional life at the University of California at Berkeley in the agricultural extension department, basically established the field of California horticultural history by himself, writing a long series of articles in the horticultural literature over many years,” she says.
This book was followed by “The Global Migration of Ornamental Plants: How the World got into Your Garden,” (Missouri Botanical Garden Press, 2009), “Visions of Loveliness: Great Flower Breeders of the Past” (Ohio University Press, 2014)’ and her latest book, “A Five Year Plan for Geraniums: Growing Flowers Commercially in East Germany 1946-1989,” (Xlibris, 2019).
• Details: “The Olive in California: History of an Immigrant Tree” talk is from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Feb. 25 at the Corte Madera Library at 707 Meadowsweet Drive in Corte Madera. Admission is free. For more information, call 415-924-4844 or go to marinlibrary.org/cortemadera. Seating is limited; registration is advised.
—PJ Bremier
Don’t-miss events
• Novice gardeners can get tips at a free class “Gardening for Beginners” at 9 a.m. Feb. 23 at the Armstrong Garden Center at 1430 S. Novato Blvd. in Novato. Call 415-878-0493 or go to armstronggarden.com.
• Learn how to choose, plant and grow edible perennials from Bay-Friendly qualified landscape professional Lori Caldwell at 11 a.m. Feb. 23 in the Creekside Room at the Mill Valley Public Library at 375 Throckmorton Ave. in Mill Valley. Call 415-389-4292 or go to millvalleylibrary.org.
• Discover the best techniques for pruning Japanese maples at Sloat Garden Center at 10 a.m. Feb. 23 at 700 Sir Francis Drake Blvd. in Kentfield (415-454-0262) or 2 p.m. Feb 23 at 401 Miller Ave. in Mill Valley (415-388-0365). Admission is $10 or free for members. Go to sloatgardens.com.
• San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum has launched “Garden Camp,” an all-outdoors summer day camp from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. offering themed activities and open creative time for children entering kindergarten through third grade. The camp is handicap-accessible and offers optional early- or after-care. The cost is $400 per week per child with discounts for SFBG members. San Francisco Botanical Garden is at Ninth Ave. at Lincoln Way in San Francisco. Call 415-661-1316, extension 427, or go to sfbg.com/gardencamp.
PJ Bremier writes on home, garden, design and entertaining topics every Saturday and also on her blog at DesignSwirl.co. She may be contacted at P.O. Box 412, Kentfield 94914, or at pj@pjbremier.com.
The Marin Independent Journal
February 20, 2019 Issue
Home & Garden section
pg. 1 & 8
The Marin Independent Journal
The history and mystery of California’s olive trees
When London-born neurosurgeon Judith M. Taylor and her ophthalmologist husband, Irvin, moved from New York to Marin in 1994 to retire, they settled into a Tiburon home with a garden that needed attention.
With the help of San Rafael landscape architecture firm Pedersen Associates, the couple laid out a Mediterranean-inspired garden that included 24 olive trees similar to the ones she had admired at Strybing Arboretum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.
“Once all the trees were in the ground I was blown away by their beauty and rushed off to look for a book about them but could not find anything,” Taylor recalls. So, she set out to research their history and pen her first book, “The Olive in California: History of an Immigrant Tree” (Ten Speed Press, 2000).
On Feb. 25, Taylor, now a San Francisco resident and honorary librarian and book editor for the San Francisco Garden Club, will revisit the topic and her book in a free talk at the Corte Madera Library. She will trace the tree’s journey, beginning in the 16th century when it arrived in Mexico through the present day.
Taylor confesses that she loves everything about olive trees “but particularly their color and shape,” and hopes guests at her lecture will leave as enthused about the olive tree as she has become.
The trees in her Tiburon garden were all Mission olives. “It was only after I got the history of the trees that I found about the non-fruiting trees.”
Fruiting olives trees produce edible olives; non-fruiting trees, which are ornamental only, do not.
“The trees stirred something in me that was almost dreamlike,” she says. “Their leaves are not the color we call ‘olive drab,’ but soft green on one side and dull silver on the other.”
They carry with them a fascinating history, as well as a mystery. They “parallel our civilization, from before the time of the ancient Greeks to the present. Yet, there is still no clearly recognized endemic site of its origin. Most of the ideas are guesses,” she says.
“While we think of the olive tree as perfectly adapted to the wet winter/dry summer Mediterranean cycle, in fact, if you go back far enough into evolution, the tree developed in a summer wet environment,” she says.
This is why for a truly excellent crop it is necessary to irrigate the trees vigorously in the summer.
“The Olive in California” was the first of six horticultural history books that Taylor has authored. Details on each one can be found on her website at horthistoria.com.
“You cannot just write one book just as you cannot eat only one potato chip,” she quips. “It is almost an addiction.”
Her research into California’s olive trees took her on a journey through the state’s agricultural and horticultural history, which led to her second book, “Tangible Memories: Californians and Their Gardens 1800 to 1950” (Xlibris Press, 2003). This was the result of discovering Harry M. Butterfield’s unpublished manuscript in a box in the University of California’s archives.
“Butterfield, who spent his entire professional life at the University of California at Berkeley in the agricultural extension department, basically established the field of California horticultural history by himself, writing a long series of articles in the horticultural literature over many years,” she says.
This book was followed by “The Global Migration of Ornamental Plants: How the World got into Your Garden,” (Missouri Botanical Garden Press, 2009), “Visions of Loveliness: Great Flower Breeders of the Past” (Ohio University Press, 2014)’ and her latest book, “A Five Year Plan for Geraniums: Growing Flowers Commercially in East Germany 1946-1989,” (Xlibris, 2019).
• Details: “The Olive in California: History of an Immigrant Tree” talk is from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Feb. 25 at the Corte Madera Library at 707 Meadowsweet Drive in Corte Madera. Admission is free. For more information, call 415-924-4844 or go to marinlibrary.org/cortemadera. Seating is limited; registration is advised.
—PJ Bremier
Don’t-miss events
• Novice gardeners can get tips at a free class “Gardening for Beginners” at 9 a.m. Feb. 23 at the Armstrong Garden Center at 1430 S. Novato Blvd. in Novato. Call 415-878-0493 or go to armstronggarden.com.
• Learn how to choose, plant and grow edible perennials from Bay-Friendly qualified landscape professional Lori Caldwell at 11 a.m. Feb. 23 in the Creekside Room at the Mill Valley Public Library at 375 Throckmorton Ave. in Mill Valley. Call 415-389-4292 or go to millvalleylibrary.org.
• Discover the best techniques for pruning Japanese maples at Sloat Garden Center at 10 a.m. Feb. 23 at 700 Sir Francis Drake Blvd. in Kentfield (415-454-0262) or 2 p.m. Feb 23 at 401 Miller Ave. in Mill Valley (415-388-0365). Admission is $10 or free for members. Go to sloatgardens.com.
• San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum has launched “Garden Camp,” an all-outdoors summer day camp from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. offering themed activities and open creative time for children entering kindergarten through third grade. The camp is handicap-accessible and offers optional early- or after-care. The cost is $400 per week per child with discounts for SFBG members. San Francisco Botanical Garden is at Ninth Ave. at Lincoln Way in San Francisco. Call 415-661-1316, extension 427, or go to sfbg.com/gardencamp.
PJ Bremier writes on home, garden, design and entertaining topics every Saturday and also on her blog at DesignSwirl.co. She may be contacted at P.O. Box 412, Kentfield 94914, or at pj@pjbremier.com.
The Marin Independent Journal
February 20, 2019 Issue
Home & Garden section
pg. 1 & 8
