As Ideas Take Root

The Getty Center occupies an intense site. Perched high atop a hill, just a few miles from the ocean, it has an unusually extreme degree of exposure to the elements. It’s an unlikely spot for a fragile outdoor sculpture, yet this is where Robert Irwin--an artist known for ethereal installations fashioned out of manipulated light--has executed the most ambitious project of his career: the Getty’s Central Garden. And he’s still working on it, returning regularly to fine-tune and add new plants.

From its inception, Irwin’s garden has been a subject of controversy among the gardening community, which took issue with his decision not to build it around drought-resistant California native plants. They also resented that the design of this $7-million display garden was entrusted to a visual artist, rather than to someone from their own ranks.

The hostility was already brewing when the garden had its unveiling in December at the sparest point in its seasonal cycle, so it wasn’t surprising that it was given a thrashing in the horticultural press. What Irwin wasn’t prepared for was the roughing up the garden experienced at the hands of Mother Nature.

“It’s been a trial by fire,” says the artist of the first months of the garden, which revolves around a tree-lined, zigzagging path straddling a stream that descends to the base of a hill. At the bottom, the stream collects into a pool surrounding a maze planted with azaleas.

“Planting on a hillside in the midst of an El Nin~o, with deer devouring plants as fast as we could bring them in--we lost a lot of plants during those first months and were lucky to have anything in the ground at all,” the artist remembers. The deer problem was solved with an elaborate fencing system, but, he says, “the El Nin~o hit before the plants had rooted themselves, and the winds were so strong they literally blew plants out of the ground.”

Did the garden lose any trees to El Nin~o?

“Don’t even say that,” Irwin replies, a look of terror flickering across his face. “So far we haven’t lost any trees, although in the beginning the water system wasn’t working well and the root balls of the London plane trees weren’t getting wet enough. We now deep-water them--this is a complex garden and we’re still learning how to water it.”

Irwin admits he’s learning as he goes, but he appears to be a fast learner. In the midst of a temperate summer with El Nin~o a fading memory, the garden now looks remarkably lush, considering that it’s been in the ground just nine months, and it’s been hugely popular with the general public. Irwin is quick to point out, however, that it is still in its infancy.

“This summer the garden was too sunny to serve as a place to eat lunch, but that won’t be the case next year,” says the 70-year-old artist, who lives in San Diego with his wife, Adele, and their 5-year-old daughter. “The bougainvillea will fill out, the London plane will make a canopy over the path, and areas now in sun will be shaded.”

‘I Want to Try Lots of Things,’ Irwin Says

Strolling through the garden with Irwin on a day when the Getty Center is closed, one finds the descending path strewn with young plants in plastic buckets waiting to take their place among the artist’s tapestry of texture and color. Two workers in wading boots push scrubbers across the tile of the azalea pool, while another gardener mows the massive stretches of grass that flank the garden.

“On Mondays, we go through the garden and discuss what’s succeeding, what isn’t, and what to do about it,” says Irwin, who works closely with Richard Naranjo, the Getty’s manager of grounds and gardens, and horticulturist Jim Douggan.

“My proposal for the garden gives me three years to plant it, and I want to try lots of things,” he adds. “I’m constantly looking for new plants, and I’m not restricting myself, because jumping to obvious conclusions would take the fun out of it. At the moment we’re looking for plants that are bare, with berries on them, and I’d also love to find some mature poinsettia. They appear by the thousands every Christmas, then get discarded, but if you plant them, they turn into a gorgeous bush that’s impossible to buy anywhere. Whenever I spot one in a yard, I consider going up to the door and asking the owner if they’d consider selling it.

“This area behind you is damned handsome,” he says, pointing to a dense cluster of plants next to the stream. “There are nine different plants right there, and I think they’re knitted together beautifully.

“The plantings along the stream are mostly perennials, and this section is in good shape. The area surrounding the azalea pool is more complicated because it’s an annual garden, and that’s where most of the replanting has been done,” adds the artist, who recently returned from Manhattan, where he had spent three weeks installing the second of two installations commissioned by the DIA Foundation. (The piece opens at DIA on Sept. 13.)

“We’ve got lots of plants we were told wouldn’t grow here that are doing fine, while others have been a disappointment. Take these lace-cap hydrangea, for instance,” he says of a pale blue flower. “We were counting on them earlier in the year to fill out a particular area, and they just weren’t ready when we were. They’re looking pretty good now, but it’s taken them awhile.”

Arriving at the base of the hill, Irwin’s attention shifts to a slatted metal guardrail that helps define the plaza overlooking the pool; the rail was supposed to be covered with morning-glory. “This isn’t flowering the way I’d hoped it would,” he mutters with a furrowed brow as he pinches off a withered leaf. “The plants were put in late and were drowned by the rains, then they weren’t cared for properly. Next year it should do better.”

Asked how he feels about the criticism he’s received from the gardening community, Irwin says, “It’s understandable. Most gardeners would kill for an opportunity like this. I take it with a sense of humor because everything’s going fine as far as I’m concerned.

“One magazine ran a piece that said, ‘We all agree the garden is terrible. Please submit your suggestions on how to fix it.’ So I sent in mine: I suggested patience.

“I’m doing things gardeners don’t do, and they should relax and view it as a case study, if nothing else,” he says of the 134,000-square-foot parcel of land, which is tended by four full-time gardeners. “The hardscape is more sculptural than anything you’d normally find in a garden, and I’m approaching plant material as if it were paint. We have 300 varieties of plants here, and I’m trying to find new ways of combining them.”

Gazing down at the pool, Irwin notes the abundance of coins that have settled on its tiled bottom.

“I didn’t expect people to throw change into the pool, but it doesn’t bother me,” says the artist, who’ll be the subject of “The Beauty of Questions,” a documentary filmed over a five-year period that airs on the Ovation channel Oct. 5.

“When you build something outdoors, you have to accept that things will happen, and your creation has to have enough character to survive these things. I think the garden’s strong enough to live with a few surprises.”

* The Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Brentwood; (310) 440-7300. Parking reservations are required for those not coming by public transportation.