Introduction to California’s Beaches and Coast

There must be at least a million gardeners in California with gardens influenced, and impacted, by their coastal marine setting. They have learned through experience what does well and what does not in conditions of sandy soil, wind, salty air, brilliant sunlight, and fog. While this book is not aimed at gardeners, it will provide a good deal of information that may help them in the future, and will offer a great deal of enjoyment to those who visit the California coast.

Griggs is a first-class writer who knows the coastline through his work as director of the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California at Santa Cruz. As one who grew up in or on the Pacific Ocean, I was fascinated-and educated-by the way he presented such topics as sand, earthquakes, weather, climate, and the evolution of the state’s 1,100-mile coastline.

Griggs never gets around to telling us about the easy success of growing rugosa roses in sand, but his long section on sand is revealing. Superb photographs by the author compliment this latest in the series of California Natural History Guides.

William Grant, rosarian
Aptos, California