Looking at nature and culture in Malibu, California, this paper looks at how natural processes occurring in rapid succession—over months and years—have been subject to efforts to turn the area into a tame and orderly garden as part of a linear understanding of progress, closely linked to civility and the cultivation of nature. In doing so, it reminds us that our ideals are often expressed in what we grow, and teaches us how we are caught up in the cross-currents of culture and the rule of nature.
DOI: doi.org/10.5282/rcc/7320