A friend said, “since you are in the area you might want to check out Sierra Azul Nursery on your way up.” So we thought we could squeeze it in for about 30 minutes. After all, I’m traveling so I can’t buy any plants, and it is only two acres of gardens. But our thinking was way off base because this is a wonderful nursery with a great variety of plants, helpful advice, and information. It is also a demonstration gardens of plants matured and interwoven through a natural setting not unlike one could do in their own garden. It is also an art gallery every year from May 31 thru Oct. showcasing art for the garden.
Category: Pacific Region, US
Lotusland, Santa Barbara, CA
Gardening with a passion from the early 40s to the 1980’s Madam Ganna Walska found something she liked, a shrub, a tree, a type of glass and then she used alot of it. When you have 37 acres to garden this style works. So an agave can be 500 agaves massed along the entrance to the garden. A ponytail palm can become a stand of trees, green glass slag from an old bottle plant can line the garden beds. This garden was built with passion, money and serendipity as Madam discovered more about plants and pretty things.
Self-Realization Fellowship, The Lake Shrine
Pacific Palisades, CA
Peace and serenity are found here. In 1950 Paramahansa Yogananda opened this ten acre site. “This shrine is dedicated to all religions that all may feel the unity of a common faith in the Fatherhood of God.”
Merton Fig Tree, Santa Barbara, CA
I have always loved trees. Seriously felt a special affinity toward them. There was a huge black walnut tree in the field east of my childhood home. There were sugar maples surrounding our home, there was the tulip tree in the back of the house. All of them beautifully shaped and deciduous marking the change of seasons. Through the years I have noticed trees, stopped in mid-step, touched the arm of my walking companion and said “Wow, look at that tree!”
San Diego Botanic Gardens
230 Quail Gardens Dr, Encinitas, CA
Truly I find it hard to say I have a favorite garden. When I travel and visit gardens I enjoy the very moment in that garden. However the San Diego Botanic garden holds a special place in my gardening heart. What doesn’t grow wonderfully here? This trip was a misty day with lots of moisture in the garden. Droplets on leaves and blooms sparkled everywhere you looked. But this day I happened to meet Margaret Jones, who describes herself as the “fashion maven of the well dressed topiaries of the succulent garden” A garden volunteer she applies her pallet of plants to the garden resident plant people modeled on human form. Each of the plant people has two garden volunteers working to keep them well dressed. There are a team of 10 working on the topiaries. Pat Hammer is director of Operations for SDBG and is responsible for bringing the topiaries to SDBG. Originally they were all covered with ivy. Now the clothing fashion is changing to succulents.
Garden of Fragrance
“Stumbling on new smells is one of the delights of traveling.” – Diane Ackerman
In a small conservatory built of red brick with huge copper framed windows and an interior graced with a pair of white doves in an ornate wire cage, pots of fragrant white lilies perfumed the air. A woman walked in followed reluctantly by a tween age girl. “Ewww!” the child cried out, “what’s that smell?” Her mother, perhaps by now frustrated at her daughter’s lack of enthusiasm for this day in the garden, replied, “It’s fresh air.” The daughter’s reply, “Well, I don’t like it!”
Counting Plants
Not everything that can be counted counts, Not everything that counts can be counted. – Albert Einstein
Winding uphill through the streets of Berkeley, we arrive at the University of CA Botanical Garden in Strawberry Canyon. There we are faced with a decision of paying the parking meter for the number of hours we need to explore the garden. The garden holds over 12,000 plants including many rare and endangered plant specimens. Director Paul Licht does the math for visitors. “If you allow only 2 hours, a 120 min. visit would require that you see 100 different kinds of plants per minute to experience our entire collection.” Obviously we will need a full day, even then we won’t truly see all of the plants. Those we do see will be only a glimpse of life of the plants. A plant today may be dormant, budding, blooming or declining.
Lilacs in Southern California
The lilacs are blooming in Descanso Gardens in La Canada-Flintridge CA. Lilacs need a cool season to generate their blooms in the spring. The cultivars in southern California have been adapted to this climate. The beauty of these delicate blooms is compounded by their varieties of color in lilac lavender, deep purple, pink, and white. The scent of lilacs generates so many responses from visitors. One woman inhaling deeply, declared, “this is my childhood, I grew up with these all around my house.” Another remembers a Grandmother’s house and smiles wistfully at the memory.
Garden Gates
Enter Into The New
As the new year stretches out before us fresh and full of possibilities many of us pause to mark the transition with resolutions, lucky foods and personal traditions. These actions help frame our expectation of what the new year will bring. We approach the new year nearly holding our breath in anticipation of what will come.
Filoli, Woodside, CA
Here & There
Returning from my travels this Fall I was unaware that I was suffering from a bad case of “California Garden Delusion” fever. It set in as I was driving from the Pacific coast home to Mesa. All along the route I was preoccupied with my own garden imagining where I could redesign the space and insert a profusion of flowers, vegetables and berries. Upon returning home, in I wandered through my garden marking the doomed plants for removal. Then feverishly with pick axe, shovel and compost the transformation began. A week later and with every muscle in my body crying out in pain I was finished preparing the bed but the temperatures were still reaching 100 degrees. My “Garden Delusion” fever broke and I began to rethink the types of plants I would be growing in my newly prepared space.