This is Ocean Beach, San Francisco's west coast.
Cold, windswept, and foggy most of the time, this is not your iconographic California beach. Still, it's a nice place to come clear your mind. It can be spectacular on a nice day. But you enjoy it on the sand. The water is dangerous here, even for wading. Powerful rip currents not infrequently whisk away the unwary.
Looking north in the picture above, and doing a 360 below.
This wasn't a beach day for me. I had some work to do at my client's house, and then I wanted to visit the landscaping behind the Park Chalet, a restaurant across the street from the beach.
I came by here last fall and remembered seeing a variety of carefree performers for this very coastal climate. I made a mental note to come see it again in spring.
For whatever, I was more impressed last year than I am today. Anyway, here's what I found.
All the common Cistus.
Cistus x skanbergii isn't very photogenic, but I do like the little pink flowers.
Cistus x hybridus and Acacia melanoxylon.
Tropaeolum (Nasturtium, if you like) leaves get this big all over Golden Gate Park.
Leonotis--a good plant I think. Hummingbirds like it too.
I'm warming up to yellow Phlomis, but I still like the pink one better.
Salvias.
There's a Ceanothus for every [mediterranean-type] micro-climate.
I can't groove on Phormium. They look fine when they're young, but they do not age well. And they get too big. And digging them up to divide is huge work. Who needs it. And Limonium--strictly for office parks? Well, this is kinda nice.
Across another street, the Queen Wilhelmina Tulip Garden is really grossing me out today.
I don't care what anyone says: red + yellow is a horrid, awful, repulsive color combination. I hate it.
(I may eat those words when Aquilegia formosa shows up in a Bloom Day post later this year.)
But today...yellow tulips under-planted with red + yellow primula? Eww.
I'm not even walking in there.
9 comments:
Hmmm, that red and yellow does not delight, I agree. But the peaceful serenity at the beach is something I can wrap my psyche around.
Frances
Those yellow tulips withe red primula are indeed yucky. What a shame. They could have used a blue or purple primula and it might have been very nice.
To each his own, of course, but that red and yellow works OK for me because of the little yellow eyes in the primula. That Dutch windmill is a bit strange, however.
More Miami than San Francisco, I think.
I'm with you on the red-yellow combo. UGH & Phooey! My least favorite color combo. Yellow and purple would have been nice or even yellow and dark blue.
It's way too McDonald's.
Red and yellow? Ugh.
That said, I'm finally learning to appreciate orange and pink together, but only if they're cool colors.
The beach looks like a wonderful place to walk and think. I miss San Francisco.
Is that thing a pepper mill or a windmill?
LOL..."way too McDonald's"...absolutely!
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