CornerStone Gardens

We drove up to Sonoma today and stopped at CornerStone Gardens--several acres of exhibition space for landscape designers with some fancy shops and galleries. Perhaps most notably, John Greenlee has a meadow installation here, which will get its own post (here). In the meantime, here are some of the other things I liked, and didn't like. If you've seen posts about CornerStone on other garden blogs, you've probably seen most of these pictures before.

But I did not bother with the big blue chair.







I assume these are Marcia Donahue pieces.



She bakes pieces of clay put them sticks to simulate groovy bamboo. It's fine, I like it.



Dramatic, spherical stones? Check.



This seems like a good time to buzz through the shopping area.



I disdain the design impulse to take something functional and make it merely decorative, unless the thing itself has no practical function left in it and is being decoratively re-purposed. What actual birds would ever nest in these? The holes are too large, for one thing.



This, on the other hand, is perfectly decorative, and it would be great in the garden if it still functioned as a light source too.



I am sorry I didn't ask about these large stone penises.



Meditative faces in sculptural repose: fancy garden gnomes of our time?



I can't help wonder.



If there was only one thing I would actually buy in a place like this, it would be a wire sphere.





And maybe a crate or two of blue glass chunks.



Chunks of blue glass enchantingly line the paths at Lotusland.



Back in the garden, there was not much conventional gardening. I could let this one picture represent its extent.



Except that I have to mention this sprawling bed of blue-blooming Salvia uliginosa which positively BUZZED with pollinators. I think the secret to heavy bloom must be regular heat, something I cannot provide in San Francisco.



I also have to mention this South African bed, remarkable for its dusty late season color palette. Too dusty for you?



Green it up with some rosemary.



I like composting walls.



These were filled with eucalyptus debris and exuded the smell of that. There's always a few weeks of the year when eucalyptus trees themselves smell like cat pee, but most of the time I enjoy their fragrance. It's a tree many of us have a difficult relationship with. My grandparents had several on their property so I have a positive association with them in that regard.



But as far as garden screens and fencing go, I think composting walls are totally groovy and I imagine they're far more economical over time than a wooden fence. I'm not sure you would call one this thin a composting wall, but maybe you do, I don't know. I've seen thicker versions in gardens along the coast filled with redwood tree litter.



I particularly liked this turf and turf-alternative demonstration area.



You can walk on the long strips barefoot to see what you like.



I know zero about turf, but there seemed to be many different varieties. Some curatorial notes would have been nice. I noticed right away the skipper butterflies and bees lingering over only the weediest-looking strip of oxalis and clover...



There was a lot of gimmicky, wackadoo sculpture stuff that I didn't care for.



I guess you could write that you love people and want world peace on these shiny strips.



I'm not entirely unsentimental. I liked this metal heart fencing in the juncus.



But I would not allow it in my garden, personally.



(That white vapor floating in the back came from a misting apparatus.)

I found the food areas most interesting, especially all the grape growing models. This being wine country, that was no surprise.



You can have quite a productive vine staked on a metal trellis 2-3 feet wide and less than 1 food deep. And grow strawberries underneath it.



Also lots of tomatoes, corn and basil.



Totally at the end of the tomato season. It's funny how they get smaller and smaller as summer grinds into fall.



I got rid of all my squash a few weeks ago. Moldy leaves.



The corn beds looked full and fabulous and provoked those familiar pangs of garden envy.



Sigh...



Sunflowers and corn, a tall grass, formed a fine border between the food garden and John Greenlee's meadow garden.

Russian River Rose Company

I've been following garden writer Alice Joyce on Twitter, @BayAreaTendrils. From there I found her blog where she recently wrote about the Russian River Rose Company in Sonoma County wine country, an hour north of San Francisco.

Russian River Roses is a mom-and-pop rose grower. They started out selling tomatoes and cucumbers at farmer's markets, until one day they brought some cut roses from their garden to sell, and sold out right away. A lot people were selling tomatoes and cucumbers, but noone was selling cut roses. Soon, the vegetable garden became a rose garden.

In addition to growing roses they also distill their own rose oil and make rose water. They invite the public to participate in that experience during weekend workshops in April and May. You can get details about that, and all their roses, on their website. We just visited today because we were curious to see the rose garden itself which is also open to the public only in April and May.

As they have no money for advertising, I am doing my part to help get the word out. Workshops are a good deal, ranging in price from $10-$50, refreshments included. It's apparently not too late to register for workshops this April and May.

Without further ado, let's get to the gardens, which circle the house.

Note: In some cases I named the roses pictured. If I did, the name should appear when you mouse over the picture.



































I did not follow the self-guided tour, but I took pictures of a few signs.









Vineyards surround the rose garden. I took a few pictures of grapes too.



What I know about growing grapes could fit into a very thin volume.







Miles of northern California look like this now. Well, they have for decades.



Some of the older vines remind me of the bonsai garden in Gorst.



Getting back to the roses...



I suppose if you're on the fence and you still need another reason to come here it might help to learn they sell the roses they grow. I'm sure you know many of these very old varieties are not widely available in northern California nurseries. Here's you're chance if you live here.



I believe the website catalogs the extensive inventory of what's for sale.



In addition to roses, they sell many plant materials for butterfly gardens and a lot of bearded irises, including this one, 'Hello Darkness' which photographed purple but in real life was very nearly black.



This rose 'Butterscotch' intrigued me, but I need to research these things first



Their website would seem to indicate that 'Oklahoma' is their most/best fragrant rose so I was eager to encounter it when I came here. I wanted to compare it with 'Jude the Obscure', the rose I consider to have the most/best fragrance.



When it comes to roses, I am less than a novice. But if you want my opinion, 'Oklahoma' was nice, but it's no 'Jude the Obscure'.

Here's the rose water set-up. I smelled the sample bottle and it was quite amazing and hard to describe. What came immediately to mind was "a bowl of very ripe, tropical fruit". That's a poor description, but that's what I came up with.



That little sign on the left says, "Just a few drops of rose water transforms Champaign to delicious heights." I think they mean Champagne, but I'm sure the college town in Illinois would also be improved with a few drops of rose water.

Speaking of Illinois, why don't we end with this thought from that state's other notable US President:



You gotta love that good-old Midwestern common sense.