4/28/10

Whoopsee

I'm sorry I haven't posted in so long. I will be back soon.

Busy, so busy.

Meanwhile, this is what dusk looked like tonight from my back window.

San Francisco

Bernal Heights

San Francisco

Bernal Heights

Bernal Heights

4/17/10

Ruth Risdon Storer Garden, UC Davis

Here are some pictures from another garden we visited last week at UC Davis. This is the Ruth Risdon Storer Garden, "designed for year-round color with low water use and low maintenance" suitable for landscapes in California's warm Central Valley.

Ruth Risdon Storer Garden; UC Davis

Ruth Risdon Storer Garden; UC Davis

Ruth Risdon Storer Garden; UC Davis

Ruth Risdon Storer Garden; UC Davis

Ruth Risdon Storer Garden; UC Davis

Ruth Risdon Storer Garden; UC Davis

Ruth Risdon Storer Garden; UC Davis

Sophora secundiflora 'Silver Peso'

Ruth Risdon Storer Garden; UC Davis

Ruth Risdon Storer Garden; UC Davis

Ruth Risdon Storer Garden; UC Davis

Ruth Risdon Storer Garden; UC Davis

Ruth Risdon Storer Garden; UC Davis

We visited this garden once before in June 2007.

4/15/10

Bloom Day

I still have two more blog posts to write from my weekend in Sacramento, but this is Bloom Day and that comes first.

April is usually an exciting month in my garden. Not this April.

Iris + Skipper

It was kind of exciting when the skipper climbed inside the iris for a drink while I was standing there with my camera.

Iris + Skipper

It's kind of exciting to see the Bartlettina start to flower.

Bartlettina sordida

There's pretty much nothing exciting about 2 nasturtium flowers.

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Raspberry flowers are exciting so close up, but not as exciting as picking actual raspberries.

raspberry

Being lightly scented, apple flowers are only marginally more exciting than raspberry flowers.

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The huge, glorious Fremontodendron we saw in the cemetery last weekend renders my little sapling totally unexciting.

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The very few wildflowers we have blooming right only seem to emphasize how very few wildflowers we have blooming right now.

Phacelia

The excitement surrounding
Fuchsia fulgens
would be greatly increased by having tons of flowers instead of a mere half-dozen at the end of one stem.

Fuchsia fulgens

Okay, it's pretty exciting to think we'll soon have four poppy flowers on one plant, especially because we have four more poppy plants.

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The cineraria would've been more exciting if it had retained some of the dramatic, electric blues it's known to have and not reverted back to the generic magenta.

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And finally, the Triteleia bulbs would have been more exciting if any one of them had sent up more than one umbel. But noooo.

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I hope your Bloom Day was more exciting than mine. If not, perhaps you found something more exciting at May Dreams.

4/12/10

Good Life Garden at the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, UC Davis

Located just outside of Sacramento, UC Davis is one of the West's great agriculture schools. The campus contains many fine, interesting gardens, including a relatively new edibles garden at the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science...

Good Life Garden; UC Davis

Welcome to the Good Life Garden, a stunning organic potager that clearly illustrates the benefit of using "strong bones" in the garden. See how well this design fits in its very modern site context. One might even feel the garden beautifies the surrounding architecture. The same basic design elements would do the same thing in any setting.

Good Life Garden; UC Davis

Good Life Garden; UC Davis

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Good Life Garden; UC Davis

Good Life Garden; UC Davis

Good Life Garden; UC Davis

Good Life Garden; UC Davis

Good Life Garden; UC Davis

Good Life Garden; UC Davis

Good Life Garden; UC Davis

Good Life Garden; UC Davis

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Good Life Garden; UC Davis

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Does anyone want to say that vegetable gardening can't be pretty?

4/11/10

Old City Cemetery

I was in Sacramento this weekend with Carri from Read Between the Limes. We visited the Old City Cemetery. Do you remember our last visit 3 years ago? I have longed to return.

To recap: 25,000 people (including many notable, early Californians) have their final resting place in these 44 acres. In the 1980s, concerned citizens organized to save the cemetery from neglect. Today, volunteers adopt cemetery plots as plant them as garden beds.

From the website:
The Cemetery has been refurbished with plants, flowers, and bushes and now also includes three major dedicated garden areas - Historic Gold Rush era roses (Historic Rose Garden, Bruner and Cadwalder areas); Perennial Plants (Hamilton Square Garden); and Native Plants (Native Plant Demonstration Garden).

The mission of the Old City Cemetery Committee is:

To join hands with the community to restore, beautify, preserve and protect the Historic City Cemetery, while maintaining access by descendants of the deceased, and to provide educational services to all visitors to the Historic City Cemetery of Sacramento.
You have to visit the Deep South to find a cemetery as beautiful, and even then...

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This Rosa Banksiae 'Lutea' at its annual peak, climbing yews, stopped us in our tracks.

Rosa banksiae 'Lutea'

It was climbing two big yews.

Rosa banksiae 'Lutea'

Rosa banksiae 'Lutea'

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We were a couple weeks late for Ceanothus, but still!

Rosa Banksiae was far from the only showstopper.

Fremontodendron californicum

We were a couple weeks late for the peak of blue-flowered Ceanothus. Instead we enjoyed the much rarer sight of some rather enormous Fremontodendron californicum in full spring glory.

Fremontodendron

Fremontodendron

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Rarer still were these large specimens of endangered Berberis nevinii, planted in a dramatic sequence.

Berberis nevinii

Berberis nevinii

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"His life was gentle; and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up,
And say to all the world, this was a man."
(Shakespeare)

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arctotis