Lighting up my garden in the Marina.

Two Years On - Roof Top deck in Richmond

It's hard to see, but these two photos are of the same containers, two years apart.  French Lavender is growing through and completely obscuring the white picker railing.  The Hollywood Junipers are growing taller and filling out.  The windows of their back neighbor almost completely gone.

Garden Wildlife

 Arriving late in the afternoon, I find Salsa already out in the garden.  This LoverBoy, Salsa, is not doing well.  His Cancer is taking its toll.   I love seeing him out in the garden "stalking" butterflies.  He doesn't kill.  Just watches.  I love his spirit.

Last of the Dahlias

I think this is the last week for Dahlias.   But it was a good week.   I really into the golden upper petal/burgundy under petal variety called Dahlia 'Gets Crazy' from Swan Island.   It's a big dahlia and I didn't adequately stake it this year but works well with Aster 'Little Carlow'.  

Other notable Dahlias this year: Dahlia 'Ripples' and Dahlia 'Nicholas'.

2018 Dahlias Blooming

Dearborn Community Garden Plot #12

Fall Asters with Dahlias and feverfew.  

Prague, Czechia

 

Budapest, Hungary

 

Athens, Greece

 

Week in Mykonos - Travel Buddies Edition

A week in Berlin

Oh the trees of Berlin.  Wow, I would love to live in a forested city.

English Double Border in Small San Francisco Back Yard

This garden was planted in March of 2016.  It is barely 2 years 5 months old.   Second photo was taken on February 9, 2016.   The growth has been phenomenal.   Some of the new blossoms this month include Agapanthus, Aster x 2, Gladiolus and ...

Planting a Small Garden Tightly

This garden has three different faces or attitudes and all packed into a small 10 x 20 foot space.   The five round Pittosporum 'Golf Ball' really hold the mess together and help differentiate the three views.

What's blooming in August in the Fog?

Vitex agnus-castus with dots of white little pom-pom Dahlia 'Tiny Treasure'

Yuba River Day

Oh how I've been longing to get out of San Francisco and feel some real summer heat.   Yuba River.  Emerald water, white granite and some trees.   Not too hot, 86.   Smokey drive up to Grass Valley.  The Central Valley was dense smog.  It's what LA was in the 1970's.

FOG! The beginning of our second winter....

July is the start of our second winter when this massive blanket of fog engulfs The City.   From now through August and sometimes mid-way through September, we surrender to depression and extra coffee.  Soup is good too.  I use some of this time to travel.  The photo below is from my roof deck looking toward Castro showing just the top of Sutro Tower on Twins Peaks.  In foreground is the spire for The Mission Delores.   

Sidewalk "Hell-Strip" Planting

I love all plants but succulents in general don't make it into my gardens.  Succulents have a many great fans and I do appreciate their easy, low maintenance qualities.   Design wise, most plantings look like someone up-chucked a kaleidoscope.   Most people fail by choosing too many varieties of color, texture and stature.   I came accross this street side planting and instantly appreciated the simple, refined palette choice.   Like most planting schemes, limited number of plant but repeated is the way to go.  

What makes this planting successful is just three plants repeated.   Aeonium, Cotyledon orbiculata and Senecio.

Street of San Francisco - Jacaranda

Jacaranda mimosifolia in full bloom along 14th Street in San Francisco.

Plant Profile: Plectranthus neochilus

This lovely aromatic Plectranthus is an easy, non-stop flowering perennial here in San Francisco.   It is not at all cold tolerate and will turn to black mush anywhere near 32 degrees F.  Most places it must be considered an annual. What makes this plant so spectacular here is it's ability to root anywhere, any time of the year.   I toss my clippings where ever I want it to root and establish and it does!   I got mine at Plectranthus neochilus at Annie's Annuals.

Here it is with Verbena and Nigella.

Streets of San Francisco - E line

On my way home, I pull up behind the Melbourne Car #496 going home from a day of work on the new E-line.   The E-line connects Fisherman's Wharf with Caltrain running the entire way along the Embarcardo.  Next to gardens, trains are a dear passion of mine.

Streets of San Francisco - Bernal Heights

An unseasonably blue sky today in San Francisco.  This neighborhood has uniquely small lots, small cottages, small gardens and some steep streets.  Click on MUG Bernal Gardens to see my work.   I currently have one garden in Bernal Heights but have worked over 9 sites on all sides of the hill.

Plant Profile: Datura wrightii

Up next in my plant profile is Datura wrightii.   I got mine at Annie's Annuals.   My friend Frank calls it a ditch plant and I'm sure he is right.   It thrives in disturb, impoverished soil.  I let a few of the seed heads ripen and toss them about my garden   They will come up where others won't, usually dry, crappy areas.   The leaves are beautiful and is the main attraction for me.  The blooms only last a day or two but are beautiful too.

Sowing Seeds for This Fall

Here's the seed packets I'm sowing for the fall 2018.   These Ageratum I found at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds look gorgeous.   I know they never look exactly like the photo on the seed packet or catalog but I have hopes for this one.   I like the electric blue.  Or how about a pink dandelion-like annual?

Mendocino Garden Update

It's been three years since I helped update the planting schemes in this Mendocino Coast house.   It is right on the coast, no less than 50 feet from the Pacific Ocean.   The wind can be fierce.   This part of the garden is the hot border.  Yellows, Oranges and Reds with a bit of cool purples.

Plant Profile: Pericallis-x-hybrida-giovannas-select, Senecio stellata 'Giovanni' or Cinerarias???

I'm enjoying putting together the elements that make a beautiful garden in San Francisco.  This is the first in a series of plant profiles of those plants that do so well for us in San Francisco.  This is a good plant to start with as it may be endemic to San Francisco and maybe the greater SF Bay Area.

I'm talking about the delicate aster-like blooms of white-pink-blue.  I've only seen them in San Francisco gardens but never for sale in the local nurseries.  According to Pam Pierce, this Pericallis (Cineraria) has naturalized in the garden from the cultivars of several parent species from the Canary Islands.  Check out Pam's informative article on Cineraria.

Anyway it is beautiful.  Oh and it likes shade, either dry or wet, deep or partial.

Pygmy Forest Northern California

Inland, a boardwalked nature trail leads through a pygmy forest, where poor soil has created a marshy ecosystem of stunted cypress and pine trees and rhododendrons. There are two pygmy forested areas within Van Damme State Park. On the north border of the park is a 5-acre (2.0 ha) parcel named in honor of Charlotte M. Hoak.^[5

Digging Dog Nursery Tour

While on a long weekend vacation in Mendocino, we stopped by Digging Dog Nursery in Albion.  Here's what I saw blooming.

Roses on Bernal Heights

My cottage garden on Bocana Street in Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco is producing the roses.

Plant Palette - My Roses

I love my roses.  They produce so many outstanding flowers and fragrance.  I've only been planting David Austin roses the last couple of years.   Here's the roses blooming in my gardens this spring.

We'll start off with my favorite at the moment.  Queen of Sweden what do I like about you?  I love the upright tight cups of pink.  Delicate pink above a glaucous leaf.   Stunning.

Gold, Silver and Bronze Border

Today was great.  I'm finishing up a short but packed work week in order to get out of town for a 4-day holiday in Mendocino.   My friend Frank is turning 50.  Ha!  We're gonna have a party.   Last garden of the day before my holiday starts and it was looking stunning.   This garden is a theater stage floorplan with the main bed being a gold,silver and bronze English border.  The Irises we're the character today.

San Francisco Gardener's Tour - Glen Park

Finally to my terrace garden in Glen Park.  This is my masterpiece.  Double wide lot on a south face slope.  The brunt of the Pacific is buffered by the cliffs of Glen Canyon.  An exceptional microclimate; it is the soil that is a challenge.   It has been at least two, maybe three years since I last showed this garden to a group and the changes are dramatic.  The changes include huge addition of white flowers, new roses, irise, alliums, poppies, ranunculus, scabiosa, Sidalcea hendersonii (Henderson's Checkermallow).   Pinks and purples are good too but no hot colors. This spring I began a project to extend the formal white garden 5 fold up into what was the mediterranean terrace and will become the white cottage garden.

San Francisco Gardener's Tour - Potrero Hill

Jeannine's Potrero Hill Garden is a spacious double lot with lots of large interesting tree in the neighboring garden looking up the hill.   An exquisite Dymondia margaretae lawn with blue flagstone path.  The building of the raised beds is the owner's project.  It will be a diamond space parterre with five wood raised beds instead of boxwood hedge.  I love the red clover.

San Francisco Gardener's Tour - Dean Ouellette Garden

Next up in our local gardener's garden tour is Dean Ouellette's California Cottage Garden.   There's two parts to Dean's garden.  The strip of garden on the sidewalk next to where the cars park.  It's notoriously difficult spot to garden and that's why I call it the hell strip.   Behind the main building, a courtyard is created between the main residence and Dean's cottage.   In this courtyard is his California Cottage Garden test ground and nursery.

This year Dino added the flagstone curb around the street tree basin.   I love what he did.  He sunk the flagstone vertical 5-6 inches into the soil at the edge of the sidewalk concrete.   This does a wonderful job of keeping dogs out and trash and litter from accumulating.

San Francisco Gardener's Tour - Pacific Heights

After a decent rainy season, our Spring has been delightful.   Somewhat regularly spaced winter storms gave us a small but decent amount of water.   I'm not so sure about the snow pack.   It's been a couple of years since our last garden tour in San Francisco.  There's new things to see but more important it's a forum for ideas.   These are professionally maintained gardens by us.  We're the gardeners.  It our tour.

Up first in Pacific Heights is Frank Eddy's garden.   This is the 2nd season for the garden under his care and guidance.   Blooming among the roses are linaria, pansies & digitalis, Lychnis coronaria and Aquilegia vulgaris hybrid.

SPRING Flowers of San Francisco

Twenty-five plants in blossom in my 12' x 7' raised bed.

So our seasons or climate are not like everyone else's. Forget your New England Lilac. English Tulips.  No.  We have distinctive growing seasons. Mainly growth, slumber, muted growth and finally rest. Those translate to spring summer, fall and winter of most of the rest of North American and Europe.

In San Francisco, you may see Dahlias blooming in the ground in February. Or Asters in May. Most perennials shrubs I work with will bloom twice every year. We have SPRING, dry, spring, water.

Returning to Saint Francis Woods Garden

Second year of a garden restoration in a lovely neighborhood of San Francisco, Saint Francis Woods.   Can't get any more nature lovers than in Saint Francis Woods in San Francisco.  

The olive hedge has filled in nicely.  The two Iceberg standard rose are only ok.  Both already have black spot.  Neither look like a rose should in May!  I fed them compost and Maxsea.  

The lawn look great.  A low water mix of festue, yarrow and english daisies.    It's easy because you let it grow long, don't fertilize and reduce the irrigation.  All good for California.

Arts and Crafts Garden

I planted this garden in 2013.  I was going for a cottage garden that would be equitable to the architecture.   I've been back regularly 2 or 3 times a year.  Today I sheared the pittosporums globes, weeded and added a few new recruits.  We'll see who survives.

Dearborn Bouquet and Bounty

We are currently reaping the wonderful bounty from our community garden plot.   This bouquet includes the unusual April Dahlia, Ranunuculus asiaticus 'White', white velarian and parsley.

I like to pack it in.  I don't want to see the soil.   I've combined the French intensive technique with my passive aggressive algorithm of editing annual seeds and perennial plants.   It's a tournament of the flowers;  May the best plant win.  But of course I stick my nose into the process, limiting those that are too vigorous and making sure there's an even succession of flowers.  It's all about the process.  I'm in control for a couple hours every Sunday.   Then Nature has her way for a week.

Rosa 'Queen of Sweden'

This lovely, so lovely pink rose with matte glaucus leaves is just starting it's first flush of 2018.  Along with Wisteria, Santa Barbara Daisy, Verbena lilacina 'De La Mina' and a blue Forget-Me-Not.   

Queen of Sweden, far right next to Julia Childs.

Rosa 'Excellenz von Schubert' down in the far corner.

Hollywood Juniper Hedge

Along with Pittosporum 'Golf Ball', Sesleria autumnalis, Achillea millefolium 'Paprika' and the Calla Lily.

Breaking the Lantern and Fixing It.

Yes, at the end of my visit, I break my client's lantern.  I hit it with my leg as I was removing the orchard ladder from the flower bed.   It fell over and broke into nine pieces.  Ugh!

Fortunately it broke cleanly.  I gather the pieces and glued them back together.  

Valencia Street Rain Catchment

Over the last 10 years, the city of San Francisco has been installing rain catchments to slow the rainfall that hits the treatment plants during storms.  This one is looking good with Salvias, Irises, Grasses, reeds, or are the rushes, and yarrow.

Roses in Glen Park

This week the roses busted out!  Wow!   Five rose bushes in the perennial garden are starting or are well into their first flush of the year. 

Dearborn Community Garden Spring Meeting and Fashion Show.

Our community garden's Spring meeting and my plot is looking fantastic.  We rebuilt our bed in November adding six inches of soil and completely redecorated the bed.

Today we see the end of the spring showing of the white dahlias.  Dinner Plate?  I'm not sure, they're big and lovely in a freaky February showing.   The purple poppies are starting to bloom and the foxglove is producing well.  Everything is staked well and should be well supported.

Spring in the Marina District of San Francisco

Dearborn After Atmosphere River Delivered Over 2 Inches of Rain

Most notable new entry blossum is the Ranunuculus asiaticus 'White'.   I started from bulbs from Flowercraft, a local retail nursery.  One of the four I planted turned out to be pink.