Biddulph Grange Gardens - June 18

 I love Biddulph's compact size full of all the England Garden themes.  I particularly love the use of follies to move in space to the next theme.  The Egyptian Pyramid to the Chestershire Cottage.  

The Huntington - Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens

The Huntington, near Pasadena in Southern California, San Marino to be exact, is a library, art museum and botanical gardens.  The Botanical Gardens is 130 areas with 16 themed gardens.  

Book - The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book

Since returning from England in 2023, I decided to stop reading the news every morning with my coffee and started reading my gardening books as my morning ritual.  I have not read most of my gardening books from cover to cover.  But since I changed my habit, I have finished over a dozen or more.   So I am starting a new series about my book collection.

First up a book I have had since my City College Horticultural days.  It is a simple premise that doesn't require a full book to understand although there are good ideas throughout, mostly for vegetable gardening.   Mulch your soil with hay and over a course of three years, you will see a dramatic improvement in your soil.  I am one that believes that I am really tending to the soil and the plants are on a separate level.  

October in San Francisco - Sutro Tower

 Fall in San Francisco is a good time to visit.   Skies are clear and sunset occur.

RHS Bridgewater Garden - Third Visit?

 Here I am Tuesday morning looking to catch up on the gardens I explored this summer.  Next up, is RHS Bridgewater.  A new garden in the North of England around Manchester.  Always fun to go to Manchester.

Wollerton Old Hall Garden - A Third Visit

 Here we are again at the Old Hall in Wollerton and their bountiful garden.   A small garden that is greatly loved by the community.  I don't think you can arrive in a large tour bus.   This year they remade the Well Garden.   This space with sixteen pyramidal yews cut into quarters has been a favorite of mine.  I was shocked to see its remake.   I will compare below and announce my judgement.

The Pleasure Gardens at Trentham Hall

We are back at the gardens of Trentham in Stoke-on-Trent.  This is our 4th or 5th visit.  This huge estate has many things to do and is geared toward family visits but has many elements of a true Pleasure Gardens.  Lots for the kids but even more for the gardener.   With big names like Piet Oudolf, Tom Stuart-Smith, Nigel Dunnett,...Capability Brown lake and old trees. We enjoy seeing this garden at different times of the year.  This time it is June.

Public Transport in San Francisco

Muni Heritage Fleet Weekend. 

A rare double ended trolley in Muni Wings livery, starting off its run from Castro headed to Fisherman's Wharf.

It is four in the afternoon and I understand many of the historic fleet will travel up Market to either 17th or Church following the J-Church out to the Barn on Ocean Ave.  I decided to walk up Market Street from Castro to see the Parade.   

Peaks District - England

 We drove by this peak a few times during our week stay in Buxton.  We stopped on the way home this evening to check out some of the local flora.

London Private Garden - South London

 This is Flo and we are in the basement of her home looking out onto the garden behind her London Townhouse?  I don't know what to call the neighborhood, I will show a photo for the street below.

Yes I am gardening or doing gardening tasks in London.  I just deadheaded these Iceburg Roses.  I am in my garden tourist attire. 

York Gate, England

 Here's some photos of my June trip to England with Frank Eddy.   I love these road trips.  

Travel Date June 9, 2024

First time to York Gate but have seen numerous photos in Gardens Illustrated magazine.  But photos can only go so far in telling the story of this garden.  

The front entryway looks recently planted with water-wise plants among large borders and gravel.  It is a gravel garden; very trendy since Beth Chatto made it famous.

Dolores Street Hell-Strip

This sidewalk hell-strip garden has a harsh southern exposure surrounded by concrete and asphalt.   It is irrigated in the summer dry months.   I have been replacing those plants which couldn't take the exposure like a mop head hydrangea, I do not lie, with Mediterranean and California native plants and cultivars.

This is a year in review post and these most recent photos were taken the first week of July, 2024.

Dahlia Show - San Francisco Botanical Gardens

Although the Dahlia is the official flower of San Francisco, I find it difficult to grow well in my gardens. It is hard to look at all these gorgeous flowers and not want to try again. We will see.

Best in Show------->

My Favorites this year include Hollyhill Daydream, Verrone's Morning Star and Pam Howden.

Streets of San Francisco - Thomas Church & Zen Center

Thomas Church designed the courtyard between two big performance spaces in San Francisco's Civic Center area.   I recently visited a garden in Washington State designed in part by Thomas Church and that was the reason for my visit.  See what is here in my own city.   The courtyard is simple, lawn, box and pollarded London Plane trees.  I think the brick path work is the most interesting part of his design.  

Spring and Summer Border - My Home Garden

 Last week, I spontaneously sent out invites for an open garden.   The key was to offer Pimp's Cups and a prize.   It was wonderful to share with my twenty or so friends who stopped by.  It was looking good; Photos just don't capture the colors, wind, smells and mood.  Each year it gets fuller and more mature.   Here's some from the most recent party and then few from last year.

July 27th - My home garden.

Puget Sound - Garden Fling 2024

A long weekend in Tacoma, Washington, viewing gardens of the region with 100 other garden bloggers and Social Media types. I am impressed with everyone's niche. Here's an overview of the weekend, one picture per garden.   More will follow in the coming weeks and months.  

July 18, 2024 SFO -> SEA

Puget Sound.  Wherever you are in the region, you're not far from water.  Both salt and fresh, all carved out by glaciers.  






Carhart Garden - July 19th

And here are the results: The Midlands Tour

We arrived in London on May 28th and a train ride to Oxford to pick up our car and we drove to RHS Wisley on June 1, 2024. This is an overview of our trip, one photo for each of the 28 plus gardens we toured. A blog post for each garden will follow in the coming weeks. This is just a teaser.

Our second visit to Wisley in over 10 years and lots to take in.

This is the plan….

 English gardens, farm fresh food and quirky authentic culture…

Evolution of Bernal Heights Cottage Garden

I am starting my twenty-first year tending to this cottage garden on Bernal Heights near Holly Park.  Last year, the previous owner told me she was selling and moving into an assisted care apartment in Healdsburg.  I thought that was the end of this job.  But the new owner turned out to be the next door neighbor and wanted me to continue to work this garden and also take on theirs.   They built a new fence between the two spaces with two openings that will eventually connect the two gardens.  Lots of opportunities here and I look forward blending these areas together. 

Bay Street Perennial Beds

 Three beds of perennials: Forest Edge, Gold, Silver and Bronze, Meadow bed.   Here is the third in a series highlighting the gardens I am hired to take care of.   This post shows you all eight years, in reverse order, since I designed and grew this garden.  

After viewing this video clip again, I realized I should have cut that digitalis out of that bed.  That purple ruined the entire sweep.   I knew it when I took the video, but I have difficulty cutting back prime self sowers.

MUG’s Personal Garden with Nursery

 This is my small urban garden located in the Mission Delores neighborhood of San Francisco.   I have gardened this small strip since 2003.   Lots has happened here over this period and its current theme in the long border is spring pinks, blues and whites moving into summer reds, yellows and blues.  

Some still photos of the long Spring/Summer border.

Potrero Hill Cottage Garden

 In 2018, I started maintaining this front cottage garden.  It was planted with the typical one-offs that survived our dry summers, that included horrible things like phormiums and loropetalum with the ever present tibochina.   But I took on this space for its potential.   A single story Victorian with stereotypical San Francisco wood details with the white picket fence.  

Now the days have overtaken the night, things have gone boom. 

This was taken last year on May 30, peak bloom.

More stills from May 30, 2023:

RHS Hyde Hall Excursion 2024

My past visits to gardens, in England and elsewhere, were always curated to show the beautiful, curious or informative.    First photographs excluded people or other garden visitors.  Focused only on the plants and their vignettes.  Then It was the celebration of how many people (mostly English) were at these gardens especially the flower shows.  This past visit I filmed more in video rather than still photos.  I was trying to show how movement plays into experiencing these gardens in person.  The subtle movement of the air or a sequence to show perspective and other physical attributes.  

I have visited Hyde Hall twice.  First in August 8, 2016 and the recent follow up in July 24, 2023.   This is a shot maybe a little too fast.  I was trying to capture how densely packed this garden was.   The remaining stills show the details to the blurs on the video.  This is the Cottage Garden at Hyde Hall and is one of the spaces used to highlight real spaces for inspiration to the home gardener.