The Ruth Bancroft Garden & Nursery

I took BART over to Oakland to eat lunch with Frank.  We both have been traveling recently and haven’t hung out in weeks.  After lunch we decide to drive to The Ruth Bancroft Garden & Nursery.   Frank has a project that requires a lot of drought tough plants.   Here’s what I saw and a few of my thoughts. 

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.  

Eastern California and Owens Valley

My friend and fellow gardener Jeannine decided to take a quick 4 day road trip to Benton Hot Springs in the far eastern part of California.  Our trip started from San Francisco and since the snow pack from our stormy winter is still present all the passages through the Sierras were closed.  We had to go up highway 50 to South Lake Tahoe to catch US 395 in Nevada.   

US highway 395 follows the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada range.   From this prospective you see the sharp peaks of this mountain range. 

Upon leaving the hot springs we decided to take the southern route home via 178 along the Kern River through Bakersfield, west along 46 to Paso Robles and finally up US 101 to San Francisco, a eleven hour drive.   The wildflowers photos are at the end of this post.

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.

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.

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

Border with Bold Colors

Bold, Hot or exotic. Not sure which is correct when describing the facelift we gave to this large space around the barn's decks.

Planting a White Garden on the Pacific Coast

The garden tour is this Saturday.  The Garden Conservancy is hosting it's annual garden tours.  We spruced up this garden for the tour.

Frank and I are leaving early Wednesday and will be adding these plants. I'm so thrilled that I was able to find these gorgeous silver plants from Flora Grubb Gardens:

Stachys 'Bello Grigio'

Piccolo Fiume

Little River, California, a tiny enclave on the Mendocino coast includes this garden, Piccolo Fiume. I, along with Frank Eddy, have been designing and supervising a major make over for the Garden Conservatory Tour June 2015. Along with sprucing up an already "landscape-architected" garden we have added a white garden and bold colored perennial bed. First built in 2000, this garden has evolved but needed some simple editing.



These three photos was from our 3rd weekend work fest March 29th. The Tour is June 13th and I will be there. It will be great to see you there.

Tour information: The Garden Conservancy.

North Oakland Cottage Garden

This garden caught my eye from a far. It was one of few interesting gardens in this north Oakland neighborhood. The quivering coins of birch leaves along with white bubbles of Erigeron and yellow dots of Thunbergia alata created an effervesce aura.

Wave Garden in Point Richmond

On April 12th, 2014, I travel across the bay to Annie's' Nursery in Richmond. They we having their annual Spring fete. It was great to see everyone there and listen to the edible garden lecture.

On our way home, Dino stops by the wave garden. I've never heard of it but it is in Point Richmond on the San Pablo Bay. Or is it San Francisco Bay?

Anyway, they apparently shop at Annies. If you want to see Annies products in the garden this is a good place to visit. As I understand it is private property but is open to the public.

Point Reyes National Seashore & Tomales Bay State Park, California

Point Reyes, Drakes Bay & Drakes Estero along the thin horizon.

Angel Island

In the San Francisco Bay, Angel Island has no bridges and no private cars. This is an extremely easy, completely undemanding, overnight bike camping trip.

L.A. Garden Tour with the Hortasexuals

Beautiful weather for a 3-day tour of private gardens in Los Angeles.

The Ruth Bancroft Garden Tour

This is one of our first garden tour.   To Walnut Creek, California to The Ruth Bancroft Garden and a private palm garden.

UC Santa Cruz

Lake County, California

Some of my Natural inspirations. A fast hail storm in March in the hill above Clear Lake. You can see the lake among the mist and clouds.