Olio Lens on Dearborn Dahlias

I got a new four lens optical gadget for my iPhone. It lets me take 10x, 15x, wide angle and fish-eye photos. Here are some close ups of what's blooming here in June (Dahlias).

New Orleans & Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve

On the outskirts of New Orleans, LA, there is the swamp.   An abused piece of "land" now protected by the National Park Service and now entering a healing phase.   All of the oyster shell mounds have been mined, all the old growth cedars have been harvested, the oil industry had its way, now nature is allow back in to reign. 

Noe Valley Entry Garden

An Arts & Crafts inspired front entry-way planted in October 2013, ravished by gopher for 3 months, replanted in March. Here's what it looks like eight months after planting.

Achillea millefolium 'Moonshine', Senecio mandraliscae, Pittosporum 'Golf Ball' spheres, Geranium 'Rozanne', Lavandula (English), Erigeron karvinskianus and Verbena bonariensis

Inner Sunset Collector's Garden

Frank has put together another tour of San Francisco gardens. This one is exclusive to professional gardeners, horticulturists, arborists and the likes.

First up: Eric & Jason. A collectors garden focusing on the subtropical and water-wise plants from other Mediterranean climates. Below a creeping Oxalis.

Dino's Personal Garden

Frank has put together another tour of San Francisco gardens. This one is exclusive to professional gardeners, horticulturists, arborists and the likes.

Dearborn Community Garden

Frank has put together another tour of San Francisco gardens. This one is exclusive to professional gardeners, horticulturists, arborists and the likes.

Dearborn Community Garden. Showcase the 45 gardeners micro allotments and Lotta's Rose border along Bird Street.

Sloppy Arborist Garden

Frank has put together another tour of San Francisco gardens. This one is exclusive to professional gardeners, horticulturists, arborists and the likes.

Next up, Christopher's sloppy arborist garden. His words, not mine.

Mike's Glen Park Showcase

Frank has put together another tour of San Francisco gardens. This one is exclusive to professional gardeners, horticulturists, arborists and the likes.

Finally cocktails, I mean the last garden, mine. This is my Glen Park garden on Chenery. I've been working this garden for almost 9 years now. All these photos were taken by Dino. Much appreciation to see my work through another's lense. Thank you Dino!



Orlaya grandiflora 'Minoan Lace'

Annie's Nursery in Richmond, California

On April 12th, 2014, I travel across the bay to Annies' Nursery in Richmod. They were having their annual Spring fete. It was great too see everyone there and listen to the eatable garden lecture.

Rodmarton Manor Garden

The our second day of the tour we will be visiting Rodmarton Manor. Rodmarton was built in the true essence of the Arts & Crafts movement as it was happening in 1909. Centrally located in the Cotswold and ground zero for the movement, this garden will show you a good foundation for all Arts & Crafts gardens later in the tour. Those gardens: Hidcote, East Lambrook Manor, Hestercombe, The Courts, & Tintinhull; all are rooted in what we see at Rodmarton and possess different merits to attain our tour.



http://www.rodmarton-manor.co.uk/index.html

Author and British garden historian Tim Richardson wrote a good article for The Telegraph about Rodmarton.

"Rodmarton’s garden was the real thing at the time and remains so today. A visit to this garden can give you an authentic savour of what Arts and Crafts meant to those disciples of William Morris who practised their crafts so assiduously and passionately in the first decades of the 20th century." -- Tim Richardson via The Telegraph

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.

Hidcote Manor Gardens

Okay here comes another entry for the beauty that awaits you on this summer's English garden tour 2014. Drumroll please… Hidcote.



Hidcote was the work of a man named Lawrence Waterbury Johnston. Johnston was already 36 when he arrived in Gloucestershire with his mother in 1907. She purchased the property at auction in the hopes that her only surviving son would become a farmer. Instead he became a plantsman extraordinaire. Johnston is responsible for many plant introductions, including Jasminum polyanthum also known as pink flowering jasmine. Any plant that is named either Hidcote or Johnston's this or that is attributed to Johnston. He left no diaries or plant records as to the creation of the gardens. He wasn't a member of the Royal Horticulture Society. Few photos survive to give us any insight into who Johnston was. What we do know is that he never married and his best friends were society ladies.

The Home of the English Cottage Garden

In preparation for leading a small group around the great gardens of the Cotswold area I'm reading many books on our specific destinations. This week it's East Lambrook Manor House. Although I think it technically is not in the Cotswolds area, it is a must see for us, this is the Home of a the English Cottage Garden.

What is a Cottage Garden? Merely a small residence with some food and flowers planted around the yard? After reading 'The Cottage Garden - Margery Fish at East Lambrook Manor' by Susan Chivers & Suzanne Woloszynska, I would like to share some of my findings, thoughts and feelings about cottage gardening.

Cottagers started out very poor working the land and builder their homes. Naturally they started with useful plants that produced food, herbs and extending into flowering shrubs for their color and scent among other reasons. As their lives improved the cottagers began to collect those rare oddities they found in nature around them. "plants like double primroses and unusual violets. In this way, his garden became a sanctuary for mutants that would have otherwise disappeared. " For Mrs Fish, the preservation of the cottage varieties and selections was utmost important.

The cottagers in the 16th century became the main repository of plants as the monastic gardens began to fade. Well into the 18th century, the cottager were collecting and protecting selections of flowering plants. In the 18th century when the Landscape Gardening became all the rage, the cottagers took the lead in conserving many plants otherwise lost when the large formal estates were transformed into Landscapes. Finally I think the apogee of the Cottage Garden happen in the Edwardian era in the form of an Arts & Crafts Garden. This is when the Cottage Garden took center stage, allowed into the formal part of the garden. The great herbaceous borders created by Gertrude Jekyll and encouraged by William Robinson's writing, the Arts & Crafts Garden owed much to the conservation of the cottager.



Map of East Lambook

Angielskie Ogrody

With much excitement I found an English garden tour from Poland that utilized my photo of East Lambrook Garden, one of the 14 gardens we're going to visit in July, IN ENGLAND. We have 3 spots still available.



Check out another garden tour offer. This one is from a Polish perspective. We're offering a California professional gardener's perspective. I'm proud to say the author gave me credit for my photo of the garden at East Lambrook Manor House.

Kasia Bellingham is leading a 'Pride and Prejudice' themed tour in England.

Angielski Ogrody Tour & Blog

Our picks have some overlap. We presenting 300 years of English Gardens as our theme.

Both tours include East lambrook, Hampton Court, Tintinhull, Iford and Hestercombe.

We have two spots remaining on our tour July 11-18th 2014. Click here for the itinerary.

Streets of San Francisco - Late Winter 2014

Our beloved and healthy London Plane street trees on Market Street.* Some landscape architect consultate in the Bay Area thinks these do well here and keep planting them. Most recent additions along Valencia Street. *Sarcastic smart a**