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.