More Garden Show Gardens!

Yes, friends, there were more gardens at the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show -- you can see a list here. Unfortunately, I'm no longer quite sure which picture goes with which garden on the list. You'll just have to enjoy the photos and dream of visiting next year. Above a whimsical fountain with a beautiful stacked wall and basin, which either belongs to the Metamorphosis garden I wrote about in my last post or to the garden that included more whimsy such as this compost bin.

Maybe it's not so practical -- a bit top heavy and prone to tipping when you go in with your pitchfork -- but who can resist the face?

We also enjoyed this garden by Ah Sam Florist, which included clever edging made from terracotta pots, a hanging pot sculpture with bromeliads, and a great hydrophonics setup with large pots of lettuce in a pond-like setting.

I was less impressed with the Lettuce Tube garden, ranted about just today by Amy Stewart here.

Amy actually found this "garden" interesting. I responded on her blog as follows:

Well, I thought the hanging lettuce would have been great for an art show. A great way to add something alive to the domain where concrete, metal, and plastic reign. For a garden show? Not so much.
I thought the "garden" was truly boring. I've seen front gardens like that, 6x8 bunch grasses, arranged in straight lines. Please...


But others clearly were enchanted by it all, and I must admit I did enjoy the other-worldly quality of the display. The lighting for this garden was actually perfect.

Let's leave the show with two photos from the Filoli display garden. This garden was ablaze with daffodils (Filoli is famous for its football-field size daffodil meadow with a million bulbs), and also included a Dovecote, which was housed in a garden house at Filoli. The garden house was closed for restoration last time I looked, not sure whether it's back. And the dovecote was cleverly dressed up with green walls made from succulents, and with a green roof consisting of bunch grasses. Enjoyable and cleverly done, and quite adventurous considering this comes from Filoli, which deeply cares about tradition.

After we'd enjoyed the display gardens we visited the vendors in that hall. Country Mouse, being a generous soul, bought a sweater for Mr. W. Rat, a shirt for Mr. C. Mouse Sr., and some lovely hand cream for me! I, meanwhile, was lusting for a few more plants, so headed over to Annie's Annuals while Country Mouse was returning to the booth where we had left our jackets. I picked up 6 pots and the cashier said "That will be 13.71." To which I replied "You've got to be kidding!" Turns out they had a SALE! It was close to closing time and most vendors offered bargains so they had less to take back home. So I rose to the challenge and added a few more plants, mostly Nemophila menziesii (Baby Blue Eyes) and  Nemophila maculata (Baby Five Spot), but also a few other trinkets. Laden with goods, we walked toward the door, only to have me be stopped in our tracks by a 50% OFF sign at Native Revival Nursery (I picked up a beautiful native red yarrow as well).

Walking back to the car was challenging, that 1 gallon pot especially hung heavily from my fragile little mouse wrist. But together we made it, very glad indeed about such a wonderful outing and looking forward to seeing the beauty we had enjoyed in our own gardens soon.

SF Garden Show 2011

Mr. Mouse had actually planned on making a video of Town Mouse and Country Mouse going to the garden show. But, regrettably, other things came up, and he only made a photo as we were getting in the car, ears cocked, with good walking shoes and ready for our adventure. 

I was in desperate need of some plants for my much neglected garden, so we ignored the exhibition  and immediately went over to Gold Rush Nursery's booth, where we both aquired some fine-looking Penstemon heterophyllus, plus a few other little things. After a trip back to the car to drop of plants -- almost losing our ears in the fierce wind -- we returned to have another look at plants, furniture...and more plants! It was very encouraging to see the many vendors, and a few I talked to were not displeased with the results of that year's show. After a quick lunch, it was actually time for our tour of duty as booth-mice. 

Just as last year, we found the booth fabulous! Many posters of different California native plants, blooming ribes and ceanothus, vases with poppies, and the certain show stopper: a California Trillium, on loan from Bay Natives nursery (thanks guys!). We actually had a good spot just at the West entrance, and were delighted how many people stopped to chat, ask questions, and find out about garden tours and other activities in their region. The booth was well stocked with handouts, and we enjoyed making friends. 

Time went by too quickly, and soon it was 4 o'clock, the end of our shift but also just 2 hours to closing time. We decided to swing by Sproutopia first and enjoyed the different gardens the kids had put together. I was quite taken with this riot of color. 

And we also enjoyed the Dia de los Muertos garden with a small graveyard. 

And then the moment we had both dreaded and anticipated: A visit of the exhibits. I must admit my expectations were low. I had not enjoyed last year's gardens, which I found overdone and uninviting. In addition, a friend had reported he was disappointed with the bad lighting. 

But as we started exploring, I became more and more convinced this was quite possibly the best year ever! Of course we were both pleased that quite a few gardens featured California natives, but what I really like was that these gardens were inviting, and approachable. They were interesting and inventive without being over the top. The garden above, "Metamorphosis" was put on by West Valley College (among the four designers Tina Jauregui of West Bay Landscape company) which included the following description: 

What if you no longer had access to supplemental irrigation for your garden? What would your garden look like? A dedicated group of students from the West Valley College Landscape Architecture Program demonstrates for the home gardener that life in the California garden "after water," is not only feasible, it's more lush than expected!

Local average rainfall and rain catchment capacity calculations are carefully considered, ensuring plants remain healthy throughout the year. Creature comforts include an outdoor shower and a multi-use deck that doubles as a sleeping porch for your escape from those hot summer nights! We invite you to turn off your air-conditioner and let nature keep you comfortable. Enjoy your garden while you lower those utility bills!

The garden featured an outside sleeping platform with a comfortable bed under an awning, surrounded by different species of ceanothus (both blue and white), several shade-loving natives, and short green walls separating the different garden rooms that used native Dudleya, Sedum, and a few other plants. We were quite enchanted and would have gladly rested a while in such a pleasant spot, but time was short so we went off to see a few other gardens. 

Another favorite was Changes, a garden by Mariposa Gardening and Design and A Lost Art Stonework and Design, who said this about the garden.

Sanctuary is necessary for all of us, as we move through life with its many changes. Revitalization comes from tending to our need for space and solitude.

Walk through the spiral, and into the core of the space, where the outside world is temporarily closed from view. Allow yourself to take a minute to clear the cobwebs from your mind, and restore your energy for the rest of your day.

Inside, you will find a Rainwater catchment habitat pond. This is a specially designed feature that will accommodate your roof top rain water during the rainy season. The space below the feature is large catchment area, filled with drain rock. Water from your drain spout is diverted into the feature, and it fills, making it a seasonal pond.

The walls of the spiral are planted with a songbird habitat garden. The plantings are carefully arranged to make sure that all the elements birds need, such as: different heights for birds to “step up” within the planting; plants that provide nectar in the spring and summer, and berries in the winter; tall trees to provide cover from aerial predators; flowers that provide seed; and many places for a diversity of bird species to find shelter.

Inside, you will also find a place to write a word and add it to the piece. Perhaps you would like to make a wish for yourself or a loved one or a friend. Grab a pebble and throw it into the pond.
This is your chance to welcome the changes in your life.

Regrettably, this garden suffered even more than others from the bad lighting, so I have a few photos of the amazing stone work, but no photos of the equally amazing plants. I loved the subtle combinations of manzanita, columbine, and other "simple" plants, a wildflower look, maybe, but with design like that, even wildflowers can look like Monet's garden. 

What I like about most of the gardens was that everything seemed so doable, the small plants in the cracks of the stonework, the living walls in the other garden realistic, so different from last year's monumental square that I found alienating. 

But there was more to like in this year's show, and in my next post I'll show off a few more gardens we really enjoyed. 

Don Edwards Environmental Education Center

Taking advantage of a brief respite in the rain, and suffering from just a bit of cabin fever, I took a brief photographic sojourn this afternoon to the Don Edwards Environmental Education Center. I was hoping for a few photos of California spring, and I was not disappointed.

The preserves is quite close to the freeway (237 to San Jose), but just driving the narrow road that leads to the entrance and seeing the poppies made me smile. And these were not the plain orange poppies but the two-color coastal poppies. Interestingly, they looked pretty good after a week of rainstorms.

The preserves includes a butterfly garden with many beautiful native plants. It's interesting to see mature specimens of hummingbird sage, ceanothus, and the different salvias. Most gardeners keep these plants tidy and contained, here they're allowed to grow as large as they like.

Now that's a hummingbird sage! The preserves also has an Eriogonum giganteum (St. Cathrine's Lace) that is around 10 feet tall and made it abundantly clear to me that this plant was not meant for a suburban garden.

The contrast of the San Francisco Bay and the beautiful plants (above another ceanothus) is quite enchanting.

With the corporate offices across the freeway so close, and yet so far away. Turn around, and you're again in the middle of an abundance of blossoms, with many species of birds singing their spring songs.

Just look at this white ceanothus, ready to engulf the house!

The ribes, adorned with its bright red pendant earrings adds some color to the show. But the wildlife was the most fun. I must have seen three different bunny rabbits. (Or was that always the same rabbit, staying just a bit ahead of me?)

I finally managed to snap a picture on my way back to the car, much refreshed by the brisk, rain-fresh air and the beautiful sights.

Yes! Yes!

Remember how I complained bitterly that all the rain was falling on my neighbor's garden? Well, no more. We've come up from less than 10 inches for the season (our rain season is June to June) to over 13 inches, and another storm is on the way. It's been exciting to watch the weather, I've enjoyed the drumming of the rain on the roof, and I don't even mind that the clean-up I did already for the garden tour was all for naught.

And while we're on the topic of happy news, let me tell you about the hawk I saw last week. Yes, right here in suburbia, flying from the redwoods over to the liquidambar tree! I'd seen him/her before, but never before managed a photo. Well, here it is. How exciting is that? Dear hawk, we have plenty, I repeat, plenty of baby squirrels for you to enjoy. Please come back.

And for this Sunday, Country Mouse and I are planning on going to the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show. We'll be at the California Native Plant Society booth 2-4, but we're also looking forward to seeing the display gardens and to maybe do a little shopping. Some of our favorite nurseries (including Annies Annuals and Gold Rush Nursery) will be there... and the ground will be moist and ready for a few plants.

Please say Hi if you see us at the booth or elsewhere around the show -- we'll probably wear the ears again. Why be normal?

Late Bloom Day - to cheer me in the rain

It's been raining and raining and raining (repeat). I missed Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day this month, but I have a few pictures I took in between showers. If you've seen my bloom day posts before, you've seen these flowers before at different stages of their lives - but anyway, to cheer myself up with some color, herewith are some signs of spring, to keep me going during this late winter storm, and you too, if you are under the weather - I hope you enjoy them too.

And btw: What's on my mind today is - how to organize propagation and planting information for a private garden. I want a flexible and easy to use database that can take info from sources on the web, so I don't have to keep reinventing the wheel - and that lets me look at the information from different angles. I have a half a dozen Word files that have grown over the years, and I would really like to move into something more flexible, easier to maintain, and easy to keep developing over the years. Any ideas? - OK, on with the flower show...

First - I've zoomed out from the opening shot of that wonderful water drop that my camera caught unbeknownst to me, so you can see the redbud blossom. This Cercis occidentalis shrub is about 5 feet high and wide, and is just down the road from us. They are not locally native here, but are a lovely addition to a garden. Those I planted in the "wildlife garden" area area also blooming, but they are still only about 2 feet tall, after four years or so. Below you can see them mixed in a messy tangle with the Ribes speciosum (fuschia-flowering gooseberry) and Ribes aureum, golden currant:

Also along our road - and also in our North Garden but down in the soggy regions I'm avoiding for now - I'm enjoying the Cynoglossum grande, hound's tongue, one of my favorites.

I'll be gathering seeds and investigating why it's difficult to propagate e'er long.

The nursery-bought ceanothus bushes have been blooming like crazy and lasting and lasting. Below is the ceanothus 'Dark Star' cultivar, in the early morning sunshine. I've forgotten what that looks like!:


And here is Ceanothus 'Joyce Coulter':

Our local natives, Ceanothus thyrsiflorus, California wild lilac, and Ceanothus papillosus, wartleaf ceanothus, are just coming into bloom now. I'll show them in another post.

I have 10 beautiful Ceanothus thyrsiflorus plants in gallon pots in the greenhouse right now, from local seed. I'm going to bring them to the upper deck area and keep them there til fall. I'll plant some in the North Garden - and share the rest, hopefully with neighbors, to increase the presence of these lovely small trees in our area.

Right next to the ceanothus above is a flowering fruit tree cluster of some sort that was here before we arrived. They are a bit wild and untended - but I love their blossoms. Unfortunately since this photo, a hailstorm has knocked them all off, just about.


Another non-native plant I enjoy - and so does the rest of the neighborhood - is the daffodil. They are so cheerful. They don't spread, but come back year after year where they are planted. Nothing eats them! I'm not sure if anything even gets nectar or pollen from them. Each year lately I've been planting a few clumps along the road that runs through our property, and I'll continue to do so for a few years more, just for their ornamental value.


A non-local California native that is wonderful for dry (or wet) shade, is Salvia spathacea, hummingbird sage. The hummingbirds do indeed feed from these blooms:

These have colonised the small bed between our driveway and the house. They are native in the Big Sur area but I haven't seen any growing wild around here. Here's a closeup of one of those sculptured looking whorls:


Yet another nursery cultivar, Salvia 'Bee's Bliss' is starting to show it's light and airy pale lavender blooms.
Our local black sage, Salvia mellifera, is beginning to bloom - but I think the lack of sun is knocking it back. I predict that the April bloom day, though, will be fantastic here!

A local indigenous wild native that is also just starting to bloom is Mimulus aurantiacus, monkeyflower bush. You can see nibbled leaves where it's been feeding some chalcedon checkerspot butterfly caterpillars. When I find caterpillars on my baby plants grown from seed, I gently move them to a more mature mothering plant! We have plenty to help them along, and the babies can join in when they are bigger.


In the new pool garden ornamental plantings, this is the color star for sure - Erica cerninthoides, fire heath, a South African heath plant. It's only small yet, but look at these vivid scarlet cigar-shaped clusters of flowers!


Then there's the San Francisco native, Erysimum franciscanum var. crassifolium. It's another star, flowering profusely. Unfortunately one of the two I planted died - it wasn't looking well, and I tried cutting it way back. That finished it off, I think. I suspect gophers, but am not sure.


This Munro's globemallow Sphaerelcia munroana, of dubious origins as regards its native status, is still surviving in a pot:


And the abutilons too:


Finally, The Plant That Will Not Die, calla lily. I do love their sweeping white blooms and glossy green leaves. But they are too much. They spread and spread. I have to keep cutting and cutting at them, and I hate to do that. I've tried smothering them. I've tried poisoning them. But they are tough as nails. Be careful what you plant! We did not plant these, but before I knew how bad they are, I did spread them around a bit. Oh woe, oh woe - oh well what the heck. They are pretty and I have to live with them anyway!


Well, now you've relaxed and enjoyed a bit of color, please do read back to Town Mouse's recent posts - they are very good and interesting and quite thought-provoking.

Greenest House in the Santa Clara Valley (?)

Not too long ago, I received an invitation from the Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club to attend an open house of the Greenest House in the Santa Clara Valley. The house,  which received a greenpoint rating of 309 may well be California's greenest home - at least if you believe the owner, who is also the developer who built the house and who discusses the house here. 

Don't get me wrong - the house was amazing. I loved the central lightwell, a big high-insulation skylight. I appreciated the different ways in which appliances and the bathrooms had been selected to consume minimal amounts of energy and water. At the same time, the house was aesthetically appealing, beautiful colors had been chosen for both the outside and inside (no-VOC paint, of course). I also very much enjoyed meeting some of the good people in the Sierra Club chapter, and a young woman from Acterra who is working on activism.

It did my heart good to see so many people so excited by the idea of considering to do things with their house that were good for the environment. And yet... As I was coming in, one of the many labels explaining green features said "Native Drought Tolerant Landscaping".

Well, it was dark at the time of the tour, and what I could see was Mexican sage, breath of heaven,  loropetalum, and rosemary, also some tall non-native grasses and something that looked like daylillies. "Where are the natives?" I asked Randy, one of the employees of the builder who was showing the house. "Oh, I have to take care of something, talk to you later," he replied and hurried away.

In the back, I found Japanese maple, bamboo, and one lonely Berberis (plus another "Native Drought Tolerant Landscaping" sign). I continued the tour, had a few nibbles, admired the butcher block kitchen island and the bamboo floor and went home puzzled.

 

The weekend after I drove to the house in  daylight to find that yes, the garden in front did, indeed, include a few natives. Two medium-sized ceanothus (dark star maybe?) and three low-growing ceanothus plus a manzanita made attractive highlights in the spring garden. Would I call this Native Drought Tolerant Landscaping? No, I would not. 

And here's the truly amusing wrinkle to this garden's landscaping story. Until just a few weeks ago, the garden had a bunch grass meadow, but the decision was made to replace it with -- yes, you guessed it, artificial turf. 

 

A sign proudly proclaimed it was "heavy metal free artificial turf", but I was tempted to ask the question "what's it made of?" Yes, friends, oil is the mother of all plastic and artificial turf is plastic. I'm also wondering how green the turf will look in a few years. And I was disappointed (though not surprised) to find that, despite the claim that the owner's children and dog did not enjoy playing on the lumpy bunch grass meadow,  no children were frolicking on the plastic lawn when I came for my photos. 

I sent the owner of Earth Bound Homes an email suggesting that we'd all be happier if he would change his sign to say "Drought Tolerant Landscaping", and I invited him to the Going Native Garden Tour, which would offer an opportunity to see true native landscaping. 

But noone likes an uppity mouse like me giving unwanted advice and I have, so far, not heard back. 

In spite of all that, I highly recommend you go see the house if you have the chance -- it's inspiring and beautiful and you'll feel as if this good earth matters to others as well (and if you go, just bring a red pen and cross out "Native" on those signs).