Mementoes and memories in the garden of Rebecca Sweet: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
July 24, 2013 Our 4th stop on the 2nd day of the San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling was the Los Altos garden of designer, author, and blogger Rebecca Sweet. I’ve admired her garden not only on her blog, Gossip in the Garden, but in magazines like Sunset, so I already ...
Old World beauty at Filoli: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
July 23, 2013 Our 3rd stop on the 2nd day of the San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling was the old estate garden of Filoli. According to its website, Filoli is a “654–acre property, including the 36,000 square foot Georgian country house and spectacular 16–acre English Renaissance garden.” Despite the Texas-level ...
Display gardens at Sunset Publishing headquarters: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
July 22, 2013 Our 2nd stop on the 2nd day of the San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling was the low-slung headquarters of Sunset Publishing Corp. in Menlo Park, where we toured Sunset’s display gardens. While central Texas is just east of the western U.S. region covered by Sunset magazine, the ...
Surfing the Wave Garden: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
July 18, 2013 Our last stop before dinner on the 1st day of the San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling was the aptly named Wave Garden, a Bay-hugging, terraced garden — all curving, terracotta-tinted paths, wavy metalwork, and a cascade of colorful, exotic plants from South Africa, Australia, and other frost-free ...
Organic Mechanics Garden, an apartment dweller’s refuge: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
July 15, 2013 Our second stop on the first day of the Garden Bloggers Fling in San Francisco seemed inauspicious: a security door into a tall apartment building on the edge of the Tenderloin, a downtown residential neighborhood with a somewhat seedy reputation. We walked single-file down narrow halls and ...
The vertical hillside garden of Matt Gil: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
July 14, 2013 As the Garden Bloggers Fling in San Francisco officially kicked off on June 28, two buses full of about 75 bloggers split up, navigating the city’s challenging hills separately so that the small gardens we visited could better accommodate us. My bus headed for sculptor Matt Gil‘s ...
Cocktail party at Shirley Watts’ Garden: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
July 12, 2013 Early arrivals to San Francisco for the recent Garden Bloggers Fling were invited to a cocktail party at designer and artist Shirley Watts‘ home in Alameda. Shirley graciously opened her home and garden to about 50 complete strangers, and we eagerly trooped through her kitchen and into ...
Santa Barbara street painting festival, Old Mission, and jacarandas
June 13, 2013 Santa Barbara’s 23rd annual I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival was held Memorial Day weekend on the plaza in front of the Old Mission. We stopped by on that Monday to see both. A crowd was gathering under bright-blue skies to watch the artists — the madonnari ...
Native California plants shine at Santa Barbara Botanic Garden
June 11, 2013 The day after arriving in Santa Barbara over Memorial Day weekend, my husband and I used our Wildflower Center membership for reciprocal free admission to the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. Like the Wildflower Center, the SBBG is a natives-only garden — but here of course the plants ...
Visit to Lotusland, part 5: Cactus Garden
June 09, 2013 Just before closing at Santa Barbara’s Lotusland, we explored the Cactus Garden, which I found even more fascinating than I expected. Despite what outsiders may imagine my home state of Texas to be like, this isn’t it. Tall, columnar cactus like these, for example, are largely unknown ...
Visit to Lotusland, part 4: Rear terrace, parterre & lemon arbor
June 08, 2013 Around back of the main house at Santa Barbara’s Lotusland, you find a Spanish-style courtyard with curlicue wrought-iron gates, pink stuccoed walls, and verdigris cafe seating. A Moorish tiled fountain and rill, on axis with the gate, make a cooling focal point. The tile work makes me ...
Visit to Lotusland, part 3: Aloe pool, Blue Garden & Bromeliad Garden
June 06, 2013 As we charged into Santa Barbara, California’s Lotusland, knowing we had a limited amount of time and wouldn’t be able to see everything, my first must-see areas were the oft-photographed Aloe Garden and the Blue Garden. Luckily both are fairly close to the visitor’s center. A kidney-shaped, ...
Visit to Lotusland, part 2: House Garden with cactus and euphorbia
June 05, 2013 It might easily have been all Italian cypress, boxwood, and roses. But Lotusland‘s Madame Ganna Walska, self-proclaimed “enemy of the ordinary,” didn’t settle for the expected. One of the first changes she made upon taking up residence in 1941 at the Santa Barbara, CA, estate was to ...
Visit to Lotusland, part 1: Theatre Garden, lotus pond, & Japanese Garden
June 02, 2013 Grassy amphitheater in the Theatre Garden Lotusland is theater. It’s designed to thrill, seduce, and transport you. And, boy, was I thrilled, seduced, and transported during my visit over Memorial Day weekend. Lotus pond — no blooms yet. The lotus bloom later in the summer. This Santa ...
Visit to Potted garden shop in Los Angeles
May 30, 2013 Last Saturday my husband and I flew to Los Angeles, rented a car, and drove to Santa Barbara, where we spent a relaxing 3-day weekend and celebrated our 23rd anniversary. We visited Lotusland and Santa Barbara Botanic Garden (my picks), as well as the historical Old Mission ...
Yosemite National Park, the most beautiful place on earth
October 12, 2009 The world is full of beautiful places, and proclaiming one the most beautiful is, I’ll admit, as capricious as crowning one person the most lovely. Still, Yosemite National Park has to rank near the top. My husband and I visited in October of 1995, on a side ...
