Garden Tour and Far Out Flora Visit!

Last Sunday and Monday were very social for me (which is rare – I’m  practically a hermit). First  on Sunday Vince and Janet Marino were on the AAUW garden tour. You may remember I blogged about their garden before in my Bocce post.  It was their first time on the tour and Gabe was going to be there to help answer questions.  Even though I didn’t design this particular garden I know enough about the garden that I felt like I could be of use answering questions about plants.

The garden was looking great!  Janet had been slaving away all week making sure that not a single leaf was out of place (the garden has looked great every time I have seen it).

The Leucospermum were still in full bloom and Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon’ was looking perfect.

The Euphorbia lambii were looking lush.

The bocce court was immaculate.

There were several stands of Kniphofia thomsonii and other Kniphofia’s in full bloom.

Vince and Gabe greeting visitors.

The tour was very successful.  Apparently there were over 500 visitors to the garden.  I swear at one point in the middle of the day there were 100 people in the garden all at once!  I did try to make myself useful by standing in the lower path and greeting people and answering questions about plants.  There were a few plants in particular that I got asked about over and over.

My photo doesn’t do it justice but the groundcover above (with lots of Linaria growing through it) is Grevillea ‘Fanfare’.

Here is a closeup so you can see the red bottlebrush flowers and red and green oak like leaves.  It stays low, just a few inches tall, but spreads out to about 10 or 15 feet across. It is planted right at street level and stopped many visitors in their tracks.

Sedum ‘Coppertone’ was another popular plant.  I don’t particularly think of this Sedum as that rare but I have never seen such huge specimens of this plant.  People couldn’t believe that this garden was only about 2 years old and that most of the plants had gone in as gallon sized pots.  When you have good compost to plant in and that perfect coastal climate things grow pretty fast!

Kalanchoe orgyalis ‘Copper Spoons’ was another popular plant.

I felt kind of bad for all the folks visiting from inland.  This is a garden that benefits from the cool coastal location and has a lot of tender specimens that don’t like it too hot or too cold.

Plants like Leucospermum ‘Scarlet Ribbon’ prefer to live on the coast.

Close up of the “ribbons”.

The tour was a huge success and I hope that Vince and Janet will be on future tours.  It really is a garden that is worth showing off and I had a lot of fun spending the day with them.

And it was perfect that we were in tour mode because the next day Megan and Matti from Far Out Flora were in town. I’m going to assume that everyone who reads my blog is already familiar with Far Out Flora.  One of the best gardening blogs on the internet and one of the reasons that I started my blog actually.  Megan and Matti (and border collie Max) are headed back to Wisconsin to start a family and came to visit me on their way east.  OK I think they actually came down the coast to pay a visit to Lotusland in Santa Barbara but we’ll pretend they just wanted to visit me.

I had them meet me at my place (didn’t want my garden to seem anticlimactic compared to the other cool gardens we would visit) and then we headed over to meet Gabe and Maggie at Vince and Janet’s house.

I thought they would appreciate some cool central coast gardens.

Next we brought them up to Cayucos to show them a few gardens designed by Nick Wilkinson of Grow Nursery.

First stop was the garden of Nick’s parents house in Cayucos.  Now I’m going to cheat a bit.  When I am being social I take horrible photos so I have a few older photos that are a bit better and do the garden justice.

Hopefully Megan got some good current pictures and will post them when she is settled in back in Wisconsin.

The last garden is another designed by Nick and is just down the road on the beach.

Quite a view.  You can watch the sunset and the ocean all the while surrounded by amazing succulents.

Anyway now I can go back to my hermit like ways but I had a great time seeing Megan again and meeting Matti (and Max!). I can’t wait to see their visit to Lotusland come to life on their blog and can’t wait to see how their blog transforms itself from a San Francisco Bay area garden blog to a Madison, Wisconsin garden blog!  And hopefully if they ever find themselves on another road trip on the California coast they will pay us another visit.

Road Trip to Annie’s!

It was time to take a road trip to the Bay Area this weekend so I could stock up on plants from Annie’s Annuals for my garden.  I decided to take the scenic route up Route 1.

I stopped at Ragged Point and took a bunch of pictures of this hummingbird zipping around the Echium candicans.  Even though there are several species of hummingbird in California I always assume they are Anna’s hummingbirds I am seeing because I believe they are the most common year round residents.

They are fast little buggers but I got a couple of decent pictures.  Pretty sure this is the same guy but the red around their throat is only visible when the light hits it from a certain angle.

I pulled over to take a picture of this huge lupin.

Aside from lupins there were Oxalis, Ceanothus, mustard, and California poppies in bloom along the coast.  On my way back I took the interior roads and there were tons of almonds, cherries, and plums in bloom.  It will always be a bit strange to me that fruit trees bloom in the middle of winter here in California instead of in early spring on the east coast.

Since it was a Sunday I didn’t make too many stops because there were a lot of cars on the road and most of the parking lots were full. So I skipped the elephant seals and Nepenthe.  I did stop at the vista point to take a picture of Big Creek Bridge.  It was a beautiful clear winter day.

wooly Indian paintbrush

I believe this is Castilleja foliolosa but I’m not an expert on them.  I do know that they are hemiparasitic (derive some of their sustenance from the roots of other plants) which is why you don’t see them for sale as a garden plant.

So happy!  Every time I drive up the California coast I feel very lucky to be living here.

The waves were insane!  I tried to get a picture of some of the big ones but of course they wouldn’t cooperate.  The huge waves were shy and only came out when I put my camera away.

I spent Sunday night in Berkeley and woke up bright and early Monday morning and headed to Annie’s for a full day of shopping.

I made a beeline for this Athanasia pinnata.  I think it will make a really nice specimen planting in my mediterranean garden so of course I had to have one.

Megan from Far Out Flora (one of my favorite garden blogs) works at Annie’s so I let her know I was coming so I could say hey.

I had a long day ahead of me.  I was there for a total of 5 hours.  Even though I came prepared with a list and Annie’s is very well organized I always end up running around in circles like a fool.  Everyone that congratulated me for being a grown up and not buying that Globularia a few weeks ago can go ahead and revoke my adult status.  Things I didn’t plan on buying were literally leaping into my cart when I wasn’t looking.  To be fair it is a four hour trip so I need to stock up. And there is no other nursery in the world like Annie’s Annuals (and Perennials).  The type of plants they grow are the exact sort of plants that I am in love with.  It was a beautiful overcast day for taking pictures but of course it is February so the display gardens are not at their bloomiest best.  There are always display plants in containers in bloom though so I did take the time to snap a few pictures.

Platystemon californicus – cream cups

Nemophila menziesii ‘Penny Black’

Lupinus succulentus – arroyo lupine and Gilia tricolor 

Nemophila menziesii – baby blue eyes

Alonsoa meridionalis ‘Apricot’

I set a new record for amount of the amount of plants I can fit in my VW Golf!  Twelve and a half flats.  That is TWO HUNDRED four inch pots!

I purposely traveled light so I would be able to stuff plants in every available spot. I had added so many extra plants I was afraid I was going to have to balance a few on my head but as it turns out two hundred is pretty much the exact amount of plants that will fit in my car without resorting to heroic measures.

They all made it home with me safe and sound.  I spent all of today placing and planting and I have a lot more planting to do tomorrow.  My spring garden is going to be out of control!  Thanks Annie’s Annuals!