GardenBook

  My first post written about my April visit to the Taft Garden focused primarily on the Aloes which were abundant and happily for me, blooming . But Aloes , though they felt to me like the signature plant of that garden, were certainly not all there was to see. There was plenty of breadth to the plant inventory.    There  was no shortage of Agaves  Rock walls and the natural arrangement of rocks themselves within the loosely defined planted areas, along with the bright green of our winter grasses looked very fine with the backdrop of the surrounding landscape.It was as though the plants just belonged there.  This has to be  the largest planting of Xanthorrhoea I've ever encountered in one garden -it was essentially a grove.  A Grevillea I presume , but my research failed to confirm it's specific ID. I'm going with G. 'Frosty Pink' as my best guess.   There were Acacias , all beyond my Acacia nami...

 The Taft Garden has been on the punch list since our friend Denise posted about her visit in 2014 . It took me just about 5 years to make this happen even though I have been to that area almost every year since then. I think the relative low profile of the garden just caused it to drop off my radar. The intrigue surrounding getting in back in those days made me feel as though I needed to either 'know someone' or be a member of one of the horticultural  societys that were occasionally invited to tour . Apparently the Taft  Foundation has made peace with the neighbors , for now there is a website where one can request an appointment. Visit was duly scheduled and the map charting the non-GPS supported route arrived in my in-box. The road in is a bit sketchy the first time, partially from loosing the skill of reading a map and safely driving at the same time. Fortunately the map was excellent and there is little to no traffic - if you have to stop in the middle of the road...

 It's been very many years since I have visited a zoo, and I couldn't even tell you which zoo it might have been, but I had heard anecdotal  information  that suggested the Santa Barbara Zoo had good landscaping with excellent plants  and was worthy of a visit . I'm always up for  some plant viewing so I  added the zoo  to my road trip agenda. A bit of googling revealed that this particular zoo is well regarded, is small, provides naturalistic settings for the animals and it was only ten minutes from my hotel .   There were a lot, really a lot,  of children there, and the facility had numerous family-friendly features including a large park like play area , picnic areas, Giraffe feeding and a zoo train among other attractions.  Because I am notoriously child-phobic I spent quite a bit of time positioning myself  as far away as possible from the hordes. If I were to visit again , it...