GardenBook

 Last year I wrote a somewhat snarky post on the occasion of my visit to the  San Francisco Garden Show. My lowly point and shoot was unequal to the task of getting decent images in hort show lighting, and thus I had no photos to  bolster my negative remarks.  I took my 'real' camera this year.    The 2013 show featured  17 display gardens ,18 if you count the  pointless 'edible garden' display outside the plant market hall.This edible display has been a nicely done feature of the last 3 shows as I recall, and considering the groundswell of  interest in the topic I would have expected  better than a bunch of plants plopped into some bark mulch with no apparent design and a few concrete gee-gaws scattered about. Thumbs down, a lost opportunity to educate the casual or novice gardener in the practice of growing their own food.   The display gardens in the main hall were noticeably smaller this year... the space between them was ni...

 I've missed the last couple of bloom days, a combination of office interference and a dearth of reportable flowers. Now that we have sprung ahead, I can actually take photos on weeknights . March offerings are a bit mundane however- I have not done a  good job planting/planning for this season.  I don't have the cultivar handy on this Erysimum, but  I snatched it up because it was NOT 'Bowles Mauve' which is ubiquitous here. I am also partial to yellow flowers. I can see this becoming a repeated element. Brunnera 'Jack Frost' is holding court in the shade. The Pulmonarias are all over the place--I started collecting them in the late 90's before I knew about the mildew issue. Most have been sent to compost-land but I retain the electric blue specimens. Hellebores are still holding on. Just about every Euphorbia is in bloom- I didn't photograph all of them..  Jade Dragon, with Rosemary as a backdrop. Volunteer E.C. ...

 God help me, I almost succumbed . Good sense prevailed.

 A recent business trip took me over yonder to the Atlantic side . We Californians don't typically need to vacation in Florida when a trip down the interstate or a short plane ride will deposit us in zone 10, with significantly less humidity . Some of us actually live in zone 10-see Denise at AGO for your frost free fix. Every trip I've ever taken to Florida has been work related, and the only place I've ever really desired to visit there as a tourist is the Everglades and the Keys. I have yet to do this.   Florida is flat , and all the pretty stuff is at the ocean, where I was not. In fact I spent about 4 days schlepping around in an over-refrigerated convention center . I did however have some great fish tacos and decent local beer. I rigged my schedule so I would have at least a half day at leisure to visit a garden..surely there were gardens ? As it happened, The Harry P Leu  Gardens were only 15 miles north of my hotel, so I rented a car for the afternoon and of I...