GardenBook

 It's my habit to look back on gardens visited at the end of the year; and at the same time I start to look forward to what the next year holds. 2013 was particularly fine and I have high hopes for 2014. Any year that I have the opportunity to visit my friends in New England is a good one for me .  What accident of fate made me a California girl ? A beautiful , diverse state--4 hours to the dessert, 3 hours to the Sierra Nevada, 1 hour to our spectacular coast. 5 hours I'm in Oregon, 7 I'm in San Diego.Walk out my door, I'm in wine country. None of this is taken for granted. And even so, when I venture away from here , I can clearly see the attributes of places that are not California. My friend Sue is a New Englander, born and raised. She does battle with bugs that don't hang around at my house -thank god. She lives with that humid thing -but the tropicals love it.It actually rains in summer  and you can't buy that kind of water.  In July I have to put on lon...

 Even the Alyssum are fried. Not a single bloom in my garden this month..the Camellias closed up shop, the Lavenders that were blooming away  merrily in November are waving the white flag. Several nights in a row of consistent temperatures in the low twenties have laid my garden low. To many of my friends east of the Rockies, my twenties are mundane and maybe even warm-ish .I was significantly under-prepared ;plants that I routinely leave out for the winter appear quite dead. On the plus side, the weighty decision of whether to cut back now or wait til spring has been taken off my hands-might just as well cut ! Thanks Carol , for the opportunity to see what blooms in gardens around the globe. Except for mine.