GardenBook

 There are a handful of private gardens that I visited often through the internet; gardens that seemed almost as familiar as my own. The opportunity to see some of these places  'in person' have been some of my favorite horticultural travel experiences, and Pam Pennicks' Austin Texas garden is among this select group. Pams' blog  'Digging ' is one of the first I read regularly before I took the dive into garden blogging myself, and her admirably detailed  posts invited us virtually into her property to hang out with her as she developed her Austin-style garden.  As with all the gardens on my internet orbit , the approach as the bus arrived  was "oh yeah, this is Pams' house" and the move from virtual to live was pretty damn exciting. Pams' garden was our 1st stop on day 2 of Fling. The morning sun was expressive, filtering through the oaks creating pleasant shadows. It was easy to see how compelling this garden would be in the oppressive hea...

 So far the garden touring season of 2018 has proven to be robust. It commenced with a road trip to Southern California in March, continued with  Garden Bloggers Fling in Austin  the 1st weekend in May, and I was barely back from that before I packed  again for a road trip to the Santa Cruz-Monterey Bay area for the first ever Garden Conservancy Open Garden Day in Santa Cruz. I decided to stay a couple extra days and add a nursery crawl to the agenda. At some point I will crank out some blog posts on both Fling and the CG Open Day in Santa Cruz, but this post will focus on the display gardens at Sierra Azul Nursery in Watsonville.  Watsonville is an agricultural community in the corridor between Highway 101 and the Monterey Bay. It still has that California agricultural town vibe, but tract housing can be seen chipping away at the margins. In the meantime, strawberries, artichokes and cool season crops like broccoli and cauliflower thrive in this coastal fog b...