GardenBook

 My February road trip to the central and south coast of California was disappointing in the weather department. I enjoyed my trip but there were plenty of horticultural activities that  were rain-outs. After returning  home I  decided to re-do the trip in April.It was a somewhat fiscally irresponsible decision -I was basically shelling out the bucks for the same trip , two months apart. It was worth it, and I have no regrets. My only disappointment this time around was that there were no rooms available in the hotel of choice in Santa Barbara, so I had to fall back on my Best Western option in Carpenteria. I was ok with that-who cares much about the lodgings when you have Lotusland and the Taft Garden on the agenda.  At some point during my February trip I read information about the renovation of the Skyview Motel in Los Alamos. Anyone who has traveled US-101between Northern and Southern California in the last several decades will recognize thi...

 I've posted previously about my March visit to Lotusland  which focused on the Bromiliad gardens and the Dunlap Cactus Collection . Today I'll share an overview of some of the other features of the garden. I come home from these  trips happy about the plethora of images I was able to take  only to be overwhelmed when  trying to sort through them and weed out the duds and the duplicates. I actually enjoy the process of sorting and editing photos, but sometimes it's hard to be objective . In fact I will suggest that objectivity is a dying art. I will do my part to keep the flame.  Today I tried to select some decent photos that represented the areas I didn't cover in my previous posts. I took many many photos, both good and bad.Because I am a member I don't have to endure the restriction of a guided tour. The tour is ok for your 1st visit but after that  strolling around Lotusland as a member is worth the price. I would never have it any other way. ...

 Merritt Sigsbee Dunlap began collecting cactus in 1929 after a road trip to Coachella when he was student at UCLA. One can only speculate how long it must have taken to get from Westwood to Palm Springs in the 1920s, and what prompted him to make this journey  was not mentioned in any of the sources I found. The internet was not particularly fertile when it came to Mr Dunlap, but I eventually was able to stitch together some background thanks to the LA Times and Pacific Horticulture. Dunlap met Madame Ganna Walska in 1941 when he was stationed in Santa Barbara as an army engineer. They were both collectors and I would suppose paths of collectors crossed back in the 40's much like they do today.  He served in WW2, lived in Glendale post war with a career in municipal engineering  and at some point in the 70's moved himself and his cactus collection to the avocado belt town of Fallbrook in North San Diego County. In the 1960's he expressed his intent to  bequ...