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 think I might have at least a couple more of these packed away in a box somewhere .2001 and 2003 are missing, and the eldest is 1999. They sport a price of 5 dollars on the front, but the noticeably heftier 2000 version is 8, and for your extra 3 bucks you got essays by no less than Helen Dillon, Thomas Hobbs, Jamaica Kincaid, John Greenlee, Penelope Hobhouse, Allen Lacey, Ketzel Levine...well the list goes on and on. All issues feature the fine prose of Dan Hinkley himself, and a look back at 1999 reveals full day classes conducted at the nursery on propagation (two sessions, Dan Hinkley) Garden Design (Raiche and McCrory) more garden design (Whithey and Price) summer pruning (Dan Hinkley) .Glory days. When the house catches on fire, or the river breeches the levee, I'll grab the cats, the photo files, my glasses, and the Heronswood Catalogs.  Just for fun, I searched Ebay.. maybe I'd find 2003 ? The search turned up a big zero. I googled it. Several results concerned...

 I took exactly 4 photos at the SF garden Show this weekend; all four were out of focus . The photo above was taken in my back garden this morning, mundane but springy. I can't post without a photo of something !  So what about the garden show ?  With a  couple of exceptions, the display gardens were just ok. John Greenlees' bamboo and grass jungle with Marcia Donahue sculpture touches was pretty cool (I blogged about Marcias' studio garden here ), and I liked the Urban Habitat  garden by the Academy of Art University .There was, as is typical every  year, a handful that featured lots of hardscape, blooming azaleas Primroses and florist Kalanchoes and ritzy titzy back yard kitchens and sleeping platforms. In fact I would almost bet money that one of the faux Tuscan villa gardens was a mirror image of an installation from 2011 , flipped to the other side of the hall. I like looking at these, but only in the way I liked the...

Ok, well maybe it's stretch to apply the term 'urban' to a mission..but urbanity is relative, right ? What might pass for urban in Northern California in 1823 ?   And anyway, Urban Homestead seems like a catchy title for a post.   And how about the fruits on this Prickly Pear ..talk about sustainable ! Mission San Francisco de Solano is in the town of Sonoma, adjacent to the square. These photos were taken in January.

 When house guests are expected the cleaning tends to be more thorough , especially when one has diligently avoided the indoors as much as possible all spring, summer and fall. There are a number of unsavory zones of debris , dark corners from which eyes have been averted , and built up clutter on surfaces. And then, there is The Magazine Thing. Piles and piles of gardening magazines , none of them ever disposed of unless they are unfortunate enough to fall prey to a pet or wine accident . Actual china in the china cabinet ? Not a chance , but if you need an issue of Horticulture from the late 90's I could probably dig it up. English Garden ? Expensive and full of content, must be saved. Never-mind that the aforementioned content is almost completely irrelevant to my climate zone. Remember the now defunct Country Living Gardener ? It lives on in two drawers in the guest room.Pacific Horticulture ? It's a journal; one must always keep journals.  A few years ago I actually ...

Behold the trusty broom, the latest in a long line of similar models . Inexpensive, uses little storage space, requires no petroleum products and is easy to start. This may be one of few in the neighborhood, as the preference seems to be the power blower . No argument here with the professional mower-blower dude, whose revenue stream depends on multiple jobs a day , and for whom the leisurely pace of manual sweeping is impractical.  Some homeowners though prefer the do-it-yourself approach , wielding several pieces of gasoline power equipment to tame their postage stamp sized lawns and yards . I watched dumbfounded from my front porch bench as  two small Loropetalums were subdued into even smaller  cubes with a very loud gas hedger. This took a remarkably long time,particularly for a result that was not remotely attractive.  I have no doubt that I could have done the same thing in  about 5 minutes with my Corona hedge shears. At least the perpetrator was wearin...