Botanical Highlights from Northern California

I will need a vacation when I return home from this vacation. As I write this it is raining outside here in the Bay Area and back home it is sunny and warm. When I return, I am guessing that I will have nothing but a lot of work to do. (How gardens can grow!) 

Rather than go on and on about the trip so far, I've instead chosen some highlights and I will fill in all the botanical garden and plant information in the coming days. I also want to add that having my AHS membership card has been wonderful because it has made viewing all of the gardens much easier and a whole lot less expensive. I think next time though I will have to get a card for my husband too. Now that he has seen more of the botanical gardens down here, he'd like to go back to them sometimes when he's traveling doing wine sales work. (AHS Reciprocal Admissions Program)

My husband enjoying one of my favorite little waysides in the redwoods. 

A mosquito sculpture beside a pond at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Garden, Fort Bragg, CA.

A Fuchsia hedge in the garden of a residence in Fort Bragg, CA. I was very jealous.

Discovering Sedum along the ocean at Salt Point State Park in Sonoma County, CA.

I know this is a special plant but I will have to look up the name later. We found it in the Kruse Rhododendron Reserve. near Salt Point State Park in Sonoma Co., CA.

Fancy chickens at Annie's Annuals. I CANNOT say enough about their nursery. We had a wonderful time and it was easy to find over in Richmond, CA.

This is a transmission repair show that I would trust in San Carlos, CA.

I cannot say enough about Prickly Pears. My other name, Ficurinia, means Prickly Pear in Sicilian dialect.  I would happily live with this lovely prickly friend in San Carlos, CA.

Bottlebrush plants are not for me but I do love their blooms, San Carlos, CA.

Really cool tree outside of the famous restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA. 

Wall of Thunbergia at a wine shop in Berkeley, CA.

View of the Golden Gate Bridge (far in the distance) as seen from the Berkeley Botanical Gardens, CA.

Today is yet another adventure, and tomorrow too, but I am afraid we have finally been slowed down by one of my really amazing and sweet old college friends. Yesterday, much food was eaten and our last meal was so decadent it is embarrassing to mention. Let's just say that we ate Italian-style—for several hours—and each of the four courses had two to four different dishes. The meal was seriously heavenly. 

Plants from the California Redwoods near the Smith River

These are only brief shots of our drive up until this morning. A lot has happened since we left Portland and the sun is out down here in Fort Bragg, CA. Tonight we will sleep beside the ocean south of here, not far from the Kruse Rhododendron Reserve, and tomorrow we'll be in San Francisco taking in a nursery and two gardens. I just cannot get enough of this place and its amazing botanical bounty.

Sorry for the brevity, but campgrounds in California appear unequipped with plugs unlike my yurts back home. Blogging from cafés is so distracting too.

Sedum spathulifolium var spathulifolium.

Siskiyou iris Iris bracteata.

Rhododendron macrophyllum.

The campground is inside of a stand of old trees.

I  couldn't wait to see the river but was slowed down by all of the native plants along the path down to the river.

Aquilegia formosa.

Eschschozia californica. 

Mimulus.

Pacific Ninebark Physocarpus capitatus.

This is the lock on the bear locker. You have to have small paws to open it and you must keep all of your food in this when you are not around. The garbage cans have special looks too. 

The view from our campsite this morning as I had my coffee. 

Shore Acres State Park and the Darlingtonia State Natural Site

The last night of my trip was spent at another yurt, but this time it was located in Sunset Beach State Park just outside of Coos Bay, Oregon. This is an amazing part of the state just south of our huge sand dunes. I didn't have the time to visit them at length during this trip, but driving past them brought back memories from when I was a child. I'd also forgotten that once again, it is another unique environment with more unique plants so I will certainly return again soon. 

In a way, I was kind of sad my adventure was over. I've been chronically ill for ten years and it was a relief to get out and travel at my own pace with all of the necessary comforts and without any kind of static from upsetting or worrying others. Illness triggers things in all of us in different ways and it is often the elephant in the room. Chronically ill people don't like to be alone too much though, and we really hate to be told that we should hang out with other people like us so that we can find others who understand. Isolating all of us together can just hurt more. Anyone can understand what we are going through—if they want to do so. Many do not want to consider the time when they too will be faced with a health difficulty, but it will happen, and when it does, it will help a lot to have a friend who can help. 

The trip has led me to make three resolutions for the upcoming summer months concerning how to keep healthy so that I can live in my garden and hunt plants from time to time in the woods or wherever:

1. Ask for help when I need help and no more new projects so that I can finish whatever I've already started. I usually stop because I get to the point where I need help and then I won't ask. 
2. Simplify my life and my home.
3. Remember to have fun and to enjoy all of my friends while sticking to the activities that have always been essential to me. Even if my own life has changed, none of my friends will be upset for me so long as I remain who I've always been. We all return to comfort foods, and we all know who our comfort friends are, right? 

Before I left for the day's adventures I found these little beauties beside the car. The one on the left is another twinberry and the one on the right is native salal.

Twinberry bloom.

That last day was much drier than the one before but it was still cool and windy. I jumped into the car and headed out to see the views that I'd remembered as having been so beautiful. 

I was so pleased that I'd chosen to go and as my eyes took all of this in for about an hour or so, my body was filled with a kind of pleasure that only the experience of art can replicate but it is always stunted by the surroundings of a museum and the disruptions of others' gazes. Nothing interfered with my experience that last day and I took it all in for as long as I was able to do so.

My love of Romanticism is showing through, as this most obviously is a manifestation of my complete understanding and acceptance of the Sublime. I think that my trip to see what has always inspired me, was a complete success since I feel recharged and so much more calm now. I hope to return to this idea more and more in the future when it comes to discussing garden and landscape design and if I am well enough, I would like to really dig in to some great critical theory as applied to gardens. 

Near the end of the road are the remains of an old estate built by a lumberman who'd made a fortune in the timber industry. Today it is Shore Acres State Park. 

The home that once stood on the site burned down years ago but the estate garden remains and that is what attracts visitors to the park. Where the home once stood, there is now an information building and shelter that can be used as a shelter for whale watching during rough weather.

Can you imagine having a patio like this one beside the ocean? Those urns are amazing and the crashing waves incredible! It must have been a lovely home. I wish I had a patio with a view like!

Shore Acres Gardens

Don't you just love the Giant Dracaena?

Hebe bloom.

Well-clipped Azalea x'Hino-Crimson'.

Garden Pavilion for weddings and concerts.

Azalea with the original gardener's quarters in the background.

Entrance to the Asian garden and pond.

Close up of Berberis darwinii.

Garden gateway to cliff overlook and private beach below. 

View looking back toward the entrance from the garden gateway to the ocean.

Some kind of hardy Heliotrope?

View looking back toward the entrance from the Asian garden.

Species Rhododendron. Not sure which.

Sorry for the blurry photo but I loved that this planter was so simply planted with only a Lamium. 

This is a very interesting and simple water feature. 

The much loved Monkey-puzzle Tree (Araucaria araucana). 

Returning to the entrance.

Guest services and gift shop building that was added later. Its architecture really adds to the experience. 

I seriously applaud all of the work that has gone into keeping the park open to the public. It is a treasure and I recommend that everyone visit it if they happen to visit the area. 

Darlingtonia State Natural Site

Just north of the coastal town of Florence, Oregon sits a tiny little park. To get there from Coos Bay it takes about an hour and a half by car. Little did I know that again, my day would brighten even more with the kind of experience that you don't get often when you are delighted by a sight and a child-like happiness lingering in your heart's passageways just bursts out shocking you to discover you're still able to feel that way. It is good to be reminded of that from time to time.

Here is more information about the Darlingtonia Wayside with information about how to get there.

The short walk to the bog was full of the typical forest imagery yet it was all made more beautiful that day by the rain and the light. Bright green moss clung to everything, and the skunk cabbage stink was working its magic with the bugs. The forest world was as it should be...

And then the magic hit me and I was seriously in awe. This was so incredible—even if the plants were not necessarily at their best. 

Don't you just want to make snake noises? Ssssssssssss. Sssssssssssssssss. Ssssssssssssssssssssss.

I hope to return to this site a bit later this year so that I can catch them in bloom.

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So, this is the last post from the trip. Though I have been home for awhile now, the posts have had to go on. I am still so grateful that I was well enough to travel on my own for a few days but I have paid heavily for the vacation and I am still not quite recovered. Believe it or not, my right calf is swollen from pressing on the gas petal. Stupid swelling problems that just get sillier and sillier.

The many seeds and seedlings I have cannot wait any longer, and I have to plant my new Burpee 'Black Cat' Petunias. I don't usually fall prey to special new introductions named to make me crave them, but I totally fell for this one. They really are black and I am happy I spent a bit extra for them.