Native Plant Restoration & Andy Goldsworthy at The Presidio

Winter blooming California Lilac - Ceanothus thrysiflorus at The Presidio of San Francisco, where reforestation & restoration of native plant habitats is ongoing.

At The Presidio: The Spire, a sculptural installation by Andy Goldsworthy. 

Redirect:  Alice's Garden Travel Buzz

Spring Fling! ... Filoli

In the knot garden, Celtic patterns are woven with emerald germander, violet-hued Japanese barberry, soft lavender, and silvery santolina with its perky yellow flowers.

Filoli ... glorious in Spring!

Historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation

Photos: Filoli

Spring Fling takes place on Saturday, March 20, 2010, an event especially for families!

You'll have a rare chance to see historic greenhouses sheltering plants that have been in Filoli’s collection from 1920 to the present: Carnivorous species, unusual bromeliads, orchids, and edible tropical plants, among them. 

There'll be activities for children, garden docents on-hand to answer questions, music, puppet shows and more! 

Link to Filoli on:  Garden Travel Buzz  

- column on the right -

Samuel Taylor State Park, Marin County

Indian paintbrush / Castilleja affinis

One of the wildflowers found growing in Samuel Taylor State Park.

Taylor State Park - located 15 miles west of San Rafael off Highway 101 -

Central San Rafael exit, not far from San Francisco.

Taylor State Park became lost in the glow of 

yesterday's anniversary post.

Approach the park along Sir Francis Drake, driving through groves of towering redwoods

that embrace sections of the roadway.

Listed on the California State Parks website, the park encompasses hiking, biking & nature trails, places to picnic, and campsites.

Link to Samuel P.  Taylor State Park - column on the right -

ARBORETUMS, BOTANICAL GARDENS, HORTICULTURE 

Celebrating! 1 Year of Tendrils Reaching Out from the Bay Area

In Celebration: 1 Year since I began sending out these tendrils...

 - short features & photos - reaching out into cyberspace to connect with readers worldwide. 

What an incredible journey! 

One that has given rise to countless friendships and connections in the virtual world, 

and under fortunate circumstances... every so often, in real life.

((In truth, I've just checked the date of my first 'Insomnia' post.

Apparently life has been so hectic - with much on my plate, so to speak,

that yesterday, in fact, heralded the Blogiversary of Bay Area Tendrils.

... aka Bay Area Tendrils Garden Travel ))

Borage flowers shot at T's allotment garden. More in the weeks to come on the 

Marin Open Garden Project.

Watery close-up ... Lagunitas Creek...

T and I planned a short hike to search for salmon at Samuel P. Taylor State Park, 

where the coho should be spawning at this time of year.

Sadly, these fish are nearing extinction here.

We spotted not one as we walked along the open trails looking out over Lagunitas Creek.

Link to Taylor Redwoods State Park - column on the right -

ARBORETUMS, BOTANICAL GARDENS, HORTICULTURE

Thank you, T., for appreciating my passion for the art of the garden,

and for accompanying me on too-many-to-count short trips and lengthy sojourns.

Your love of birding and nature enhances my days. 

Winter Color! San Francisco Botanical Garden Succulents

The Entry Garden .. darkly dramatic Aeonium 'Zwartkop' strutting on the left.

"San Francisco's mild temperatures and rare winter frost make it possible to grow a great diversity of plants..." 

Entry Border photos: Alice Joyce

Succulents in the Entry Border

After more than a decade of living in the Bay Area, the wintertime displays 

of vividly colorful succulent plants still enrapture my senses and hold me spellbound.

  Visitors to the San Francisco Botanical Garden will find the fan aloe among the

Entry Garden's eye-catching succulent specimens. 

Aloe plicatilis Photo: Joanne Taylor

 At the Garden ... the San Francisco Botanical Garden Society's Newsletter:

"Gracing the hills and mountains of Cape Province in South Africa, Aloe plicatilis, or "Fan Aloe," adds drama to our Garden with its fan-like arrangement of fleshy leaves tipped in orange. The species name, "plicatilis," means fan-like, pleated or folding together. 

The fans of leaves display in two opposing rows with a spike of scarlet tubular flowers rising from the center 

on a tall solitary stem. 

Look for Aloe plicatilis in the South Africa Garden and in this month's In Bloom feature, 

complete with photos, a plant profile and exact locations."

IN BLOOM

 Map & tour of San Francisco Botanical Garden - column on the right -

 ARBORETUMS, BOTANICAL GARDENS, HORTICULTURE

Glittering Tomales Bay - Nick's Cove

Tomales Bay

on the last day of November, the sun glittering on the water,

the sky, cloudless.

Nick's Cove Restaurant

... & Nick's Cove Waterfront Cottages,

designed by Pat Kuleto.

Highway One ... Marshall, CA

Adjacent to Miller Point Boat Launch

nickscove.com

23240 Highway One

Marshall, CA

Besotted in Berkeley! UC Botanical Garden

Babiana ringens - the South African baboon flower grows in the

South Africa - Karoo section of the UC Botanical Garden.

The Great Karoo, a region of hot, arid plains: A vast landscape where 

 an amazing 9000 plant species appear (www.centralkaroo.ca.za/).

Photos: University of California Botanical Garden

Arisaema sikokianum - the cobra lily grows in the Garden's Asia section,

encompassing microclimates and habitats from sunny havens to shady glens.

I'm besotted by the dazzling shapes and forms of these botanical treasures!

Regardless of the time of year, 

a visit to the UC Botanical Garden surprises and delights.

Cornus florida urbiana ... Mexican dogwood,

growing in the UCBG Mesoamerica section.

Plants from mountainous areas, as well as the cloud forests of Mexico and Central America 

appear in this area of the Garden.

Gardeners in the San Francisco Bay Area incorporate many of these species

 into our mixed borders, from agaves and dahlias to salvias and fuchsias.

Click on link for more on the University of California Botanical Garden:

http://bayareatendrils.blogspot.com/2009/11/enchanted-flora-uc-botanical-garden.html

Enchanted Flora .. U.C. Botanical Garden

Enchanted Flora 

University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley - Part II

Chiranthodendron pentadactylon .. Monkey Paw or Monkey's Hand Tree,

 - a relative of California Fremontodendron, the flannel bush -

this evergreen tree grows in the Garden's MesoAmerica Section.

Photos: University of California Botanical Garden

Doryanthes palmeri, the spear lily, blooming in the Garden's

 Australasia Section.

On a brisk Fall Day, glowing reminders of a World of Flora.

Other continents ... other seasons.

The Garden's Canary Island section is located above the Garden of Old Roses, 

at the acme of the Garden, overlooking breathtaking views of the San Francisco Bay 

and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Here, a vigorous shrub, Salvia canariensis 

blooms in the foreground & also further back.

A detail of the Canary Island section, 

with the flowers of Aeonium lancerottense 

taking center stage.

Click on link for more on UCBG:

http://bayareatendrils.blogspot.com/2009/11/autumn-in-east-bay-and-preview-of.html

Link to the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley

on Bay Area Tendrils Arboretums, Botanical Gardens, Horticulture

- Column on the Right -

Autumn in the East Bay and A Preview of Spring

Dawn Redwood Glade in Winter

Obata Gate to the Japanese Pool

 University of California Botanical Garden ... A Preview

Photos: University of California Botanical Garden

Autumn in the Asian Collection  

With its hilly topography, Strawberry Canyon is a dramatic setting for the 

U.C. Botanical Garden in Berkeley, 

located across the Bay Bridge to the east of San Francisco.

Stretching over thirty-four acres, the grounds feature a geographical arrangement of gardens,

 displaying plants from around the world.

Rhododendrons are well represented in the Asian gardens, along with maples and hydrangeas, 

witch hazels and epimediums.

Pictured above in a wintery scene, the Botanical Garden's lovely grove of Dawn redwood trees, 

Metasequoia glyptostroboides, are another highlight in this collection.

 The unusual trees are deciduous conifers: 

Having been believed to be extinct, they were discovered growing in western China 

some sixty-five years ago.

The trees at UCBG are among the first grown outside of China.

More to follow on the U.C. Botanical Gardens.

Across the Golden Gate - Sausalito at Sunset

Echeveria species: A drought-tolerant, pass-along plant. 

An octogenarian when we met, Dr. Herman Schwartz loved to walk through his Bolinas gardens giving visitors bits 

of succulent plants as he shared tales of plant collecting in Africa, the Americas, and Madagascar.

The passionate plantsman's arrays of cacti, agaves, aloes & crassulas 

put on a brilliant flowering spectacle in the winter!

Amid all the rarities, a Euphorbia greenhouse contained towering to tiny, 

spiny and spineless species: Countless plants that one could see nowhere else in the U.S.

When Dr. Schwartz died not long ago, the Marin-Bolinas Botanical Gardens - as his renowned collections 

came to be known, were shuttered.

Golden Gate Bridge 

View from the grounds of Cavallo Point Lodge,  a new resort hotel within the historic 

Fort Baker setting,  Marin County.

San Francisco Bay 

November is a great time to visit the city, although it's the rainy season, days are often dry and sunny.

Many summer days in San Francisco are cold & fog shrouded... yet each city neighborhood 

has its own microclimate!

Cross the Golden Gate into Marin County and the weather shifts dramatically once you're away from the coast,

with crystalline blue skies, hot days , low humidity, and cool nights for sleeping.

View of the city from Sausalito.

Sausalito ... a ferry ride from San Francisco - often the only other town visited 

by international tourists.

Intrepid travelers rent bikes and travel across the Golden Gate Bridge to explore the surrounding hillsides.

Fuchsia 

In my garden, this tender specimen demands coddling during cold winter nights.

Westringia brevifolia .. its tiny blooms are alluring to bees.

A tall,drought tolerant, stalwart Australian species growing in my front, low-water garden area.

Angel Island State Park

Visited by ferry.

Rosemary blooms and blooms throughout Bay Area gardens & streetside plantings for months on end.

Like other gardeners, I depend upon its fragrance, varied forms & flowers for areas that receive no summer water.

Aeonium 'Sunburst Crest' - radiant succulent rosettes, requiring protection to survive the frosty nights

 in my Marin garden.

Vertical Gardens! A Patrick Blanc Green Wall for San Francisco

Caixa Forum, Madrid

photos by sallylondon

Architects, Herzog & de Meuron (San Francisco's de Young Museum, 

among their accomplishments) designed the addition on the adjacent building adjacent to the green wall: 

The upper stories exhibiting a tactile, richly colored cor-ten steel facade, in brilliant juxtaposition alongside the verdant surface of Patrick Blanc's expansive plantings.

Blanc broke new ground when he developed a highly successful technique for living walls,  the vertical gardens that now adorn buildings worldwide in indoor and outdoor settings.

Years ago, while visiting Paris I planned an early-morning visit to the Pershing Hall hotel, to see an early Blanc project installed on an interior courtyard wall.

The green wall Blanc created for the Caixa Forum is composed of 15,000 plants; 

250 different species.

In Blanc's words, "The Vertical Garden allows man to re-create a living system very similar to natural environments.

It's a way to add nature to places where man once removed it.

Thanks to botanical knowledge, it's possible to display natural-looking plant landscapes 

even though they are man-made.

...a Vertical Garden" can be "a valuable shelter for biodiversity."

Locally, Blanc has been chosen to design a green wall for the new Assembly Wing of San Francisco's Drew School, Blanc's largest project in the U.S. to date.

I'll be attending Blanc's lecture in San Francisco.

A botanist by profession, with eye-popping green hair, 

Blanc is sure to draw an enthusiastic crowd to the SPUR center in downtown San Francisco!

Link to Patrick Blanc's web site - column on the right:

ARBORETUMS, BOTANICAL GARDENS, HORTICULTURE

Historic Gardens of Alcatraz - A Garden Conservancy Project

Westside gardens

Photos by Elizabeth Byers

Spring 2008 

The Historic Gardens of Alcatraz 

- a project of the Garden Conservancy - recently received two awards from the California Preservation Foundation. 

Alcatraz staff family in an Officers' Row garden, circa 1869

Photo by Eadweard Muybridge, Bancroft Library

Roadside Gardens, 2009 

The Garden Conservancy became involved in 2003 with spearheading the rehabilitation of the heritage gardens on The Rock: now a National Historic Landmark,

and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The 22-acre island, part of the National Park Services Golden Gate National Recreation Area, is the GGNRA's most visited site, with some 1.3 million annual visitors 

hopping a ferry ride from San Francisco to see Alcatraz first-hand.

Officers' Row, 2009 

A brilliant team of volunteers have gardened and toiled 

to restore the uniquely stunning landscape.

A tour is a once-in-a-lifetime adventure! The gardens shown to you within the context of history, horticulture, and cultural significance.

 Link to: The Gardens of Alcatraz

on  Bay Area Tendrils Garden Travel Buzz ...

- column on the right -

 Link to The Garden Conservancy on: Arboretums, Botanical Gardens, Horticulture