San Francisco Road Trip Part I – UC Berkeley Botanical Garden

I feel a little guilty telling you that Lin ( my bridal support unit ) and I spent a few solar day in San Francisco last week . So many of you were slogging through unrelenting oestrus while Lin and I were experiencing windshield wiper arm - deep daze and temps that did n’t make it out of the LX . It was a last minute jaunt after Lin ’s plans to visit relative in Philadelphia fell through . safe affair for her , cuz it was blistering and gummy ( that ’s “ muggy ” write inside - out ) back there and the airline frown on wedging a 55 - gallon drum of baby powder in the operating expense .

Thursday was dinner with our friends Pam ( we worked in the same landscape designer ’s office when I subsist in SF ) and her hubz , Carl . Fun time chowing down Cuban tapas at Cha - Cha - Cha in the Mission .

Friday was the de Young Museum for The Birth of Impressionism show ( must see ) and some camera wandering at the SF Botanical Garden . I call I ’ll post a web log from that sojourn .

But Saturday was the expectant deal , horticulturally speak . I ’ve heard for days about the fabled 10,000 - plus specie collection ensconce at the 34 - acreUniversity of California Botanical Garden(UCBG ) on the Berkeley campus . The principal focus of the assembling is on plant life from the five Mediterranean climate regions : California , South Africa , Chile , southwest Australia / New Zealand , and the Mediterranean basin . But the UCBG also does a heck of a job with works from easterly North America , Mexico / Central America , Asia and desert realm of the New World .

Lin took off with her camera and I headed into the wilderness of the Garden with mine . These images are just a smattering of the century I snapped . There ’s no theme to the picture – they ’re just the single that leap off the proctor .

Comic Trees is the name of a delightful display garden just outside the tropic plant home . create by Bay Area artist , Ama Torrance , these life - size of it cartoon trees bring giggle to real kid and self-aggrandizing kids like me . The Pop Art - inspired showing will be up for the rest of the summertime , so here ’s your first ground to rush to Berkeley for a sojourn .

Speaking of kid hooey , how about this rainbow sherbet - coloredBrugmansiafrom the subtropical region of South America ? I ’d believably start lap up my agency from the lemon death toward the orange - flavour hatchway if it were n’t for the fact that this Solanaceae family fellow member isseriously toxicif ingested .

There were a whole clump of sage in the Mediterranean neighborhood , but thisSalvia pomifera ssp . pomifera , from Greece , is one that hypnotized me with its magical turn . I love when a flower come with a build - in mini intention lesson , like this pernicious juxtaposition of papery fuchsia - colored bracts with the calming majestic flower petal of the yet unfurled flower . utilise these people of colour in the garden to create a calming position for the optic to rest .

I think there ’s still a Ripley ’s Believe It Or Not museum at Fisherman ’s Wharf , but this common scabweed ( Raoulia hookeri ) was odd enough to will me dumbfounded . From a few feet aside , this New Zealand native just count like a mat of teensy , succulent gray - green leaves . When I acknowledge the sign point it was in the sunflower category ( Asteraceae ) , I had to zoom in to notice a flower . Sure enough , if you put a full - sized sunflower on your copier and set it at 99.9 % diminution , this is what the flower would look like . I marvel what insect pollinates this little cutie .

I fool away this video to capture the agency differences in light sham the green of foliage . Rimu , also known as red pine tree , ( genus Dacrydium cupressinum ) is native to New Zealand and a fellow member of the Podocarpaceae folk , a type of conifer . adopt I could find a few Rimu to use in one of my clients ’ gardens , I ’d place it as a background for black bamboo . The strong upright lines and inscrutable darkness would be keen .

This California buckeye ( Aesculus californica ) has nothing to do with China , but I ’m guess no one had the heart to weed this intruder out of the Asiatic incision . Surrounded by camellia , rhododendrons and delicate ground cover song , the two main trunk must have grafted themselves together long before the UCBG was moved from the main campus to Strawberry Creek in the 1920s . Some might bump it grotesque — I see nature ’s infinite creativity .

Back in the Australasian section , the barque of this woodland oak tree ( Casuarina torulosa – which is in no way related to real oaks , Quercusgenus ) reminded me how much I ’ve been yen for anything made with phyllo dough – baklava anyone ?

If I did n’t know near , I ’d think that environmental creative person Andy Goldsworthy had secretly set up this Nassella laevissima into undulating , blonde ringlets . When I cite my fascination with this works to UCBG film director , Paul Licht — whom I was fortunate to bump into just before end up up the garden — he state me that when this Chilean Gunter Grass flowers in natural spring , it make a haze of purplish flowers that dance above the plant . sound like another good reason to return next yr .

This motion-picture show is here “ just because . ” In this bizarre mash - up , I focalise on the way the angulate gratuity of theAeoniumleaves and honeycomb pattern from setaceous , overlapping branch ofSarcopoterium spinosumcaught my attention . immensely unlike plants link by a divvy up blueprint .

Another simple design example – Two species of upright , cylindricalEuphorbiashare a nearly selfsame material body , but their outbound “ skin ” lay up a pleasing direct contrast .

This uttermost macro - genus Lens close - up captures two clusters of the capably named hedgehog ( Agave stricta ) as they avert a collision .

I do n’t like to brag , but this photograph is my practiced of the day . So get ’s end with Parry ’s agave ( Agave parryi ) , whose delicate , boss ghostly gray - greenish leaves overlap in a most pleasing mode . And the cruel little black-market spikes have the decency to annunciate their presence , just in font you were thinking of getting up close and personal .

If you ’re in the Bay Area and a lover of plant , skip the crass commercialism of Fisherman ’s wharfage and treat yourself to a unforesightful jaunt to the Berkeley J. J. Hill in the East Bay . If you live in the expanse , displume out your credit card and become a member of the University of California Botanical Garden . They put on fabulous course of study for all age . If I find the Fountain of Youth , I ’m scamming a bogus Idaho so I can enrol in the minor ’s paper rush - fix class that was in full gear when we natter .

apart from the overwhelming variety of beautiful , flaky and fascinating plants you ’ll experience , take a minute to expect up , take a inscrutable breath and pluck in the arresting view across the bay .

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