DryStoneGarden

Dicentra formosa amidst Oxalis oregana

We don’t have a many deciduous plants in our garden, but for the last couple of years I’ve made a note of when each of them leafed out each spring. I didn’t really know how much variation there would be from year to year. So far, there hasn’t been much. Comparing last year, 2011, and the year before, 2010, I’d say everything has been remarkably consistent. And not just the wake up times for the plants, the garden itself has stayed consistent, with every plant on previous lists still growing in the garden except for the Indigofera which we took our during construction on our shed. A couple of Currant bushes are the only new deciduous plants of note.

Natives

Dicentra formosa has been leafed out for about 3 weeks, Dicentra ‘Bachanal’ is leafing out now
Ribes ‘White Icicle’ has one remaining bloom cluster
Calycanthus occidentalis is leafing out, leaves are out but not near full size
Ninebark leafed out at the start of February and has fit’s first flower bud opening, the same schedule as last year
Snowberry has been in leaf for about a month, it started leafing out soon after the ninebark
Mimulus cardinalis has been in leaf for a month, I moved its tub and replanted it and it has come roaring back, I also replanted the stream orchid, but it is just poking up through the soil
Clematis ligusticifolia is leafed out, about a week earlier than last year, the volunteer in a pot has been leafed out for over a month
native asters are leafed out
Phildelphus microphyllus is leafing out
Acer cirnatum, young and in a container is dormant
Amelanchier alnifolia in containers is still dormant
Allium unifolium has buds
native lilies are a foot tall and have been up for several weeks
not a deciduous plant, but I ate the first woodland strawberry this weekend

Non-Natives

the fig is leafed out and has a bigger spring crop this year, about 10 figs
the Chaste tree has leaf buds opening
Acer palmatum from seed has been fully leafed out for several weeks, Acer palmatum ‘Japanese Sunrise’ is mostly leafed out
the neighbor’s Chinese Pistaches are budding, our more sheltered one is not
the Walnut Tree is budding
One of the young Eastern Redbuds has some flowers, the other 2 are dormant, mature ones in the neighborhood are blooming
the Fruiting Mulberry, in a container, has leaf buds opening
Astilbes are still dormant, leaves beginning to appear on the 3rd of April
both Black Currant bushes (transplanted in December) are budding

Our Fig Tree

For the plants that are still dormant, I’ll probably come back and add final leaf-out dates.

I mentioned that posting has been slow because this is a busy time of the year for me. Besides working and moving ahead on our garden shed/office project, I’m also taking a class in watercolor, which has kept me busy in the evenings, trying to get the hang of that rather beguiling and frustrating medium. This is the best of my efforts so far, a view of the entry drive to the house where I’m working right now. The sketch below is from last fall while I was walking around, getting a feel for the property; the watercolor is from this past week when I was assigned a ‘landscape featuring trees.’ In real life the oaks are even more impressive than I managed to show on paper.

Dynamic Reflections

I managed a quick visit to the San Francisco Flower and Garden on Thursday. My personal highlight was not a garden, but rather Bee Chama Honey who comes out from New Mexico most years and has about a dozen different kinds of honey (my favorite was oak, followed by Sage/Willow and Meadowfoam). Anita was a judge at the show this year and was especially impressed at the quality of the gardens and the craftsmanship. I agree, though I thought they weren’t quite as memorable or dramatic as some other years. They were well designed and really nice and it takes a lot of effort to do such good work. I haven’t added links to all the garden creators, but you can find that info at the show’s garden creators webpage. Also there’s some cool stuff at the show’s Facebook page, including a timelapse of a nice, relaxing garden that I didn’t photograph.

Dynamic Reflections again

Dynamic Reflections had the most stone interest. Its by the same designer who did angled walls a few years ago. They’re pretty cool. There’s a heck of a lot going on in these walls, with a ceramic face, a container, various slabs and boulders, more than I would want in a real wall, but probably the right amount for a garden show. I found myself wishing more of the other gardens were more over the top this year.

Dynamic Reflections again

Savannah

Savannah was the other garden that felt satisfyingly over-the-top. It was done almost entirely with grasses, a narrow path through a tunnel of grassy foliage. It was a distinct experience, with crickets and other sounds created by a guy does garden sound for a living. It was a hard thing to do it justice in a photo, but this blurred photo sort of gives a sense of it. I felt like it was far and away the most interesting garden and the main one that offered a distinctive experience you wouldn’t see in a real bay area garden. It was also the only garden that truly felt like it was about the plants.

Windows

Windows was more about the hardscape and the design and making a real outdoor space with good attention to materials and details. It swept the awards from the ASLA, CLCA, APLD, and Sunset, all the groups that are focused on making real residential gardens.

Serenity Lounge

I liked the Serenity Lounge also.

Serenity Lounge again

Urban Habitat on the Left, Sculpture Party on the Right

I also liked the big dragon and the juxtaposition of it next to the graffiti garden. I guess there was more over-the-top things than I remember.

La Vie en Vert

The pendulum and the little gabians in La Vien en Vert are the last of my photos. There were other nice gardens — almost all of the gardens were good this year — but I didn’t photograph them for some reason. I guess I spent a lot of my time tasting honey.

La Vie en Vert again

SF Gate has a slideshow here.

I almost included this in my post about the Richard Serra sculpture at the Stanford museum, but it seemed like it should get its own post. It’s Stone River, one of several Andy Goldsworthy pieces in the Bay Area. The others are Drawn Stone at the De Young museum and Spire in the Presidio. This one is my favorite of the three. I love the snakelike form and the stylized coping stones. Vertical coping stones along the top of a wall are common, especially in Europe, but I’ve never seen them quite like this. It’s all built from rubble the university saved after the earthquakes of 1989 and 1906, 128 tons of stone, 320 feet long.

The whole thing is set into the ground with the top of the wall at grade. Because the color of the stone and the dirt match so closely, it sort of feels like someone took a big scoop of dirt and compressed it into the stone for the wall. I like to see how far I can get walking along the top (not very far).

This warm weather and lack of rain has me a little unsettled. I remember some winters like this when I was growing up, but that was before my gardening days and I don’t remember how it affected the plants. I guess I’ll be finding out. In the meantime, I’ve stopped at Tilden several times this winter to check out how the manzanitas are responding to this lack of a winter. I thought I could look at past photos to see if the different varieties are acting any different this year, but I couldn’t figure out anything conclusive. I think I’ve seen bigger bloom clusters in other years and I think they started blooming a couple of weeks late this year, but I couldn’t say for sure. In any case, they’re looking good right now in the heart of manzanita season.

The one in the photo below, Arctostaphylos montana-regis, has one of the best tree trunks I’ve ever seen. This little cluster of trees is probably my favorite spot in my favorite garden.

The next thing to keep an eye on is when everything deciduous wakes up. A few things in the garden had buds, but nothing had broken into leaf yet.

I really like this photo by a photographer from the UK. It’s great how it plays with my eye, but also how it seems to satirize or exploit the practice of painting tree trunks white. He has more photos on his website.