DryStoneGarden

Black Beauty Lily

Tomorrow is bloom day. I missed last month’s, though there were some interesting plants in bloom: Monardella villosa, Monardella micrantha, Calylophus hartegii, Lilium regale, Lobelia ‘Queen Victoria,’ one or two others that we don’t always have blooming. This month has fewer things of interest. The geraniums are blooming (‘Bill Wallis’ reblooming, ‘Mavis Simpson’ hanging on since June), the last of our lilies , an ornamental oregano that brings large numbers of honey bees into the garden for the only time of the year, and a lot of the more ever-blooming plants like the orange Canna, the Blessed Calendulas, the Galvezias which seem to always have flowers but rarely in significant quantities.

Lobelia speciosa

Calendula and Calandrinia

Oenothera and Pennisetum

Sedum and Rubus pentalobus

Overall, not much else is worth photographing at the moment. Partly because August is the tail end of our bloom season, but mostly because we just began several projects and the garden is in that state of chaos that happens before everything begins to get put back together again. Bamboo leaves are strewn everywhere. Though actually I finished the first of the projects this weekend, and just need to tidy it up and then it will be bloggable. We’ve had this garden exactly five years now, and it is getting some upgrades that should make us want to stay here another five.

My thanks to Carol at MayDreamsGardens for hosting bloom day. Click through to see what’s blooming in lots of other garden blogs. The list of everything in bloom in our garden is below. Read the rest of this entry »

Yosemite Falls

‘…a trail which was almost like a symphony, stopping, moving, looking, listening, and so on. I wanted to make this… but not to make it clear that there was a designer here… I wanted to leave it to the point that people would assume that it had always been that way.’ Lawrence Halprin

Along with the north coast, I went to Yosemite several times in the last couple months. Absolutely amazing place, as the millions of people who visit annually can all attest. I used to be bothered by the crowds, but I’ve learned to navigate the park and appreciate it without feeling bothered by them. Bringing my bicycle with me has helped immeasurably. The Valley’s a beautiful, flat place to ride around in, and a bicycle is the key to avoiding the daily traffic jams. (The park service really needs to figure out a way to get people parking outside the valley and just using bikes and shuttle buses inside. I’m skeptical it will ever happen, but I can dream, right?) Climbing has also helped me love the valley. Obviously because the climbing is so incredible, but also because I’ve ended up spending long periods of time sitting and staring at the views. And not just on the climbs. Most days I would meet up with my climbing partner at the bicycle parking at Lower Yosemite Falls, and while I waited for him, I started to really appreciate the effect that the view of the falls has for people.

Yosemite Falls

It’s the tallest falls in North America, 2,425 feet, and probably the single most viewed and photographed in the world. Lawrence Halprin redesigned the approach trail and picnic area a few years ago, and there is a lot of stonework done by the same company that did all of the stonework at Stern Grove. I don’t really remember what the approach was like before the redesign and the only ‘before photo I’ve seen is a glimpse in the video I linked above, but I remember a parking lot and a lot of crumbling asphalt. I’m pretty sure the framed view of the falls was already cleared, but possibly with the trees starting to grow back in and obscure the view again, and with a bathroom in the foreground instead of the dramatic allée. The redesign took out the parking area, made the trail into a loop, and rehabbed a lot of degraded habitat areas. It upgraded the materials and it channeled people’s movement so they would hit the key viewpoints without trampling on the vegetation or eroding the banks of the creek. And the work was done with enough subtlety and transparency that, as Halprin was hoping, most people probably don’t realize that their experience was crafted by a designer.

Yosemite Falls Approach

There’s a summary of the project here.

Yosemite Falls Approach Trail

Goat Rock State Park

As I said in my last post, I made some vacation time for myself the last month or two. Not a continuous vacation, but I made it out of town for a three day weekend almost every week, to Yosemite several times and up the coast twice. While on those trips, I made an effort to do some sketches. In the scheme of things, I’m probably more partial to photos, but sketches are good too, and I find myself doing more and more drawing for work. All of these are from the Jenner area, three in the vicinity of Goat Rock and one at Fort Ross.

Goat Rock State Beach

Fort Ross

Sunset Rocks at Goat Rock State Park

It feels like summer is finally here. I’m taking a few weeks off from the blog, enjoying these long summer days outdoors instead of at the computer. Posting should resume some time next month.

While I was at Salt Point, I visited the Sea Ranch Chapel just north of there. The chapel’s a fantastic building designed by San Diego architect James T. Hubbell, commisioned by two sea Ranch residents who wanted to create a ‘nondenominational sanctuary for prayer, meditation, and spiritual renewal.’ I love the form and the blending of materials.

The design was inspired by the drawings of a local artist and is said to be based on winged forms. It also has a bit of shell motif going, though it’s of course abstract enough to offer a variety of interpretations. Personally, I think it resembles a brugmansia flower.

The Hubbell website says the supervisor on the project had experience as a boat builder, which makes a lot of sense; the framing looks like it’s for a boat, and the finished building looks somewhat like a sea vessel sitting on a cradle of rock. The moss rock (aka Sonoma fieldstone) is actually a facade over a cinder block wall, but the batter makes it look structural.

The section and the construction photo are from the chapel’s website, which also has a nice aerial photo of the building.

The interior is as striking as the exterior, with a flagstone floor, stained glass windows, and lots of beautiful woodwork. The windows and the wood made the building feel warm, even though the sky still was gray with its coastal-morning haze.

It’s all very compelling and a steady flow of people visited while I was there, drawn off the highway to investigate. You don’t really see many buildings that combine rock and wood and glass and metal in such a unique way. Really well done.

Philadelphus microphyllus

Yesterday was bloom day. Our garden’s happy but messy. That storm at the beginning of the month was good for foliage and flowers, though it also spread bamboo leaves everywhere, which we still need to tidy up. The star right now is our mock orange, Philadelphus micranthus, which you can smell as soon as you come up the stairs into the garden.

Brodiaea with Nigella

Brodiaea is in bloom throughout the yard. We have two varieties; the bluer ones are ‘Corrina,’ the more purple ones are ‘Queen Fabiola.’ I always have to look it up to remember which is which.

Brodiaea with Salvia Hot Lips

Brodiaea with Dudleya

Several of the dudleyas are budding or blooming. They are all somewhat close to our walkway and their bloom stalks have a tendency to get damaged before the flowers open. This one is nicely ensconced amongst some brodiaea so it has stayed safe.

Lilium parryi

I grew a bunch of these native lilies from seed, germinating them three four years ago. They’ve been impressively tolerant of neglect, but slow. This is the first year I’m getting a significant number of blooms; last year we had a few, this year maybe a dozen. I think the leopard lily is the cooler flower, but the lemon lily is less common and also beautiful, so I tend to prize it more.

Leopard Lily, Lilium pardalinum

Scarlet Monkey Flower Mimulus cardinalis with Stream Orchid Epipactis gigantea

All of our monkey flowers are in bloom. The orange monkey and the scarlet monkey are thriving; a red monkey, Mimulus puniceus, is getting swallowed up by Matilija poppy and a hybrid monkey seems to be in decline after several years of heavy flowering.

Mimulus aurantiacus

Bloom Day is hosted as always by Carol at MayDreamsGardens. My thanks to her. Click over for links to over a hundred and fifty other blogs posting about their flowers. The list of everything blooming in our yard is below. Read the rest of this entry »