Thursday, August 22, 2013

The Bold and The Beautiful

No, I am not talking about the soap opera, but the plant material I saw while in California for this year's Garden Bloggers Spring Fling.  As previously stated, I was dazzled by all that I saw.  Plants that I use as houseplants were growing in the gardens, like skyscrapers, towering over my tiny specimens.   The colors are bold, even in the window displays in Chinatown.

The blue-green foliage against the orange of the California poppy, Eschscholozia californica jumped out at me....have been trying to grow this in my garden.  I had tiny seedlings in multiple places then the monsoons came.

Another plant  I would love to have in my garden, Abutilon, Flowering Maple,  There were some stunning examples of it on our tours.


Arbutus, or Strawberry tree was another plant in many of the gardens.  Its tiny flowers remind me of Lily of the Valley or Pieris or Blueberry blooms...all in the Ericaceae family.


At the nursery of Annie's Annuals we were greeting with an explosion of color --


I would love this variety and boldness of color in my garden!


 If the blooms weren't enough color, some of the garden art will fill the bill!



Agapanthus, African Lily or Lily of the Nile was a mainstay in commercial and residential gardens.  Here is is in front of the Conservatory of Flowers.

While inside the Conservatory there were also some great blooms with intense color.


I think Sunset Headquarters took the bold color theme to the highest level.  Love this orange trellis, it frames the pathway into a colorful garden.

If you have a blank wall, Sunset has an idea of what you can do.  Wall art as a planter.  Bold is where it is at baby!



Leaving the bold and colorful gardens we arrived at Filoli, the estate in Crystal Springs.  I included this photo in the bold and beautiful posting because I see so much depth in it.  This lovely grove is a grove of olives....the whole walkway seemed to glow in the pale olive color.  Beautiful in its richness of color.

Also in the Filoli was the Knot Garden.  Love the sea of color, even with the bright sunlight the colors popped.


Here is that Dianella caerulea in another garden, think the universe is telling me I need to find some for my garden!

Another beauty spotted a few places is Melaleuca nesophila or Showy Honey-myrtle-- isn't it lovely?


I think even the bark on some of the trees was bold and brightly colored.  Think this is  a Manzanita or Arctostaphylos 'Ruth Bancroft' at the Ruth Bancroft Garden.   I love the curls.

Two of the gardens were bright and bold and colorful and full of all sorts of plants that I had no idea what they might be....and I loved being amongst the blooms.  The Wave Garden was one of these gardens.   This one is Trailing Princess Flower or Centradenia floribunda.  I am a fan of hot pink!


The Wave Garden had this big and bold collection of Aeonium with other succulents, houseplants gone wild!


Of all the color combinations at the Wave Garden, my favorite was this purple bloom, Trachelium caeruleum, against the chartreuse foliage, Banksia spinulosa....wow and double wow!

This next bloom looks like striped ribbons threaded through yellow strands of hair.  I have no idea what this one is, maybe someone can ID it for me.

Noticed in a couple gardens was Kangaroo Paws, Anigozanthos, we saw some yellow ones here and some red ones at another garden.  Love the fuzzy blooms.

The Nichols garden was bold in their use of living plant material as an arbor.  Here, flanked by boldly colored Canna, it beckons you to enter.

Keeyla Meadows' Garden was beyond colorful.  The plants were colorful, the artwork was colorful, the house was colorful, EVERYTHING was brightly colored.   Along the front walk was Clarkia, tall and bright pink (did I mention I like pink?).  Great native plant of  Western North America.  


Rose Campion, Lychnis coronaria against the bright blue sky....again pink!!  I have seedlings of this plant, hoping one day that it will bloom for me.

This little blue bloom is so cute, my sister in law gave me some when we lived in Virginia, not hardy to that zone but I did keep it for a couple years.  It is Tweedia caerulea, love the pale blue and the fuzzy leaves and petals.

Like I said, there was color everywhere in the garden.  Love the color combination of the tiles in the pathway.


Yes, this Cuphea cyanea, Pink Cigar Plant, is great, complementing the colors in the hardscapes.   I think Cupheas have little faces.


Color at every turn,  I love this garden.


Won't this bench be wonderful to have in your garden?   


We were able to go inside Keeyla's home and inside was just as vibrant as the outside.   I like color and  this is incredible.

Finally, the bold and beautiful extends to a water treatment plant's grounds, designed by Flora Grubb.  The plantings were large statements of color and texture, simple and easy maintenance, a bright spot in the neighborhood.



Flora Grubb's Wall-O-Succulents caused many of us to stop and ohh and ahhh.   Now this was bold!  I saw a succulent wreath a few years ago that I really liked, this totalling took my breath away.  


This concludes my Fling posts.  I hope you enjoyed the way I presented our time in San Francisco.  Sometimes these Fling visits are larger than the gardens themselves, it is the overall sense of the location.  Did you like reading about the Fling like this?  Would you rather have learned about each garden and viewed pictures of the garden in a single post?  

©Copyright 2013 Janet. All rights reserved. Content created by Janet for The Queen of Seaford. words and photos by Janet,The Queen of Seaford.

34 comments:

  1. Hi Janet. You bring back wonderful memories with your photos. It was a great time and loads of cool places that we visited. I was looking at my photos just last night.

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    1. Donna @GWGT, We did see a lot of wonderful sights over a short time! Wonderful memories for sure.

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  2. I love the way you presented your Fling visit! I often don't feel a connection to every single garden, and feel like it would be a real stretch of my writing abilities to write a post about every one, when I'm not feeling particularly enthusiastic and maybe didn't get great pictures. Well done! I seem to remember seeing your unknown flower identified on someone's blog, but can't remember which!

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    1. Alison, thanks, I thought it was a different approach to take, glad you liked it. Jean said she thinks it is a Protea, I remember someone posting it too....just can't remember who!

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  3. Such beauty out West! Plants my eyes have never seen before now. Ooooooo, La La is all I can say....

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  4. Wonderful photos, thank you! I am an ardent lover of lychnis - and, of course: pink (there is a white variety, but I love the silently glowing one).

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    1. Britta, I love lychnis, hope mine comes along and puts some flower stalks up! I like white ones as well. Have a friend here who has an all white garden area. Very nice!

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  5. I like the presentation Janet. I think the unknown flower is some kind of protea.

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    1. Jean, thanks for the ID and thanks for your comment about my presentation. What a wonderful trip.

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  6. I liked your approach. Plenty of other flingers dedicated a post to each garden, so this overview was refreshing. I can't wait to see what you think of Portland next year.

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    1. Ricki, thanks, it seems to be liked... the whole trip was remarkable, had to put it together as a whole and not parts.

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  7. It's almost as if you visited another world, Janet--I hadn't heard of most of these plants! But what an explosion of color, which I like, too. I love the wall art planters and the mosiac benches and wall. I did enjoy your thematic presentation of Fling; I still got a sense of the different gardens you visited, but I enjoyed the way you tied them together in each post. Hope to see you in Portland next year!

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    1. Rose, it certainly was! Hope to see you in Portland too! Glad you liked the assembly of posts.

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  8. This overview is great Janet. You can always go back and do additional posts with a more in depth look at the various gardens you saw at the Fling.There are so many unusual plants in your post- many I have never seen before. I understand the Fling is coming to Toronto in 2015. I guess that will be one Fling I can afford to attend!

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    1. Jennifer, so glad! Yes, I guess I could go back and do more...thinking I might put all the pictures on flickr for all to see. Yes!!! Come to Toronto!!

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  9. You DID capture all of the color and all was befitting for a queen. I loved Annie's, but I lost my memory card out of my pocket and thus, lost all of my photos. Thanks for sharing. It was like being back there again.~~Dee

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    1. Dee, I am so sad to read that you lost your memory card, that just stinks. Glad my pictures helped make up for it a little bit.

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  10. These are great pictures. Those California Poppies take my breath away - I must remember to grow them at home as annuals.

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    1. Jason, I do have California Poppy seeds...going to give it another try.

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  11. I loved the way you shared your visit. Every post was wonderful.

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  12. Incredible!
    Magnificent colors!
    I especially like the plants growing on the walls.
    Have a beautiful day!
    Lea
    Lea's Menagerie

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  13. California really knows how to do bold & beautiful! Lots of fun color and garden art everywhere. It is interesting to see different varieties of the plants we grow in the SE.

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    1. Karin, it sure does! It was so different from our plants.

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  14. Sounds like you had a very worthwhile fling trip. I think it was fun to see so many styles contrasting together in one post. Like you, the purple and chartreuse have made me ooh and ahhh whenever I've seen photos - and several bloggers caught and presented that partnership. Very nice!

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    1. VW, yes, worthwhile and lots of fun! Yes, that grouping of plants was photographed a lot!!

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  15. So bright! But I love it. :o) If you scatter some CA poppy seeds onto potting soil in the fall, you'll have seedlings in the spring. Also, rose campion (lychnis) just needs full, hot sun and sharply drained soil.

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    1. Tammy, sounds like a plan. I still have seeds. My rose campion is alive, just didn't put up any flower stalks this summer.... but then we had so much rain...no sun!

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  16. Beautiful flowers, wonderful pictures :) Regards

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  17. Janet there are so many cool flowers I wish I could have add and you just added more to the wish list. And those mosaics especially that bench...oh I love mosaics.

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    1. Donna@GEV, I know,there were so many neat plants. The saving of my wallet is many won't make it in the humid south. I love the bench too!!

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