A Trip to the Past

Spring is turning into summer here. The temperatures are getting hotter, and the rose blooms more and more fleeting. I try to keep out of the sun and make sure everything stays watered (and, when I have time, deadheaded).

Magnificent Perfume

I feel that I must apologize for falling behind on blogging yet again. I have had a lot on my plate recently: getting  the garage spring fixed (the door wouldn't open and my car was inside), selling some of my photos for a book, trying to figure out why a computer sold to us as new refused to work, finding to my dismay that the workmen we hired to install a new garden gate took down the neighbors' fence instead, and, to cap it all off, being contacted by a casting agency looking for people to feature in an outdoor life show of some sort. 

Basye's Purple Rose

To tell the truth, I feel that my life has begun to resemble an Oscar Wilde play. Fun, but completely unreal.

Intermezzo

Well, I find it hard to make a blog post out of it, so instead I would like to tell you about a trip we took recently driving along the California coast.

A seagull at Fort Bragg

 I hesitated at first about writing a travel post on a rose blog, but I always enjoy reading about other people's trips, especially to places I am unlikely to visit, so hopefully you will enjoy this post too.



We drove north as far as Mendocino, a small 19th century town overlooking the ocean.



It is full of carefully preserved Victorian mansions, salt-box cottages and water towers.







It seemed the kind of place that Agatha Christie would call picturesque in a self-conscious way.




 I found it serene, romantic and very expensive.




Mendocino thrived for many years as a logging community but went into decline during the Great Depression. Its revival began in the 1950s and it is now an artists' colony and a tourist destination.

A disconsolate client waiting at the entrance to an art gallery

Being so pretty and well preserved, the town has been featured in several movies such as "East of Eden" and "Summer of '42". Its most recent claim to fame is being a venue for several episodes of the TV series "Murder, She Wrote".




Even though we did little more than walk and look around, this has been one of our best trips.

An exhibit at the Arts Center

I enjoyed the picture-postcard beauty...,



... the absence of hustle and bustle....,

The main street with hardly any traffic

....the abundance of wild mustard and other weeds superseding the ubiquitous lawn....,




.... and the dedication with which the residents uphold the community spirit by maintaining their houses and gardens in a cohesive style and displaying creativity befitting an artistic destination.

Driftwood sculptures adorning an oceanfront garden

I hope to be back soon, taking a slow walk on a grey cool day, breathing fresh salty air and enjoying a glimpse of a different, unhurried, quiet era. Hopefully, I won't be thinking about fixing my garage or apologizing for the neighbors' fence :).

Roses and Butterflies

I have made two trips recently, one to Roses of Yesterday (a rose nursery and display gardens),....

Sally Holmes

 ... and one to the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco to see their new butterfly exhibit.



 I thought I would combine them into one post: I don't have enough time to blog more frequently, and I am getting bogged down with all the pictures I am taking :)

Gypsy Boy spilling over the entrance gate at Roses of Yesterday

Visiting Roses of Yesterday was a real treat on Mothers' Day weekend.

A very impressive mound of Ruselliana

The nursery is located at a higher elevation and closer to the ocean than my garden, so their roses come into peak bloom just as mine are getting crisped in the heat.

Marguerite Hilling

 I have been there a few times and thought I have seen all there is to see, but surprises don't seem to end.

Rose de Meaux 

The display garden is very old with lots of roses tucked together, growing ever bigger, and suckering ever wider.

Phyllis Bide growing into Russeliana

 Most tags are illegible or missing altogether, which only adds to the charm, as far as I am concerned. On each visit I find a rose or two I missed on previous trips :).

'Pink Mermaid'. Unlike the real Mermaid, it is very restrained in growth and far less prickly.

For a suburban dweller like me, it is very soothing to visit a quiet rural garden in the woods where instead of manicured lawns, roses intermingle with abandon and drip from redwoods.

Belle de Crecy

Because of a cooler and moister climate, the size of blooms is considerably bigger than in my garden. The fragrance wafts. The colors hold in the gentle light. A pure delight in every sense.

Complicata

Roses blooming at the display garden

NOID

Roses for sale

The butterfly exhibit at the Conservatory of Flowers was very different but equally entertaining.

A common buckeye

I walked through a cottage garden filled with flowers....



....where butterflies could be seen as close as one wants.

A white peacock

There was also a "hatchery" where butterflies emerge from chrysalises. It was the most fascinating part of the exhibit for me.

I have learned that butterflies determine the quality of nectar on a flower by tasting it with their feet.

A great southern white

They use ultraviolet vision to zero in on a flower.

A butterfly's long coiled tongue, called proboscis, is used to sip water and nectar whose sugar is the butterfly's chief food source.

I was one of the first visitors to the exhibit, and as it turned out it is not always a good thing. In this exhibit, butterflies are released into the garden as they hatch, so the longer you wait, the more different butterflies you will see.



 I thought I would try to visit the exhibit again at the end of summer, when the dahlias at the nearby dahlia garden are blooming.  Hopefully, many more butterflies will be drinking nectar from these flowers. It is nice to have something to look forward to.

A Garden in Autumn

A garden in autumn, thoughtfully planned, carefully tended and illuminated by a softer light, is a joy to walk in.

Salvia leucantha, or Mexican sage, is a frequent sight in gardens all over Northern California 

Especially if a garden is as serene and unassumingly lovely as the one at Carmel Mission (for a tour of the Mission and the garden in spring click to look at this earlier post).

The colors are not as exuberant as they are in spring, but the garden is still pretty in a gentler way, like an old jewel in its lovely setting of old stone and tiled roofs.



In my garden, I am still struggling with maintaining color and interest throughout the year.

Spanish lavender is a classic pairing with l. viridis (green lavender). In my garden viridis never reblooms in the fall (unlike Spanish lavender).... 

 Spring is easy, and so is winter with camellias, cyclamen and daphne odora providing lots of color and fragrance. But at summer's end, the garden often looks tired and messy. Perhaps I lack experience, or perhaps a staff of helpers to deadhead and trim the plants for me :).



It is always useful to observe how well-planned gardens fare throughout the seasons.



I can see how indispensable grasses are for texture.



Repeat-blooming roses still look lovely.

Iceberg rose can be depended on to provide color almost year round

And fall-blooming perennials and shrubs, such as sages, Japanese anemones and tibouchina urvilleana, provide a welcome burst of fresh flowers.

These Japanese anemones are most likely Honorine Jobert, which I also have in my garden

Tibouchina urvilleana "Princess Flower"

Even though Carmel's climate is gentler than that of San Jose, I am able to grow most things that I have seen at the Mission. In particular, their plantings of Japanese anemones inspired me to include them in my garden too. They create lovely flower carpets underneath my climbing roses which don't bloom well in the fall. If only I could also replicate the wonderful background of old adobe walls, fountains and statues...



This visit to Carmel will probably be our last trip for awhile. The school year is in full swing and all of us are getting busier and busier.

 I might even start writing about my own garden again :).

A western scrub jay in a rose that does not seem to be doing so well...