Is this where you sign the guest book? Hello from Berkeley!

19 Feb '07 6:50 am

I want to say I'm enjoying the pictures and forums at this site. I enjoy seeing other people's gardens as well as having them over to see mine. I garden in Berkeley, California behind our hundred-year-old, crackerbox of a warehouse where my wife does her weaving. We're down in the flats, along Strawberry creek. I started this garden in 1994 or 95. Before that I kept finches and softbills in a few outdoor aviaries I built off of an old shed. Planting the aviaries, I discovered I was more interested in the plants than the birds. When I first started planting the garden it was with the thought of enhancing the habitat for our local birds and butterflies. That still matters to me (no pesticides or harsh chemicals ever) but I started becoming more interested in how being in the garden made me feel, and how sculpting the space affected that feeling. Before I started this garden I would have described any work I did outside as chores. Now few things motivate me more than acting on the ideas that come when looking around the garden. The more you look, the more you notice and the more you act on those ideas, the more new ideas come. It sometimes feels like reading a real page turner: each project achieved inspires the next. Visiting other gardens and reading has really turned me on to the variety of plants that are out there, so many of which will grow outside here in coastal California. Now I regularly become fixated on aquiring certain wonderful plants. (Hence the serialplantfetishist moniker.) High on my wish-list right now would be the big, blackish tree fern cyathia medularis and the medium sized palm chamaedorea costaricana. Some older favorites include: gunnera manicata; the ceonothis cultivar 'Diamond Heights'; the indigo blue and the orange iochromas; the huge leaved tree wigandia characasana with the enormous blue flower umbels; the newly available lobelias tupa and aguana; the fragrant shrubby tree luculia; the big boy of the brightly colored phormiums 'Guardsman'; and the cloud forrest daisy telanthaphora grandifolia. If I ever exhaust this lust for unusual and alluring plants I think I will miss it. Anyhow, thanks for the forums Moosey and hello to all. (So far I have not succeeded in uploading any photos though I think I did manage to at the "webshots" site.)

19 Feb '07 7:30 am

Hello SPF ...What a fascinating introduction -I love the idea of living next to a place called Strawberry creek !
I hope you manage to put some photos on (if I can ,anybody can -though without a digital I can't do more than one at a time )Your wish list sounds interesting -do you have frosts ?
Dixie

19 Feb '07 8:18 am

Hi Dixie and thanks for the reply.

I do get frosts. This year was the coldest and longest enduring in a while. Several years ago I had to take cuttings from my 'Waverly' salvias and plectranthus every year to replant because we would have hard frosts every year that killed them off. Then for several years in a row nothing much at all. Most of what is not in pots is too large to cover now so I just have to hope for the best. I expect to lose a tender, little jade plant I forgot about and am concerned about a yellow bird of paradise bush and the iochromas. We'll see.

What's it like gardening in New Zealand? (Is Waikato on the northern island?) I picture you as having more regular rainfall and probably higher humidity than we do as well as fairly mild winters. Does gardening run in your family or when did you come to it? My wife went to an art exhibit she was in in Perth Australia last summer and she wants to come back with me and go to New Zealand this time too. I hope we do, but doubt that it will happen very soon.

I will try again to load some pictures again soon. Please tell me more about New Zealand. Come to think about it I should look up your earlier posts and pictures. Okay, another technological challenge.

-Mark

19 Feb '07 10:34 am

When you find your way around here ,do have a look on the front page - on the left is a section that Moosey has for scenic NZ - South island -There are several members here on the North island .
Another site for scenic NZ is www.justourpictures.com ....My favourite part of NZ is the coromandel peninsula -google and type in Coromandel NZ should find it.
I am very interested in your wife's art work .Hope we can see some of it sometime.
Best wishes
Dixie.

19 Feb '07 3:04 pm

Or you could come and visit New Zealand and see the cabbage trees and phormiums and astelias. We seem to be a land full of spiky green plants - but not spiky green people! Hee hee. Welcome, and I agree with Dixie - the Coromandel is absolutely beautiful! Though it's years since I was last up there (I live and garden in the South Island).
Cheers

19 Feb '07 5:30 pm

Dixie, images of my wife's weaving can be seen at her website "liacook.com" though if you're on dial-up it may be slow going. She's a nut for detail and probably uses big files. I see from your profile that like her you are an artist and also teach. Luckily for me she gets her creative fulfillment in the studio so that I don't have to share the garden 'canvas' much. Thanks also for the tip on the Coromand peninsula. We like to hike and camp and it looks amazing.
-Mark

19 Feb '07 6:00 pm

Thanks - I will visit your wife's site .
Coromandel ......-where time and tide wait for Everyone .......
Dixie

19 Feb '07 6:05 pm

My cousin ,Christina ,is also a watercolour artist .
This is one of her paintings.
Dixie

20 Feb '07 2:14 am

Hello and welcome Mark. Thanks for the introduction - I too would love to see some photos of your garden when you get a chance. Just had a look at your wife's web site and I must say, she has done some simply beautiful work - I love the detail works in particular (e.g. the tryptich of the hands on the mouth).

And Dixie, your cousin is yet another fabulous talent! I love all the detail in the foreground contrasting with the misty mountain the the back. Very Happy

20 Feb '07 5:14 am

I'm glad I found your introductory post. Keep trying to get those pictures up. You now have my interest really peaked.

Is this where you sign the guest book? Hello from Berkeley!

Is this where you sign the guest book? Hello from Berkeley!

Hello and welcome

New Zealand

Welcome

Hello again, Dixie!

Coromandel

Whitianga wharf

Hello again Mark