My reward

21 Jan '08 10:33 am

Moosey was right. I deserved a reward for my virtuous labors yesterday. So I took my camera and paid a visit to Marsha Donahue's garden. On the way back I got a coffee and strolled through the Dry Garden nursery, but didn't spend a dime.

Marsha has been gardening here in Berkeley in the same place for like thirty years. She has loads of mature, rare plants as well as the motherload of garden sculpture. She is known best for her stacked ceramic, bamboo like poles and for her large carved stone heads, but she was also one of the first to use bowling balls as mulch and she has had blue glass bottles on the branch tips of some of her trees for some time. Lots of whimsy here in a space that is probably 40 foot square in the back and much smaller in front. She opens her garden every Sunday as a gallery for selling her own artwork and that of another local scupltor named Bullwinkle.

Because it is so small and fully packed with plants and art, it is hard to get much perspective with the camera. I did manage to take several shots and I thought I would share those here.

27 Jan '08 3:08 am

Ah, and what a nice reward it was. I just love visiting other peoples gardens to see what they are up to. You can glean some great ideas for your own gardens that way; and since each garden is unique, they always turn out a little different than the inspiration piece. That way one doesn't feel like such a copycat for borrowing ideas. Very nice pics Mark.

27 Jan '08 7:13 pm

it was a good reward. Today I had another. This weekend the San Francisco Botanical Garden and Horticulture magazine co-hosted a garden seminar with four speakers. The first was from Ireland and showed her own incredible garden. The second was the head gardener for the Prince Charles at his big estate. After lunch the head Gardener at the Miller Botanical Garden outside of Seatle, Washington spoke followed by a woman from San Diego who had written a popular book on designing with succulents. All were quite good and interesting until the last. That was the one I was especially keen to learn more about but I left thinking she didn't know much more than I do about succulents. Disappointing. I took a stroll through the garden at lunch and shot a lot of the succulent garden there as well as one of my favorite flowers there this time of year, Telanthaphora grandiolia. Unfortunately it wasn't quite fully in bloom though the flower heads are nearly fully filled out the actual flowers haven't yet begun to open. I'll load some under the garden visit forum soon.

My reward

My reward

Reward

Thanks Faith.