13 Monday Oct 2014
Posted in Botanical Garden, Fall, Fall foliage, gardening, Michigan
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Here are some shots from the W. J. Beal Botanical Garden at Michigan State University. We went for the weekend and had a nice fall football weekend.
This is a great botanical garden if you ever get the chance to see it. It is right on campus near the library. It’s circular in shape and you walk along the grass and look at rows of different types of plants.
The leaves were just starting to fall from the trees. It was around 40 degrees and slightly raining.
08 Monday Sep 2014
This is a pictorial of beautiful places around Santa Barbara and Santa Inez Valley.
Enjoying the day at the Buttonwood Winery & Farm in Santa Inez Valley.
Zinnias and salvia at Buttonwood Farms in the picnic area.
Seaside daisy for sale in Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens, a great place to visit! It is great for kids too because there are tons of short trails to walk, shade in the canyons, a cool gift shop, etc.
Santa Barbara Bontanic Gardens where you can learn about native plants and drought-tolerant plants, plus get ideas for water features like this one. Now wouldn’t that be nice in your backyard?
Going to Santa Barbara? You gotta go to Andersen’s Danish bakery! I just had to throw this in! You get hungry gardening (and visiting gardens).
Coastal redwoods in the canyon at the Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens, a place to cool off and slow down.
Native plants for sale at Bontanic Gardens. I hauled home three: a verbena (Verbena lilacina “De La Mina”), a coral bells variety native to the Channel Islands (Heuchera maxima) and a Seaside Daisy (Erigeron glaucs). I wanted to buy a lot more but I didn’t.
Santa Barbara Mission on a Sunday morning with rose garden in forefront. Overall, it was very dry and dusty but the roses were still in bloom and better than mine at home!
Yarrow and verbena bonarensis at Buttonwood Farms.
Last stop was Rancho Olivos to buy olive oil. I snuck into the corral next door to take a picture with a horse because I needed one for the Babbitt Ranches newsletter where my blog will be mentioned soon! Can I please keep this horse? Thank you to Christopher Davis of the Grapeline Shuttle for taking this photo! (and a great tour of the wine country!)
12 Thursday Apr 2012
Posted in Botanical Garden, butterfly garden, butterly, drought-tolerant, garden, gardening, Tucson, Uncategorized
I love visiting other gardens and getting ideas. Last week I went to the Tucson Botanical Gardens and the butterfly green house. It was amazing. The greenhouse was full of plants that grow in San Diego such as hibiscus and Pentas lanceolata, which was beautiful. I might try to plant it. I see it grows as a perennial here and as an annual other locales.
I had some little garden helpers with me on the tour. The butterflies were attracted to them.
We really enjoyed the butterfly house, but there was so much more to see. So many of the plants both inside the 80 degree green house and outside the butterfly house, can grow in San Diego. That’s what so amazing about the climate here. We can grow almost anything.
But here is a shady fountain that they have planted and turned into a flowerbed. I think that’s Dusty Miller, which, I am surprised to learn, is a type of Artemisia. I don’t usually like Dusty Miller, but I love my Artemisia Powis Castle. I am not so great at growing it, but I love its smell and its silver gray color. I love all the funny names it has too like Wormwood. I read that is has been grown since “the time of ancient Greece.” (Sunset Western Garden book.) Now that I read this, I see I need to prune it in the fall. Maybe that’s my problem. Anyway, here it is in Tucson:
I also loved the Barrio Garden with its roses, fig trees, purple heart (the deep purple houseplant-type that grew profusely in the flowerbeds in the house I grew up in), pomegranates, and tombstone roses. Just beautiful!
I love the look of this garden path (see below), which is lush and full, despite the heat. This pictures shows a pomegranate, a mesquite and some other flowers in the wildflower garden area. If you are ever in Tucson, be sure to visit this wonderful place!
Of course, March is a wonderful time to visit Tucson. Everything is blooming–the Palo Verde trees are full of yellow blossoms. They float down the street reminding me of buttered popcorn. My great-grandma tried her whole life to paint one that satisfied her with its perfection. The vibrant yellow flowers against the sage green branches made a very compelling subject. Since I don’t paint, I write, and I can write about her trying to paint, but mainly I prefer to watch them because they are full of pollen and make me sneeze! (If I find a picture, I will post it.)
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