The Giant Amsinckia of Union City

 This giant Amsinckia flower is stretched oout over five or six stories overlooking a play ground in Union City near the BART station. Kudos to the artist!

Who painted this amazing mural?

It was Mona Caron. Check her on Facebook and on Laughing Squid.

Stripy Rainbow Tulips at Holland's flower garden, the Keukenof

At an early age, I must have decided that flowers
could be stripy rainbow colors.
Orbiting above the flower and the earth,
I think it might be John Glenn,
also in rainbow color.
Our TVs were black and white
but our imagination was in color.

Keukenof is world famous for its spring flowering bulb displays. Their English landscape style garden near Amsterdam is huge. It takes a couple of hours to see the gardens.

In my family, flowers are not necessarily everyone's favorite thing to look at in large quantities, but luckily it was Mother's Day when we visited. And so I was able to cash in on that happy circumstance. I am so glad we went. It was the last weekend they were open to the public and many of the beds had already finished up. There was still an amazing display of flowers.

Rock Gardens, one of the Branches of Gardening

Sometimes old horticulture journals and books in Google Books turn up in my searches. A favorite is William Robinson's The Garden, An Illustrated Weekly Journal of Gardening in all its Branches. William Robinson is credited with popularizing the wild garden in response to the more controlled Victorian gardens in England.

Why your dry creek garden look funny, and so does mine!

Not quite dry creek bed in Sunol Park.

When I was re-working our dry creek bed to make it look more natural, I googled and found the Town Mouse Country Mouse's blog page "Creating a Dry Creek Bed  - with Tips for a Natural Look". I pinned that helpful page and to my surprise it is one of the most re-pinned topics (right after log storage). That is why I titled this post in a somewhat cruel manner. I haven't actually seen your dry creek garden, but I know you are trying to make it look more natural!

The awkward boulevard strip

We have a very small parking strip or "boulevard", as my friend, Debcot, calls it. Just 2 feet wide.

(A very interesting word, "boulevard", from 1700's French meaning an avenue built on a razed rampart. Also very interesting what that strip is called all over the U.S. according to Wikipedia. This strip name even turned up in the New York Times quiz that shows you "How Y'all, Youse and You Guys Talk". Just all around interesting.) 

I rather like the terms devilstrip, furniture zone, and hellstrip and there is even a book written called Hellstrip Gardening: Create a Paradise between the Sidewalk and Curb.

Our old boulevard was filled with Liquidambar trunk and roots, ice plant, and African Iris. The sidewalk was a hazard - tilted concrete - from the roots snaking under to our lawn. It was really bad. Our neighbor chastised us for causing her husband to have to climb over the humps with his walker. The final straw was when the local teens started using it to get airborne on their skateboards. A true accident waiting to happen. The city no longer repairs sidewalks so we decided we needed to take this into our own hands. We removed the two Liquidambars and put in a couple of landing pads and a brand-new flat sidewalk. Heaven!

Blooming in December! Chinese plum, Japanese apricot, Prunus mume

The show stopper

The Prunus mume that is blooming now.
I think this one is Matsubara Red.
I will keep looking to make sure.

Last night I found two neighbors looking at the flowers of our street-side Prunus mume and taking pictures. One neighbor said that they are Chinese plums and they are called mei. She said that they are early blooming and in China they sometimes get snowed on. The other neighbor was wondering if she could plant one and what kind of care do they need and what do they look like when not in bloom.

Selecting that perfect tree

Looking for that plant that is low maintenance, drought tolerant, and is a great tree?  And maybe one that will not grow so tall that the utility company hacks at it periodically? 

Even Famous Architects build Fruit and Vegetable Gardens

I was looking through the Bernard Maybeck archives in the UC Berkeley Environmental Design Archives and ran across this plan for a fruit tree and vegetable garden. The garden is for the Leon L. Roos House in San Francisco.

Look! A vegetable garden designed by Bernard Maybeck!