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.

Considering Cascades

From a 1931 picture from
the Friends of the Cleveland Cascade.
The cascades were lit
with different colors of light.

I recently ran across a reference to the Cleveland Cascade. It is not in Cleveland, but is a water work that cascades down a portion of too-steep-for-cars Cleveland Street in Oakland. I found this reference through a strange series of searches from tulips, to the California Nursery Company spring flowering bulbs shows, to Howard Gilkey who designed Oakland flower shows, and finally to the Cleveland Cascades.

We went over to see the Cleveland Cascade today. Unfortunately the basins were all removed and so now there are just steps. Lots of people are still enjoying the steps as their daily exercise. It sure beats the gym.

The Quincunx, mystically considered

Huge fan, I am, of reading old gardening books.

While looking for some good pictures of roses for the current Días de los Muertos art project, I ran across this odd word - Quincunx. Odd and old, not to mention hard to pronounce.

Wikipedia has an entry for it. Merriam Webster has a definition. Visually it is the five spot on a domino - four dots on the corner and one in the middle.  The origin is thus: "Latin quincunc-, quincunx, literally, five twelfths, from quinque five + uncia twelfth part". According to MW, first known use was 1485. Now I'm still thinking how does 5/12 relate to planting.

Both the California Nursery and Fancher Creek Nursery talked about orchard planting and the Quincunx. Roeding's Fruit Growers Guide (1919) probably helped disseminate the information.

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!

The Garden of the Vallejo Adobe - Designed by Johannes Reimers

What did the garden around the "Old Adobe" look like? There are black and white pictures, but the cover of the 1939 catalog is probably how the Roeding family saw it. (The catalog flipped the original painting to make the front door be on the cover!). [2021 update! Movies from California Revealed]

Johannes Reimers designed the garden surrounding the Old Adobe around the time that the adobe was renovated by his son, the Bay Area architect, Frederick Reimers.

The 1931 catalog says that the owners plan to renovate the old building and that the grounds are being appropriately landscaped.

Why was Johannes Reimers chosen to do the garden?

Mrs. George Roeding Jr's History of the Old Adobe and its Garden

First an introduction to the dynamic father-son duo: Johannes Reimers and Fred Reimers

The Bay Area architect, Frederick Reimers, transformed the modest adobe building that was formerly used for fumigation and storage. He created a modern building with windows to let light in. Locally manufactured tiles covered the floor and roof. The historic adobe was introduced as the "Old Adobe." 

[Fred Reimers designed many buildings and homes in Oakland, Piedmont, and the Bay Area. His residences are very cute and are still very sought after. He designed a model home for the Niles Rotary in Adobe Acres which was built on former nursery land during the Depression. (see Fremont Main Library)]

Johannes Reimers, his father, designed the garden around the Vallejo Adobe. He created the pleasant sheltered garden surrounded by nursery buildings and created a place for gatherings.

Johannes Reimers had a long association with the Roeding family and designed and built Roeding Park, many other parks, industrial site gardens, and train stations.