I have been photographing Leaning Pine Arboretum for years, and it has become one of my favorite gardens. For a garden photographer in California, seeking landscape settings for mature, appropriate plants adapted to the summer-dry climate, Leaning Pine is just about perfect. It is designed as a horticulture display garden for the ornamental horticulture program of [...]
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Landscape Panoramas 2017
January 12, 2018 – Posted in: Garden Photography, MiscellaneousAs I photographed California landscapes in 2017, I found myself composing lots of panorama photos. I visited a number of expansive landscapes in my quest to find inspiration for gardeners in adapting to our summer-dry climate. Using panorama cropping to evoke a sense of wide open spaces, my journeys started in the early spring when [...]
Fire Recovery in Northern California
December 28, 2017 – Posted in: Garden Photography, MiscellaneousThe devastating Northern California firestorm that swept through Mendocino, Napa, and Sonoma Counties in October left the earth scorched. Now less than three months later we begin to see the landscape recovering. With a few inches of blessed rain since the fires, the annual grasses have started to green up, creating a eerie juxtaposition to [...]
The Ruth Bancroft Garden – Memoriam to Ruth
November 28, 2017 – Posted in: Garden Musings, Garden PhotographySome thought Ruth Bancroft would outlive us all. Indeed, when she recently passed at age of 109, she had outlived many admirers. Her garden, the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek, California was the inspiration for the Garden Conservancy, and was its first garden selected for preservation in 1989. It is a landmark garden for [...]
The Wild Desert Garden
August 31, 2017 – Posted in: Garden Musings, Garden Photography, Wild GardensThis past spring I witnessed the superbloom in the California deserts. It was a sensation. The superbloom began in late winter in the southern most deserts and progressed northward, a result of ample rain after five years of drought. I was particularly intrigued, and made two separate visits to the Sonoran Desert east of San [...]