Native plant gardens tend to be hard to photograph. Often the gardeners care more about the plants and habitat than the aesthetics. This is perfectly OK – unless you are trying to photograph them. We need better photographs of native plant gardens to encourage those gardeners who DO care about aesthetics, who want to do [...]
Of the dozen or so botanical gardens I’ve visited, San Diego’s singularly lacks conservatories. It doesn’t need them. Its coastal location has an ideal temperature range for plants as well as people, seldom going below 40 or above 90 F. I live half an hour’s drive from the San Diego Botanic Garden, so I [...]
Long before I had my own garden, I was in love with matilija (mah-TIL-eh-ha) poppies. A shrub of what I then called “fried egg flowers” grew near my apartment. It was one of those plants I had to have somehow, someday. And now I do, but like most things this side of Eden, Romneya coulteri is not [...]
I love the way California poppies undress before they debut, their satiny orange petals held in place by cone-shaped, diaphanous robes. Or maybe those are hats? In spring, poppies sashay in drifts through my Southern CA garden, wearing tea-length, glossy satin gowns. Poppies reseed on their own, so I never know exactly where they’ll appear. [...]