The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Honor System

My friends and I had a “girls weekend” a couple of weeks ago.

It was all that and more. There was eating and drinking and shopping and spa-ing. We ran along the beach every morning.

We stayed at my friend’s parent’s house, a beautiful estate in Montecito. When it came time to leave, I wanted to give them a gift. Most people give cut flowers but I like to give live plants because after a week or so the plant will still look beautiful.

Throwing out dead flowers depresses me, so I always put it off, even if the flowers are gone and all the decaying petals are lying on the table around a vase full of decaying stems, they just sit there, until my husband says something like, “Honey? Do you want me to take those flowers outside for you?”

My girlfriend kept insisting that her parents were just like she was when it came to keeping plants alive. Which meant that the plants would keel over as soon as I left. I kept insisting that even if the plant did succumb to some sort of plant torture, live flowers would stay alive longer than a bouquet of cut flowers purchased for the same amount of money.

Trust me. I’m cheap. I know these things. This seemed to strike a chord with her, so she drove me to the local nursery, which wasn’t open because it was Sunday. Then she took me to another local nursery, which looked even better, until I noticed that it too was closed.

What kind of nursery closes on Sunday? The answer is the kind of nursery owned by people who don’t need to work on Sundays, the kind of people who already have a lot of money, the kind of people who live in Montecito.

We pulled into the parking lot to turn around and I noticed that all the gates to the nursery were opened and I began to question the fact that it was indeed closed. I got out of my friend’s van and walked toward the entrance. It was wide open. I wanted to run in slow motion towards the nursery entrance like long separated lovers run towards each other in romantic movies but my girlfriends had gotten out of the van and were following me in.


The inside gate was open also. There were hundreds of wonderful and exotic plants in beautiful pots. There were fountains trickling with water. There were wind chimes and garden sculptures. The only things missing were the nursery employees. The entrance to the small nursery’s office was the only door that was closed and locked. All the merchandise was out and exposed and there for the taking.

Now I’m cheap, but I’m not a thief. O.K., I did think about it.


My friend was driving a van after all. All we would have had to do was back up the van, load it up, and drive home. Simple as taking a bottle of pear Ripple from a 7/11—not that I would know what that was like.


I perused up and down the narrow pathways of the small tidy nursery. I wouldn’t even have to stick anything under my shirt I could pick it up and walk out the gaping gateway to the parking lot.

Finally my girlfriends peeled my white-knuckled fingers off a yellow cymbidium, and escorted me back to the idling van.

We drove away from the nursery without so much as a tulip, my face pressed up against the glass watching the little nursery get smaller and smaller, a tear rolling down my cheek.

Shakespeare Garden

I took my 11- and 13-year-old sons to the Birth of Impressionism show at the De Young Museum in San Francisco yesterday. My oldest boy actually enjoyed the show.

My youngest son would rather have been water-boarded. “What time is it? What time did we get here? What time are we leaving?”

With his own form of psychological torture, he asked those questions so many times that I felt like I was being water-boarded.

The show was great and it was over all too soon, much to my son’s relief.

Walking back to the car, I noticed a small fenced garden situated next to the Academy of Sciences. I made my boys follow it around with me until we found the entrance.

Written in wrought iron above the entrance were the words “Shakespeare Garden.” It was a relatively small garden, simple and serene.

I strolled through the entrance and along the walkway under a canopy of crabapple trees.

At the rear of the garden was an elegant brick wall embedded with four bronze plaques and places for two more. In the center of the brick wall was a large steel door.

I wondered aloud what was behind the door and my little boy said he thought it was a giant cuckoo clock.

I did a little research online when I got home. The Shakespeare Garden was built in 1928. Behind the steel door is a bronze sculpture created by George Bullock of William Shakespeare. The door to the sculpture is only opened in the presence of parks personnel, due to the threat of vandalism and theft.

There were once six bronze plaques each featuring a quote by Shakespeare relating to the plants in the garden. The other two were stolen.

I have been in this area of the city many times and never noticed the garden before.

It was truly an unexpected and pleasant surprise.

Back From Mini-Vacation

I just went on a very short doggie vacation with my family, and look what I came home to.

Another Cattleya

It’s like boring you with pictures of my kids.  It’s not boring to me. I could just sit and stare at them all day.

And I don’t have to change their diapers.

Bubblegum Alley

My idea was to take my son on a little vacation, and spend some quality mom/son time with him before jr. high school.

And of course, I wanted to do activities that he liked. So, there were times during our three-day adventure when I ended up in places that I wouldn’t have chosen for myself.

Like Bubble Gum Alley.

Bubble Gum Alley is located between 733 and 734 Higuera Street in downtown San Luis Obispo, California. It’s pretty self-explanatory. But I’ll go ahead and explain it, even though when I think about it, I throw up in my mouth a little. It’s an alley 15-feet high and 70 feet long that is completely covered in multiple layers of chewing gum.

Used chewing gum.

Now to me, this “tourist attraction” would be way better if it was completely erased from my memory bank. But my son loved it, of course. He read about it and came prepared with two pieces of bubble gum, one for him and, gulp, one for me.


I dutifully chewed my piece of gum, as did my son. I bravely approached the alley, holding my breath, because if I had caught a wiff of some unexpectedly bad odor I’d have hurled on the spot.

I pulled the gum out of my mouth and attempted to stick it to the alley wall. I couldn’t get it to stick, so I started squealing and dancing around, not in a good way but in a manner very entertaining to my son.
I finally got it to stick and ran in the opposite direction from the alley.

 It was my son’s turn, and he seemed almost as disgusted as I was when it came right down to applying his gum to the wall. After the sticking ceremony was complete, I couldn’t wait to get away from that particular tourist spot.

And wash my hands.

Stumble It!

Three Days of Heaven

 
Nicki's House

I stayed at my friend Nicki’s house over Labor day weekend,

Think five-star hotel--with no other guests but you and your family.

Her house sits in the hills above Napa. She designed it to look and feel like Auberge du Soleil.

The house sits on sixty acres, four of which are cabernet vineyards with glorious valley views

Nicki is also a gourmet cook with a gourmet kitchen.

To say that my family and I had a good time at Nicki’s would be the understatement of the year. To try and explain what a wonderful weekend we had would be silly.

So here are some pictures worth a thousand words each.

 
Cabernet grapes

View

Boy and garter snake

Nicki's vineyard

 
Happy boy happy dog

Nicki's pond

 
Running through the grapevines with the boys

 
Grazing in Nicki's garden

Tomatoes from Nicki's garden

Fear of Lemon Cucumber

 
Fear of large Zucchini.

Stuffing our faces at dinner in heaven.

Sipping wine by the Bocce court

View from our bedroom

Early morning

Sunrise  

Jen's Garden

Jen's garden
People come in and of our lives. It’s a fact of life. But sometimes we are lucky enough to have friends that we love and that love us enough to stay in touch. If we’re really lucky, then we get to visit those beloved friends and they get to visit us.

Just off the plane. 11:00 pm at the piano bar.

Cactus flower Torrey Pines

Hiking Torrey Pines

My bestest gardening buddy moved away several years ago, leaving me brokenhearted with no one to commiserate over my garden with. She left me her can-o’-worms and split to San Diego.

The Plant Guy

We see each other once or twice a year, but we’re always surrounded by family—not that that’s a bad thing, it’s just that we don’t get that good old fashion girlie bitch sessions in like we used to.

Listening to Salsa music and people watching at Croces in Downtown San Diego

My beautiful and generous gardening-loving friend sent me a ticket to San Diego a couple of weeks ago, and we spent last weekend hanging out and catching up.

The view from our window at the Grand Hyatt


Jen's garden

Riding scooters around Coronado Island


The land of OZ

It was all so much fun, I can’t believe it has already come and gone. ☹

Jen's Garden

Stumble It!

Me in Machu Picchu

I'm back.
But I was there. I was really, really there. I was in the Lost City of the Incas Machu Picchu.
It seems like a distant dream now, partially because I'm lying in bed with the flu. A present from some tourist on the plane ride home.
This was my first visit to Machu Picchu, one of the new seven wonders of the world.And my first long trip away from my family.
More later, when I can breathe through my nose again.

Adios. I'm Off to Peru

Here is a photo of a flower.

It is obligatory, because of my blog name. Other than that, this article has nothing to do with gardening.

It has to do with fear. Yes fear, Silly unreasonable nonsensical fear.At 4:00 Saturday morning I will leave for the airport with a group of my friends and fly to Peru. I will leave my husband and my children for ten days.
I will go to a Spanish immersion school. I just want to laugh when I say that out loud, Spanish immersion school. I have a lot of nerve going to a Spanish immersion school.

I have enough trouble with English.

I have never left my boys for more than one day.

When I was pregnant, several people told me that having kids would change everything. Some things do change in big ways. Like, you are no longer the center of the universe. Some little drooling, bald, round human—with no teeth and who can’t speak English—takes your place.

But there are subtle changes that happen, also.

Before I had kids, I wasn’t afraid of anything. I would get on a plane with fifty bucks in my pocket, no hotel reservation, and some distant relatives’ old address in my backpack and just go. I would travel to third-world countries with nothing but the smile on my face. I slept in train stations, on beaches, on buses, on benches, in hostels, in campgrounds, in cars, and in trenches.

O.K. Enough of that.

Mount Shasta Vacation

Every year my family and I spend a week camping near Mt. Shasta.
I have to admit that my favorite thing to do next to fishing (yes, I like to fish) is go into the nearest town.
The nearest town is Mt. Shasta City. My husband calls it Berkeley North.

For garden lovers, Mt. Shasta City is heaven.
It is a small town, but full of culture and history.
There are a couple casual public gardens located in the middle of town.
There’s a beautiful little nursery.
There are a handful of surprisingly good restaurants and a natural food, herb or crystal store on every block.

There are some really cute garden gift stores.
The best one in my opinion is Petals.
Petals is located on Alpine street between a bead store and an antique store.
These shops live in tiny cottages in a row, each is a different color.
They look like little jewels against the backdrop of Mt. Shasta.

I walked up to the front door of Petals and was greeted by a rather boisterous shop cat. I followed him in where the shop owner was telling him to hush.
Her two-year-old daughter was in a car seat asleep behind the counter.

Ah, I remember those days.

Petals is a small store but you could spend a lot of time there because the longer you look the more you see. I’m a sucker for these kinds of stores.
Oh, and there were flowers, the store was also full of flowers and plants.

Petals is packed with wonderful objects. The kind of things that you find in small privately owned florist gift shops. I stood in Petals and was mesmerized by all the goodies. Everything in the store was so artfully arranged and colorful. I was like a crow surrounded by a bunch of shiny objects.

I wanted to buy everything—but I settled for 3 handmade stained-glass stars from Africa.

Yosemite Hike, Don't Feed the Squirrels

It’s not hard to think of a way to write a post about Yosemite and tie it into gardening. After all, it is one big garden that a fortunate few get to play in for a few days a year.

In my opinion, there is only one other place that compares with the beauty of this place and that’s Yellowstone National Park. I have not been to the Grand Canyon yet, but I hear that it’s close.

Our first stop was the grassy meadow that lies beneath El Capitan, the largest piece of exposed granite in the world. I took a few shots here of the wildflowers and El Cap.

Soon I stopped snapping pictures. Why? Because my husband is the all-time obnoxious tourist and he takes enough pictures for the both of us. But I guess if he didn’t take pictures and make sure the cameras had batteries—we wouldn’t have any pictures.

I wanted to do something other than take pictures. I wanted to climb Half Dome, the landmark that Ansel Adams made famous through his amazing black-and-white portraits of Yosemite.

We were only staying in Yosemite for two days. So the first morning my ten-year-old son and I started the ascent up Half Dome. My husband and eight-year-old son accompanied us to the top of Vernal falls.

My family stopped at Vernal Falls for a foot soaking in Emerald Pool at the top of the falls. We ate some dried fruit and drank some water.

There were signs posted telling hikers not to feed the ground squirrels because they may exhibit unnatural behavior. And the type of food that people fed them may not be part of their natural diet. My family and I heeded the warning even though it was hard to keep from feeding those charming little animals.

My ten-year-old and I left my husband and younger son behind. We hiked another mile and a half up to the top of Nevada falls. Anyone who has done this hike, or made it all the way to Half Dome will tell you that this is a difficult hike. It is almost straight up—on steep, uneven granite steps. After 4 miles my ten-year-old and I were weary and giddy and we sat down for another snack of trail mix and water.

I pulled the package of dried nuts and fruit out of my backpack and sat back to survey the breathtaking Yosemite Valley. It seemed the view of my trail mix was equally awe inspiring to my new ground squirrel friends. The cute furry creatures, with big pleading eyes had surrounded us.

Oh, maybe they’re hungry. Maybe they’re starving, I thought, ignoring the fact that they couldn’t keep their humungous bellies from dragging on the ground. I looked at my son and said. “Let’s just give them one nut.” Because that’s what they would eat in the wild and since they were already showing unnatural behavior, hey, why not.

The first squirrel took the nut very politely and then we fed a second and their friends must have heard about it, because they came running from all directions. The squirrels were all around us, some begging, some looking longingly at us. I was starting to feel like Gulliver. There was a commotion in the ranks. The sea of ground squirrels parted and a rather hefty squirrel appeared. I like to refer to him as Sumo Squirrel.

I handed Sumo Squirrel a nut and he jumped right in my lap. He was as big as a cat. He knocked the wind out of me. Sumo stared straight into my eyes. All of a sudden he didn’t look so cute and innocent anymore. I thought he was going to start talking to me like some scary Disney movie. He would say. “Hey sister, got any more of them nuts? I know these seven dwarves, see? And they got this mine see? And it’s loaded with jewels see? Well, maybe I could do ya a favor.” At that little piece of imagining, I jumped to my feet and sent Sumo catapulting into the air. I thought I heard him say, “Hey, you’re not Snow Whiiiiiittttteee.”

I pulled my son up by his arm, knocking some trail mix out of his hand much to the delight of the furry pigs below us.

We turned and walked back toward the trail. Twenty-five ground squirrels were following us. We did the walk of shame past the other hikers who now knew by our vermin escort that we had committed the sin of feeding the wildlife.

I should really thank Sumo, because he was the impetus that started us off again. My son and I ended up hiking another 2.2 miles, bringing our grand total for the day to 10 miles: a very respectable hike for a ten-year-old boy. We never made it to Half Dome. We stopped about three-and-a-half miles short. We'll make it to Half Dome next year.

I hope Sumo will be waiting.