The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Flying Spiders and Banana Pushers Costa Rica: Day 3

Warning this post contains strong language.

O.k., The chick I went to Costa Rica with, Erin, is tough. I mean, TOUGH. I thought I was tough, but she puts me to shame. So when you hear your tough, seasoned travel buddy scream from the bathroom, you know something is definitely wrong. 

I jumped up and yelled through the door “Are you o.k.? 

“Yes, but a huge spider just ran over my foot and freaked me out!” 

She opened the door, and there it was, crouched in the corner of the floor between the toilet and the shower trying to appear much smaller than he was. Holy crap, that thing was the size of my palm.

Erin finished up and hurried out of the bathroom and out to the office to check out. I still had to go potty. So I gathered up the nerve and took a seat…about six inches from the biggest spider I have ever seen.

I looked at him, all huddled up in the corner, and I actually began to feel sorry for him. I decided that the maid in the next room was not going to think twice about killing an enormous spider standing between her and the ability to clean the bathroom floor. So I decided to save him.

I had a large wide-mouth quart glass jar. I opened the jar and pushed it toward the spider. I realized before I came within three feet of him that he wasn’t going to fit. So, of course, I opened the bathroom window. I grabbed the laminated mini-bar menu and climbed into the shower. I started to scoop the spider towards the window. 

Now, I like to think of myself as brave and open-minded about creatures, but when that f---ing spider jumped into the air like someone had it on a string, I turned screaming and ran full force right into the tiled shower wall.  The last time I saw a spider jump that high, I was watching Arachnophobia. 

I peeked over my aching shoulder. The spider had settled back on the floor, so I took a deep breath, picked up the menu again, and decided to keep scooping till that fucker was out of there.

I pushed the menu toward it. It jumped, and I scooped again. It leapt up again, and this time I moved it within jumping distance of the window.  I scooped one last time, and the spider flew (and I sort of batted it) the rest of the way out the window.  I slammed the window, ran out of the bathroom and slammed that door too, as if the spider was now all pissed off and coming back through the window to get me. 

On our way out, we decided to look at the view from our room one last time. One of the toucans we had been hearing but not seeing for two days was sitting in the tree outside the window, eating and sunning himself. Toucans are also known as “banana pushers,” because of the way they look when they fly.

 And, I’m pretty sure they eat spiders.

Lotusland Lost

I would tell you what part of Lotusland this is, but I don't know 'cause I couldn't get a reservation.

I have, for some time, been longing to tour Ganna Walska Lotusland, a private garden in the upscale neighborhood of Monticeto, California.

I had planned to hitch a ride down to Santa Barbara with my friend Paree and meet up with another gardening fanatic friend, Jennifer, to tour Lotusland. The day before I left, I called Lotusland to make a tour reservation. The phone call went something like this:

Unknown Garden Docent or vagrant sleeping next to phone: “Hello, Lotusland.”

In Search of Lotusland

I ran into an old friend at the beach. She told me her daughter is attending college in Santa Barbara.

First of all, that is where I want my kids to go to college. 

Is it a good school? Who cares? Education, shmeducation. 

It’s all about attending a place that I want to visit, isn’t it? 

I also like Cal Poly, because it sits smack dab in the middle of SLO County, another one of my favorite places. 

Or, Maybe I could ship them off to Hawaii? 

I digress. 

My friend and I got on the subject of, surprise…gardening…and she told me about a garden in Santa Barbara called Lotusland. It’s a public garden that operates in a private residential neighborhood in Montecito. 

Lotusland has a rich and colorful history, but not as colorful as it’s creator, Madame Ganna Walska. As part of her search for creative fulfillment and personal enlightenment, Madame Walska bought the 37-acre Cuesta Linda estate in 1941. She called it Tibetland.

After the dissolution of her sixth marriage, she changed its name to Lotusland.

So, I happen to have another friend whose parents happen to live in Montecito. 

You know who you are.

I plan to kidnap you, drive you to Montecito, pick up your mom, and zip off to Lotusland. 

Someday. 

Soon. 

Please comment if you’ve been to Lotusland. I want to hear all about it.

Euphorbia Euphoria

Euphorbia is an ever-so-appropriate word, since the name originated describing a drug-induced state. 

Pulling muscles and working out one’s aging body until it cries “uncle” does have it’s advantages, sometimes landing you in your doctor’s office in which your doctor, shaking his head and looking at you with a pitiful eye scribes a prescription for muscle relaxer and sends you to bed. 

But that is not the only gift I’ve received lately.

One client traded me a yoga retreat at Stillheart, a sanctuary in the hills of Woodside California—about 45 minutes from my house. 

The accommodations are fabulous. The retreat is nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains mid-peninsula, amongst a beautiful redwood forest. My room opened up onto this amazing garden filled with euphorbia, and the occasional Buddha.

I fell in love with the euphorbia. They looked so seraphic. Even though it was overcast, the ambient light lit up the bracts at the end of the spiky stocks. The pictures I took are reminiscent of infrared photos. 

One of the species of euphorbia seemed to be the species called characias. I wasn’t as sure about the other species. What ever they were, they were doing great deep in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which means they’re perfect for my yard.

Erphorbia is one of the most diverse genera in the plant kingdom. Euphorbia is also deer and gopher resistant mainly because the sticky white sap of the plant is toxic and can be quite irritating on contact. So keep this in mind when trimming, deadheading or landscaping with euphorbia.

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

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