Sliverfox
Well-known Member
The Rat Tail cacti is unusual.
Looking forward to seeing it covered in flowers.
Looking forward to seeing it covered in flowers.
Gardening for nature, walks with my dogs and the books I’m reading.
- Thread starter MarkD
- Start date
MarkD
Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
Me too. Being our maiden voyage together I'll just have to see what comes but I"ll post it too. Might happen in a week or so.
hearlady
Basic Member
- Location
- N Carolina
MarkD
Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
Thank you. I like to feel that the garden takes on a determining role in what it becomes and I am the assistant who makes sure there is comfort available to the other creatures who live here and human visitors who visit.
MarkD
Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
I just came across a video I made to share at a Zoom meeting of our horticultural group early in the pandemic which gives the names of some of the plants in the back garden. At live meetings we always had a plant table for sharing plants or pieces to see or take. With the need for Zoom we started seeing inside each other's gardens more, a nice bit of compensation for all we had to give up.
MarkD
Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
Deleted trial post.
MarkD
Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
A week ago we got back from visiting the Mendocino Coast Botanical Garden in Fort Bragg California. I often buy some plants there but this time I was very disciplined and just got one. In my walk through the garden after our walk today I saw it had a flower open. It’s a hypericum with an orange flower instead of the usual yellow. The purple foliage sealed the deal.
Here are the pictures I took of it in that garden. The last includes the plant’s name sign.
Here are the pictures I took of it in that garden. The last includes the plant’s name sign.
MarkD
Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
Just discovered these videos from the UK on art and nature. Watched all four in one sitting. But I have to say they missed a few note worthy additions.
- - - -
Rather than convert this thread I'll try to start another.
- - - -
Rather than convert this thread I'll try to start another.
MarkD
Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
Old video of Heidi Rose, my G. Shepherd X Heeler, the most. physically impressive of the 8 dogs I've lived with. Taken at Point Isabel on the San Francisco Bay.
@MarkD
She is beautiful, and brave to be swimming in those waters.
MarkD
Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
You should have seen her climbing up and running around in trees. Her surf game was also strong.
MarkD
Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
Well I'm back. I take too many photos to post them on a communal thread where people have to scroll through them to get to other people's walks. But anyone is welcome to post theirs here too. I just feel too self conscious posting so many photos anywhere else.
Here is an older video I took at our favorite place to walk at Fort Funston in San Francisco to show the lay of the land where yesterday's walk took place. The video pans from left looking South to the North in the other direction. Today's hike stayed high to the left, nearly to Highway 35, Skyline Blvd.
Looking South on our way to the top.
We'd never walked up so high here before because as you near the road it gets pretty uninteresting for the most part close to the road.
At the very top are the barns and staging area for the Ocean View Stables outfit that takes people on horseback down to the beach. Although we park at the Fort Funston Beach park we generally have walked south into Thornton State Beach.
While much of the park is low growing native plants and invasive like Ice Plant there are also stands of Acacia, Eucalyptus and larger evergreen trees. In places the acacia grows so thick that tunnels are cut and trimmed back by park users to allow access. There are few well defined trails and anyone is free to make a new one in any direction they like; a pretty unusual opportunity these days.
The entire area is sand and sandstone. Here at the top you can see it eroding away. Our path goes down through this eroded bit.
With Google Earth I was able to get a view that shows the vertical laying of the landscape. The wide path slicing down to the beach in the lower left corner is the one the horses go down.
Picture of the horse path to the beach as I walk past it.
Nearing the end and looking back South one more time, my shadow who I rarely see as she is nearly always directly behind me.
Here is an older video I took at our favorite place to walk at Fort Funston in San Francisco to show the lay of the land where yesterday's walk took place. The video pans from left looking South to the North in the other direction. Today's hike stayed high to the left, nearly to Highway 35, Skyline Blvd.
Looking South on our way to the top.
We'd never walked up so high here before because as you near the road it gets pretty uninteresting for the most part close to the road.
At the very top are the barns and staging area for the Ocean View Stables outfit that takes people on horseback down to the beach. Although we park at the Fort Funston Beach park we generally have walked south into Thornton State Beach.
While much of the park is low growing native plants and invasive like Ice Plant there are also stands of Acacia, Eucalyptus and larger evergreen trees. In places the acacia grows so thick that tunnels are cut and trimmed back by park users to allow access. There are few well defined trails and anyone is free to make a new one in any direction they like; a pretty unusual opportunity these days.
The entire area is sand and sandstone. Here at the top you can see it eroding away. Our path goes down through this eroded bit.
With Google Earth I was able to get a view that shows the vertical laying of the landscape. The wide path slicing down to the beach in the lower left corner is the one the horses go down.
Picture of the horse path to the beach as I walk past it.
Nearing the end and looking back South one more time, my shadow who I rarely see as she is nearly always directly behind me.
Paco Dennis
SF VIP
- Location
- Mid-Missouri
MarkD
Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
@MarkD Looking at that presentation was thrilling. I loved feeling the beach again through your pictures. Just to remember the ocean. I spent so much time there. Near the Santa Cruz - Monterey area. There are such beautiful colors right now...they blend into each other so magically.
Happy to help trigger your memories of those places. That is pretty much my motivation too, trying to leave clues for my memory as it fades out.
MarkD
Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
An acquaintance from Greece just posted photos of the amazing Royal Hakea. Hakea Victoria taken at the Fitzgerald River. This is my Facebook friend Liberto Datio standing beside this amazing plant.
https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2666867483493197&id=100005099131408&set=a.287566888089947
I first learned of the plant from a friend in San Diego whose fabulous garden I have visited. He travels a lot most of it garden centric. He also writes a blog and this is his entry from that trip.
Southwest Australia - Fitzgerald River Park
@Kadee is this a place you’ve been to?
https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2666867483493197&id=100005099131408&set=a.287566888089947
I first learned of the plant from a friend in San Diego whose fabulous garden I have visited. He travels a lot most of it garden centric. He also writes a blog and this is his entry from that trip.
Southwest Australia - Fitzgerald River Park
@Kadee is this a place you’ve been to?
MarkD
Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
While looking for the first video I shared in this thread I stumbled onto one I don’t even recall taking. It is much longer but meanders and circles around freely with no narration all around the side and back garden. Usually I edit videos down to just what I want you to see but for those curious about what I don’t usually show, here you go. From late March, 2020. The dogs following me around were the now deceased German Shepherd / Heeler cross Heidi Rose and her apprentice, the mostly black male Australuan Shepherd / Heelercross Smokey.
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MarkD
Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
Fairwarning: probably TL;DR material here. Evolution of one area of my garden, just inside the back gate is a large circular raised bed which has been undergoing some fine tuning lately. This is it a couple years ago:
This is a plot plan I made in 2009 of the back garden. The raised bed wasn't shown then as it didn't go in until a few years ago. But it would be in the portion of the Gravel Entry Garden across from the fountain and gates.
For many years there were yellow daylilies in that location and various other plants beyond them. This is a very early photo taken around 1995 but from the opposite direction.
In 2006 taken looking north from on the roof you also just see the fountain I added here.
Also in 2006, this photo is taken from a bench looking south shows the fountain better.
After I put my garden on an Open Garden Day tour in 2017 I realized I could use more seating for larger groups. A designer friend of mine often placed short concrete or stone walls for this purpose. Using these prefabricated landscaping blocks made it something I could do on my own. So that led to building the raised bed. From early in March 2019 with freshly bought plants from the Oregon Garden in Silverton; then two details from summer of 2019:
May of 2020:
Details from 2023:
Okay I've stretched this out too long already. Suffice to say when gophers or voles (wasn't sure which) invaded I emptied all the plants, and made the back of the raised bed more vertical to try to make their lives more difficult. At the start of that work in January 2024 after having potted up and set aside the plants a year earlier and then progress shots as I finished raising and blocking off that bed from the back side.
Some plants I had left in plastic pots to give them some protection but I've removed all of those by now. More recently I used my remaining flagstone to provide a surface for me to work from on the backside of that raised bed.
This is a plot plan I made in 2009 of the back garden. The raised bed wasn't shown then as it didn't go in until a few years ago. But it would be in the portion of the Gravel Entry Garden across from the fountain and gates.
For many years there were yellow daylilies in that location and various other plants beyond them. This is a very early photo taken around 1995 but from the opposite direction.
In 2006 taken looking north from on the roof you also just see the fountain I added here.
Also in 2006, this photo is taken from a bench looking south shows the fountain better.
After I put my garden on an Open Garden Day tour in 2017 I realized I could use more seating for larger groups. A designer friend of mine often placed short concrete or stone walls for this purpose. Using these prefabricated landscaping blocks made it something I could do on my own. So that led to building the raised bed. From early in March 2019 with freshly bought plants from the Oregon Garden in Silverton; then two details from summer of 2019:
May of 2020:
Details from 2023:
Okay I've stretched this out too long already. Suffice to say when gophers or voles (wasn't sure which) invaded I emptied all the plants, and made the back of the raised bed more vertical to try to make their lives more difficult. At the start of that work in January 2024 after having potted up and set aside the plants a year earlier and then progress shots as I finished raising and blocking off that bed from the back side.
Some plants I had left in plastic pots to give them some protection but I've removed all of those by now. More recently I used my remaining flagstone to provide a surface for me to work from on the backside of that raised bed.
MarkD
Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
Today we visited the smallest, most scenic botanical garden in our area, the Regional Parks bot garden at Tilden park in Berkeley. They'd never be able to open a park with the narrow pathways and odd sized stairs they have here but I guess it is grandfathered in, fortunately. Today I talked Lia into paying it a visit with her walker for the first times since she has relied on it for all our walks.
It is a park for California native plants and there are many. Starting with the lowest growing manzanita. This one discovered on the Hearst ranch covers the ground between and around a few taller growing ones.
These are the flowers on another manzanita bush.
Starting with some foliage nearer the ground these are our biggest tree, actually the planets largest tree, Sequoiadendron giganteum.
One of the paths we did not take the walker on.
It is a park for California native plants and there are many. Starting with the lowest growing manzanita. This one discovered on the Hearst ranch covers the ground between and around a few taller growing ones.
These are the flowers on another manzanita bush.
Starting with some foliage nearer the ground these are our biggest tree, actually the planets largest tree, Sequoiadendron giganteum.
One of the paths we did not take the walker on.
MarkD
Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
Warning this too is apt to become TL;DR material. Tracking down lots of memories.
Got up early to open the gate for Lia. Fortunately she can still drive some, though not long distances or over bridges. It being a cold morning, after feeding Ember I hopped in the hot tub and got these pictures of her sitting on the opened lid which was still warm.
Pretty much as soon as we had the pavers laid over the driveway we bought our first tub, a cozier round one. Lia was concerned for privacy so I built an enclosure around it. But the driveway was just dirt and weeds to begin with. I built the gazebo and its deck my first summer there while I tried to get plans for a new roof through city hall. But the upstairs deck, carport and pavers would be while. Probably from the mid/late 80's:
Soon after getting the hot tub I began building a deck around it with a set of stairs on both sides. At first I just put a large semicircular pot on either side of the entrance and another in front of the privacy screen in the center and three large sconce pots on the outside along the driveway, centered on each of the supporting 4x4's. I planted large begonias in the larger pots and Agapetes in the sconce pots.
Later I installed gates.
]
At the back of the hot tub in the fence I tracked down some navy blue Chinese brick tiles and had an aluminum planter fashioned to set into the deck. Fletcher was my dog back then. He was a giver.
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On the other side of the fence in the back garden I put in a raised bed for a 'Charles Grimaldi' Brugmansia a friend left with me. The flowers are very fragrant beginning just after dark, which was even nicer than the jasmine I'd put on the fence originally. The blue Adirondack chairs have been a feature for a long time.
My brother and his family were frequent visitors and enjoyed splashing around. Here they are joined here by me and a younger niece from another brother. My niece and her brother are now 18 and 15.
Early on I kept my epicactus collection here.
Got up early to open the gate for Lia. Fortunately she can still drive some, though not long distances or over bridges. It being a cold morning, after feeding Ember I hopped in the hot tub and got these pictures of her sitting on the opened lid which was still warm.
Pretty much as soon as we had the pavers laid over the driveway we bought our first tub, a cozier round one. Lia was concerned for privacy so I built an enclosure around it. But the driveway was just dirt and weeds to begin with. I built the gazebo and its deck my first summer there while I tried to get plans for a new roof through city hall. But the upstairs deck, carport and pavers would be while. Probably from the mid/late 80's:
Soon after getting the hot tub I began building a deck around it with a set of stairs on both sides. At first I just put a large semicircular pot on either side of the entrance and another in front of the privacy screen in the center and three large sconce pots on the outside along the driveway, centered on each of the supporting 4x4's. I planted large begonias in the larger pots and Agapetes in the sconce pots.
Later I installed gates.
]
At the back of the hot tub in the fence I tracked down some navy blue Chinese brick tiles and had an aluminum planter fashioned to set into the deck. Fletcher was my dog back then. He was a giver.
On the other side of the fence in the back garden I put in a raised bed for a 'Charles Grimaldi' Brugmansia a friend left with me. The flowers are very fragrant beginning just after dark, which was even nicer than the jasmine I'd put on the fence originally. The blue Adirondack chairs have been a feature for a long time.
My brother and his family were frequent visitors and enjoyed splashing around. Here they are joined here by me and a younger niece from another brother. My niece and her brother are now 18 and 15.
Early on I kept my epicactus collection here.
MarkD
Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
Other gardeners are inspiration for me. Tony and Marie’s Walsall garden was an eye opener for me. One more way to make an incredible garden. We visited in 2008 after chatting and sharing photos for years on Flickr. Here is a video about their garden.
RadishRose
SF VIP
- Location
- Connecticut, USA
Absolutely amazing! I don't think I've seen a private garden more beautiful. This is a real thrill; thanks for posting it, Mark!
RadishRose
SF VIP
- Location
- Connecticut, USA
You remind me of how beautiful America is!Well I'm back. I take too many photos to post them on a communal thread where people have to scroll through them to get to other people's walks. But anyone is welcome to post theirs here too. I just feel too self conscious posting so many photos anywhere else.
Here is an older video I took at our favorite place to walk at Fort Funston in San Francisco to show the lay of the land where yesterday's walk took place. The video pans from left looking South to the North in the other direction. Today's hike stayed high to the left, nearly to Highway 35, Skyline Blvd.
Looking South on our way to the top.
We'd never walked up so high here before because as you near the road it gets pretty uninteresting for the most part close to the road.
At the very top are the barns and staging area for the Ocean View Stables outfit that takes people on horseback down to the beach. Although we park at the Fort Funston Beach park we generally have walked south into Thornton State Beach.
While much of the park is low growing native plants and invasive like Ice Plant there are also stands of Acacia, Eucalyptus and larger evergreen trees. In places the acacia grows so thick that tunnels are cut and trimmed back by park users to allow access. There are few well defined trails and anyone is free to make a new one in any direction they like; a pretty unusual opportunity these days.
The entire area is sand and sandstone. Here at the top you can see it eroding away. Our path goes down through this eroded bit.
With Google Earth I was able to get a view that shows the vertical laying of the landscape. The wide path slicing down to the beach in the lower left corner is the one the horses go down.
Picture of the horse path to the beach as I walk past it.
Nearing the end and looking back South one more time, my shadow who I rarely see as she is nearly always directly behind me.
MarkD
Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
Thank you, R Rose. Fort Funston isn't an immaculate bit of nature but I think it has a kind of beauty even with all the escaped plants. It is the southern most point in San Francisco on the coast. We were just there again today. Even with her walker, Lia can enjoy a walk on the paved path to the north while Ember and I trek to the south before getting back together to go home. Lots of visitors, some also with walkers, makes Lia feel safe.
Gardenlover
The world needs more love
Wish I was there my friend!
MarkD
Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
Well if you're ever in the neighborhood let's arrange for a visit and a cuppa in the garden.
Just noticed I already posted this video just this last November. Oops!
That video is one of my longest and most thorough. It was taken back in March of 2020, so fairly early spring which is generally a good time for my garden, though of course there is no date on which every plant is at its best. I post it to encourage @Kadee to post some wider views in her own garden, either as a videotaped walk around or in stills. She, you Gardenlover and anyone else who would like to share their own garden but don't want to start a separate thread for it is very welcome to make use of this one.
PS, at the 3:50 mark you can see some yellow flowering Clivia like the ones I admired that you posted, Kadee, growing below my redwood tree out by the creek.
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