Berkeley Excursions: The UC Berkely Botanical Garden

Ok, so now I have South Africa as a place I definitely want to explore and learn more about!!


My trip to the Bay Area included a little reunion of sorts as I met up with a former classmate of mine from the UW/Sichuan Program. Zeng Yu was my equivalent of the Chinese students we worked with when I spent a school year in China. His passion, however, was insects. But coming from the natural sciences, there was a natural respect and admiration for each other's work.

He played tour guide as we walked the campus and also explored some of the neighborhoods around the Berkeley Hills. There are some avid gardeners out there!

He's currently working on his PhD at UC Berkeley so, naturally, I planned a trip to the botanical garden, which, coincidentally, was also highly recommended by my UK colleagues, Dr. John Grimshaw.


I'll let the photos speak for themselves. It was a lovely garden that I wish I had more time to really soak in. The eco-geographical displays and incredible selection of plants was absolutely fantastic and being that it was the mild-climate Bay Area, they're just a little bit ahead of the game when it came to blooms. But then, of course, there's always something blooming!

This stand of Agave parryi was simply jaw-dropping!

A phenomenal display of South African flora!

Upon closer inspection, you see its many colorful treasures

...like this Helichrysum or "Everlasting"...

...and I'm a sucker for blue and this Babiana pulchra fits the bill!

And how 'bout the blue eye of this splendid Sparaxis

Turn around and this is your view. Lots of spiny things to see!

Head up the hill and there's more splendid things to see

From a distance I noticed this remarkable tree.

And I had to smell it as well. Magnolia doltsopa...mmmmmmm...

This Vaccinium was stunning with the chalky undersides.

Various Rhododendron species were in full bloom including this one with spectacular peeling bark!

Couldn't ask for a more dramatic setting for Old Garden Roses.

And the views from the hill were remarkable!

As you can see, the weather was absolutely perfect! Unfortunately, I had to rush my visit so I could hit up another garden. This time, a recommendation by Mr. Ken Druse who insisted that I see this garden and meet this remarkable and very talented individual who created it!.


Riz

Building a Show Garden: Gathering of Plants!

Days leading up to the show we begin to gather up plant material from all of our sources

Here's my buddy Matt helping load up the car with plants from Ian Barclay at Desert Northwest.

They were probably the prickliest plants we had to deal with. Luckily, there was no blood shed!

Here I am selecting a specimen of Rhododendron fulvum at Chimacum Woods. It may not be flowering, but the foliage undersides are absolutely stunning and will add a lot of interest to the garden.











Friends Jeff Benca and Pete Macias load up Pete's truck to get a HUGE Norfolk Island Pine and the hardy banana, Musa basjoo, over to the convention center! My thanks to Linda at Edmonds Community College for letting us use these spectacular specimens!






So, let's get pumped up and ready for Move-In,




R

Yes, it's cold....moving on!!

Yes, I'm freezing my bum off. Yes, I stressed about bringing in plants and running out of room. Yes, I'm freaking out about being unable to work on certain projects. It happens every year; I really should be putting my energy elsewhere.

Since Thanksgiving, I've overcome another episode of the cold/flu and done just about everything in my power to ensure that my prized potted specimens are safely protected from the sub-freezing temperatures we've been experiencing here in the Puget Sound area.

Sometimes I kick myself for having too many potted plants to winter over and having a diverse selection of them that seem to have different requirements and treatments. A large greenhouse of my very own would solve my dilemmas, but, yet again I go another year without having one constructed. I rent space at work and I have a colleague and former student who's letting me use her vacant, unheated greenhouse.

Perhaps it's the ongoing resilience of plants that continues to amaze me when I see them frozen out in the garden. Over the years, I've learned not to panic about many of my plants having a better understanding of what they endure at a cellular level.

Think of broadleaved evergreens such as this Rhododendron and Daphniphyllum, for example. The foliage has slowly acclimated to the cooling temperature and once we reach freezing temperatures, they get frosted and become almost like plant-popsicles. The plant's foliage curl up, look dessicated and appear to be goners. However, they've actually reached a state where water movement between cells slows down considerably, sugars become concentrated and the plant remains in somewhat of a dormant state until temperatures SLOWLY begin to warm up and metabolic processes resume. Often the danger is when plants are "warmed up" too fast and suddenly struck by freezing temperatures again. Plant cells walls burst at this point and plant tissues are damaged.



Of course plants will respond in all sorts of other ways because of where they came from and what they're genetically programmed to withstand in terms of stress.

This Euphorbia, for example, will probably die down to the ground and simply come back up in the spring when temperatures allow.




Stay warm, everyone!

R