Your leap year is in leap year! :-)

What a nice break from dreary winter and it sounds like you've had a wonderful trip! I'd love a chance to see some of those gardens. Maybe some day.

Want to see pics of your beauties in bloom this spring!

I'm glad your visit was still enjoyable Carol. I know that just getting a break from cold and gloomy weather can be such a mood lifter. I completely agree with you about mixtures of plant types being jarring. That's the main reason why I've tried to make mine a Mediterranean garden with English leanings. That means no cacti, succulents, contorted shapes or other less than soothing ingredients. Seeing those things in a botanical garden is one thing but having them at home is quite another. Nevertheless, I have been in gardens where most of the plant world south of the arctic circle seemed to reside. Cacti planted cheek to jowl with Atlas cedars just don't thrill me!

Ingrid

Though not what I long to see out my deck doors, I admit that the textures, colors and architecture of evergreens, succulents and cacti are quite intriguing. I enjoy seeing agaves and such elsewhere as they can be absolutely beautiful, WHEN and WHERE I don't have to be personal with them. I'm enjoying the roses close to the house, but lower on the hill where I don't have to tend them, caesalpinia, leucophyllum, grevillea, acacia, senna, atriplex, salvia and other "self supporting", rodent resistant plantings are wonderful. They should look quite interesting eventually with the Bracteatas, Californicas and other "invasive", bullet-proof species I'm sprigging there. Kim

OMG, The Huntingdon - a place I have only ever seen in pics. Mr.Camps went while on a geography field trip and was completely blown away(the start of his gardening life). To this day, I have a huge american agave grown in homage, which is now so big and gnarly, it lives outside with salvias and stipas - it simply shrugs off the worst of the UK windy chill, . Glad you had a chance to do a bit of chilly shrugging too, Carol.
Kim, I absolutely LOVE the sound of the hill - it is a look I am also attempting to replicate with tough species roses and garrigue wild flowers and evergreens.

Thanks Campanula. BTW, the Huntington is a marvelous place, but even they have lost much. And, much more is slated to change in the relatively near future from what I understand. Their Australian and Cactus gardens are amazing. Someday, MAYBE, this hill will look decent, but it is literally like trying to plant in rocky, crumbly talc which gets extremely sticky when wet, then dries out to powder very quickly. It isn't worth trying to amend because of the severity of the slope and the great distance between anything level and where these need to be planted. That level area is a full story and a half below street grade and only requires schlepping everything down four flights of stairs. So, I LOVE volunteers (like the dodonaea and mesquite seedlings which are sprouting everywhere) and raise what I can from cuttings and seeds as close to the slope as possible. I'm also very grateful for the Brazillian and California Peppers which love it here, too. Kim

Even here in northern California the rhododendron planted beneath the palm tree is an all-too-common sight. It is so easy to grow so many things here (compared to western Massachusetts, where I gardened for 10 years) that it is difficult to avoid.

My yard admittedly suffers somewhat from "plant ecologist syndrome", but at least I try to keep biomes consistent. Water conservation is also a concern. So, the front-front yard is "the Southwest (U.S.) meets South Africa", and the hill in the back is "multi-cultural chaparral", with elements of California soft-scrub and hard chaparral (Artemisia californica, toyon, coffeeberry, Rhus integrifolia, Ceanothus, Salvia mellifera, manzanita, larger Eriogonum sp., and more-- whatever will withstand Livermore's heat and clay-ridden soils!) cheek-by-jowl with the rosemaries, Grevilleas, and Eleagnus pungens which were already here. The CA natives replaced literally 1000+ sq. feet of blindingly fluorescent magenta mesembryanthemum and invasive gorse that were also on the hill and almost immediately ripped out. A large valley oak at one end and a really old CA pepper at the other anchor the more-or-less native part of the garden. Like Kim says, it's a real challenge to plant within the severe constraints out here (of course, in Massachusetts, I always thought there was too much rain and lived in what was practically a swamp, but the peonies were beautiful).

The roses here mostly hang out in the irrigated flatlands of the yard with the fruit trees and berries. The fruit plants sort of provide infrastructure or divisions for the various "rooms" of roses and keep the color schemes from getting too crazy. Some "non-biome-correct" plants seem to look okay with roses, such as caespitose Yuccas from the southeastern U.S. (e.g., Yucca filamentosa, and where else am I going to put them, she asks?!).

-- Debbie

I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. I agree Southern and Northern California are two different places. A month or two in either direction would have made a difference in what you experienced, but what the heck.

Next year when you come to Northern California, you should visit the Sacramento City Cemetery (in April, especially) if you've never been there. It's very special.

Annabeth