Bay Area Garden Extravaganza Part 1 (people & plants)

I stole the title of this post from Gerhard, nothing else I came up with quite expressed the way I felt, it was an extravaganza of the highest order. 

Let me backtrack just a bit. Andrew and I had planned a springtime Bay Area road trip twice, and it was cancelled, twice. Last fall I was going to make a trip down with my friend Eric, but that didn't work out either. Fast forward to Mid-March and I hatched a new plan; the first step was emailing Gerhard and inviting myself to fly down and stay with him and his family in Davis, CA. Then he and I would spend a long weekend garden touring. When he said yes (seriously, I invited myself... the nerve!), I reached out to our friends Max and Justin in Oakland to see if we could visit their garden and if they might be able to swing an invite to their friend Ann Nichols' garden and what the heck, Marcia Donahue's too. From there things snowballed. What a weekend! I ended up visiting seven private gardens (plus two "drive-by" front gardens), three public gardens and two nurseries. There will be future blog posts about everything I saw, but first a few people pics, and my plant haul...

We started bright and early Friday morning at Gerhard's friend Kyle's garden in Sacramento. That's Gerhard on the left and Kyle on the right.

Our next stop was at the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek, yes that's me with a remarkable Agave guiengola (thanks to Gerhard for the photo).

Since I'd spotted a must-have plant (a dryland fern) in Gerhard's garden, our next stop was a slight detour to East Bay Wilds, a native plant nursery in Oakland, it's only open on Fridays! After that we drove down to Livermore, CA and visited our fellow blogging friend, Tracy. Here she is with one of the ginormous staghorn ferns on her front porch.

Our first stop on Saturday morning was at Max and Justin's Oakland garden (even better than I imagined it would be!) and then we were off to Ann Nichols' Piedmont garden. I fist visited Ann's garden during the Bay Area Fling in 2013 and I was thrilled to return. Here are Ann, Max and Justin in Ann's garden...

Also in Ann's garden, Kiamara and Gerhard. It turns out Kiamara (an expert on dryland ferns) was there in 2013 too, helping Ann manage the Fling crowd.

After a quick "drive-by" stop to see a cramscaped front garden, we then visited Marcia Donahue's famous Berkeley garden. This was my third visit to Marcia's garden and there were new things to see, she's been busy.

Here Max and Gerhard are snapping images in Marcia's inspiring garden.

Our final stop of the day (well, not counting another quick front garden drive-by) was David Neumaier's garden, that's David in the yellow and black, between Max and Marcia (Ann and Justin on the right). Funny I knew we were visiting the garden of a guy named David but I had no idea it was "slow boat" David who I follow and have conversed with on Instagram.

I couldn't believe it, but Gerhard was willing to drive back down to Berkeley again on Sunday, so we met up with Janet Sluis at the UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley. Here she is all smiles with Gerhard. 

After a few hours spent touring the UC Berkeley garden we said goodbye to Janet and drove on to the Wave Garden (another garden I first visited during 2013 Fling), and then made a quick stop at Curious Flora (formerly Annie's Annuals) in Richmond before heading back to Gerhard's home in Davis. WOWSA! I am so indebted to Gerhard for his willingness to host and adventure with me! He's a great partner in plant crime, so to speak.

Okay, the plants. You know I brought home plants! First up a nice chunky piece of bromeliad from Max and Justin's garden. This plant has special provenance for me, as they got it during the Bromeliad Summit in 2019, which we all (Max, Justin, Gerhard and I) attended.

Here's the rest of the haul...

Gerhard was kind enough to pass along this hanging (once I add wires) "plant supporting" piece of pottery he picked up in Portland a few years ago when we visited a collector who was downsizing.

Kiamara (mentioned above) generously shared sporelings of Asplenium ceterach she grew.

And Gerhard shared seed grown babies from his Echinopsis ‘Flying Saucer’...

Which was in bloom during my visit!

Such a beauty...

He also gave me a pair of Oxalis palmifrons, bulbs that go dormant when things heat up. They've been in his greenhouse and are already dormant for the season. 

Tracy sent both Gerhard and I home with a Platycerium grande (I doubt it will ever look as grand as the one on her front porch, but a girl can dream).

Next, Hechtia epigyna, a pup from Gerhard's plant.

I neglected to take a photo of my plant itself (you can see it next to the hechtia in the haul photo), but I got a Tillandsia secunda from Ann, her plant was blooming and the bloom spike develops pups! That's it on the left, leaning against the wooden support.

Here's a photo I took of another Tillandsia secunda I saw in San Diego, so you can see how the pups develop.

Gerhard also sent me home with two agave pups, Agave impressa...

Mama plant

And Agave pintilla...

Mama plant

Ferns! This is the plant we sidetracked to East Bay Wilds to purchase, Pellaea mucronata. It's native to much of California, and parts of Oregon, Nevada and Arizona, where it grows in various types of rocky habitat (source).

Here it is in Gerhard's garden.

Finally, a chunk of fern from David, a Pleopeltis sp. or hybrid whose true identity is a mystery as it was rescued from an abandoned container by a friend of his (who just happens to be Tracy's daughter's boyfriend, Ivan... it's a small world!).

Here's another piece of the same fern in David's garden...

I know this was a long post, but I wanted to include the people and the plants together in the same post, they tell the story of what a warm and generous group I spent the weekend with. When I floated the idea of a visit to Gerhard I had no idea it would turn into such an extravaganza. Plant people are the best!

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Yes actually, I will be making this a lifetime project

When he thought you were taking a little too long to complete a task, a prior boss of Andrew's would ask, "are you going to make that a lifetime project?" I thought of that snide remark as I started working on the removal of a clump of Yucca filamentosa in the front garden. Because I fear this is going to be a lifetime project, or at least one I continue until we move from this house.

The clump (orange arrow) had what I believe to be a bad case of Halticotoma valida, or yucca bug. I started to notice the yellow stippling on the leaves of just one plant a couple of years ago, but I took my usual route of ignoring it and assuming nature would take its course and things would be better in a few weeks/months. Instead they got worse. More of the yucca in the clump started to look bad. I took this photo last summer as I was trimming off ugly leaves and kept it as a reminder to do something about the problem.

So far the issue is only on the clump with the arrow pointing at it, but the circles identify other yucca species in the front garden, ones that are much more dear to me. I've also read they might feed on dasylirion, there are two of those in the area, not circled.

These yucca, below, (a photo of the infected, taken earlier in the month) date back to 2005 and our first month living here. They're descendants of plants I brought to Portland from my garden in Spokane, WA. I would never plant them now, since I've learned about other, more fabulous yucca species, but at the time I didn't know and we didn't have a lot of money to spend on plants, and so they went in the ground.

Hoping to keep the bug from spreading I decided it was time for these yucca to go. I could have tried treating with a systemic insecticide but I'm always one to chose the non chemical route when possible. Oh and yes, I started this dig knowing that removing a yucca (especially a Y. filamentosa) was going to be a big job lifetime project, still, even I was shocked at what I found. Look at the size of that root!

There were more...

And more...

This was a solid mass of them.

I kept digging and digging...

The roots go out in all directions, including under the sidewalk and driveway. Even if I removed the plants I want to keep, in an effort to dig out the roots, there's no way I could get the ones under the concrete.

But you know what? I conquered the bishops weed, I've moved an Acanthus mollis and eradicated every attempt it made to regrow. I can do this. I think. I hope. I pray. Wish me luck...

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We Fling at Heronswood

It was great fun to visit Hersonswood Garden last July with my fellow Flingers (the same day we also visited Windcliff, Dan Hinkley's current garden). I think there were roughly 90 of us, but the garden is so large (15 acres) we quickly dispersed and only occasionally would we cross paths. Since I'd been a few times before, I was able to stroll at a leisurely pace and not try to see it all, I felt sorry for those folks who had to rush. Here are my highlights...

I started in the Rock Garden...

So cute, so fuzzy, so dangerous...

Pellaea gastonyi

Polystichum imbricans

Heading over to the Renaissance Garden (ferns!) you pass by some stately agaves...

The perfect wall for drainage and heat.

Lovely purples with the cotinus and acanthus.

This is the first time I've seen the Raining Wall (at the entrance to the Renaissance Garden) complete.

The fern table...

Tiny treasures planted in the table include...Dryopteris affinis 'Crispa Gracilis'

Blechnum penna-marina

Rhododendron valentinioides

Selaginella tamariscina 'Golden Sprite'

Calling out a few ferns planted in the garden; Polystichum polyblepharum.

Adiantum x mairisii

Adiantum aleuticum 'Subpumilum' (on either side of the moss).

Blechnum microphyllum

This was interesting to see. When at the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden in February I spied a plant that looks a lot like this. I called that one out as perhaps Polygonatum mengtzense. But I had a phone screen shot in my files noting this plant as Maianthemum oleraceum. The plot thickens!

I've taken a photo of this container on several visits. Parts change, parts stay the same.

Okay, here's a confession. I love this...

I hate this...

I've felt the extreme love/hate ever since my first visit to the garden. One seems like an interesting way to raise up planters above the ground level, the other seems overly contrived and out of place.

Moving on...

I suppose you could call this artful hedge contrived, but it's plant based, not artificial. 

Ditto for the potager.

I used to dislike the chanterelle fountain, but it's grown on me.

Imagine rinsing your vegetable harvest here after picking them from the potager...

Lillies, the flower of July...

I loved the dusty hues of this vignette.

Globularia incanescens

Empty pot as framing device, it works. It really does.

A little further into the same planting.

The tree ferns! These have been here for years, surviving the seasons, unlike some newer tree ferns in the Renaissance Garden.

Dryopteris crassirhizoma

I feel extreme plant lust every time I look at a photo of this fern.

A last look at the tree ferns (Dicksonia antarctica).

Making my way out of the garden and back to our bus I passed this totem pole that had been left to rest, decay, and return to the land.

It was a great reminder that the garden is now owned by the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe and going forward the garden will meld their vision with that of it's famous founder, Dan Hinkley.

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All material © 2009-2025 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.