Local garden landmarks at Moonlight State Beach, north of San Diego

While exchanging messages with Jim Bishop (working out the details for my visit to his garden during our trip to San Diego), he shared photos on Facebook of a garden near the beach in Encinitas that was open for people to explore. He narrowed down the location (Moonlight State Beach) and I put it on my itinerary for the day I visited Bird Rock Tropicals (which I still haven't written about!). When bookmarking the spot I discovered Dave's Rock Garden just up the street...

How can you not love a garden with the tag line "Bringing Unity to our Community"?

Agave shawii

From the website: "My name is Dave Dean and In 2015, I started picking up trash and pulling up weeds on an old abandoned lot owned by the State. After the weeds were cleared, I began planting drought tolerant succulents to prevent the run-off of soil. Next, I created pathways with rocks that I gathered from the beach. One day, a lady left a painted black and white heart medallion rock at the end of the garden pathway and the magic began. I thought instead of one black and white rock, one day I will have a thousand rocks, painted by a thousand people, in a thousand colors. So I began to provide paint and brushes and invited visitors to paint a rock. Today, we have over 7,000 painted rocks, from over 115 countries and from the ages of 1 to 103." (source)

I liked the Cat in the Hat with a rather Seussian backer.

That's a lot of rocks!

The plants are pretty fabulous as well.

Velma, missing her glasses. I wonder if she can see the rocks?

Gorgeous kalanchoe flowers...

That's Moonlight State Beach in the distance.

What a fun garden to walk through!

Then we were off to the private garden Jim had photographed. It was closer to the beach and much more densely planted.

I ended up just circling the perimeter, looking for a way in.

Turning back to go up the other side.

Yes I wanted to walk up the driveway, but I did not. 

Soft and chalky + spiky. 

They had one of the best trash/recycling corrals I've ever seen...

Final view of the garden compound from the beach.

We parked by this nice minimalistic garden design.

The angle I took these photos from makes it look like the garden belongs to the black home, but no. This is the front garden of black house.

The columnar and barrel cactus, Yucca rostrata playground...

Belonged to the white tile (brick?) home.

Here's their living fence on the other side.

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

The Desert Garden at Balboa Park

I was surprised to discover I'd missed writing about the Desert Garden at Balboa Park, since I'd previously covered the Kate O. Sessions Cactus Garden and Palm Canyon, and the Botanical Building (aka the lath house), all of which we visited in mid-January of this year.

You reach the desert garden by walking across a pedestrian bridge at the far east side of the park. 

As we descended down into the garden I could see that the plants were suffering from the same lack of attention, care, and water that I saw elsewhere in the park.

Someone had a little fun with a dead barrel cactus.

The plants that were still looking good stood as a testament to the resilience of succulents.

Towering Euphorbia sp.

I don't know palms enough to venture a serious guess as to the ID of this beauty. I mean if you made me throw out a name I'd say Bismarckia nobilis.

Puya sp?

It's crazy to think there were aloes blooming during our visit in mid-January and still many blooming when I was in the Bay area at the end of March. You gotta love a plant that blooms for that long.

I love this yucca class photo. Or maybe it's a family reunion?

The large trunk of their Brachychiton rupestris (Queensland bottle tree) has broken open.

Wow.

This opuntia looks like it's melting.

Cochineal

Ah yes, there is nothing more stately than a Dracaena draco..

So dry...

These agaves (sorry, can't venture a guess on the species) were all colored up with drought stress.

The Wiliwili tree (Erythrina sandwicensis) was blooming!

This tree in the pea family is native to the Hawaiian Islands. The colorful flowers were a stark contrast to the bare brown branches.

The blooms pictured above were way up over my head, but there were a few that had fallen to the ground.

Look at that adorable little baby cactus! Grown from a dropped seed? Planted by someone who is watching over it?

This one is not so lucky, it's at the end of its life.

It's still a visual anchor for this vignette within the garden, and no doubt providing shelter to small creatures.

As it breaks down I hope it will be allowed to stay in place and do so completely. What an interesting process to watch.

That's a healthy Agave victoriae-reginae at its base...

A parting view. I still have a handful of San Diego gardens to share!

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