Celebrate today’s summer solstice with photos from San Francisco’s exquisite Japanese Tea Garden. It’s the oldest public Japanese garden in the country, and one of many wonders of Golden Gate Park. Dave and I went there recently after we were fully vaccinated. We hadn’t been in years, and we really enjoyed visiting again. It features […]
My indoor orchid shelves don’t have much room to spare, so if I buy a warm grower, it’s got to be a miniature. At the 2020 Pacific Orchid Expo, I spotted this little charmer for sale. Leptotes pohlitinocoi has a name that I can’t pronounce, but this small Cattleya relative is definitely worth the shelf […]
Revel in spring blooms with these native wildflowers growing by the ocean near San Francisco. Mori Point is a 32 acre (13 hectare) park in Pacifica, California with stunning coastal views. It’s part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which encompasses much of Pacific coastline outside the Golden Gate. Dave and I recently took […]
Mother’s Day is a day for moms, and also a day for orchids. If you’re gazing at a new orchid gift, and wondering what to do with it, don’t worry. Most orchids don’t deserve their finicky reputations, and aren’t tough to grow. The most commonly sold types are Moth Orchids, like those in the row […]
Every now and then, I manage to kill an orchid. Recently, it was my Ada aurantiaca. The species has been renamed Brassia aurantiaca, but I bought it under the Ada name, so that’s how I usually refer to it. After it died, I realized that we didn’t take many photos of it over the years. […]
At this time of year, the Northern California coast is full of blue flowers. They’re not orchids, but they’re one of my favorites nonetheless. California Lilacs, or Ceanothus, are a North American genus, with many species native to California. They’re a staple of local gardens, currently blossoming in front yards, on hillsides, next to parking […]
Marianne North was a phenomenal botanical artist of Victorian England, and you can take a virtual trip to enjoy her gallery at RBG Kew in London. Check out the two videos below, and also photos that Dave took during a visit to the UK in 2019. North’s extraordinary art includes many orchids. She traveled around […]
In the UK, Awards of Garden Merit (AGMs) are given to worthy plants, including orchids, by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS.) AGMs are varieties which are reliable, easy to grow, and commonly sold in the UK. The three photos above represent orchids which currently have AGMs. They are Pleione formosana, Stenoglottis longifolia, and Oncidium Sharry […]
Lots of orchids have been blooming in our late winter garden, eager for today’s change of season. My favorite purple Zygo reliably boasts stunning flowers, shown in the first row of photos above. Their beauty is surpassed by their sweet fragrance, which is one of my favorites. The second row features a wonderful Coelogyne, which […]
Fortunately, I still have plenty of pictures to enjoy from last year’s orchid show. The Pacific Orchid Expo was spectacular, as always, in late February, 2020. A few weeks later, the San Francisco Bay Area was the first part of the nation to go into lockdown for COVID19. This year’s show was cancelled, of course. […]
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