Silver Tree Landscape Design

Nursery Hopping

I was up in Santa Rosa and Calistoga this weekend visiting friends. I rendezvous'd with a friend of mine, Mike and his wife at the Santa Rosa Farmer's Market. After checking out most of the stalls and catching up with numerous old acquaintances, Mike and I decided to go nursery hopping. We got onto 24 west then onto Occidental Road. We checked on the palms that Mike had planted in Occidental over three decades ago and then continued on to Western Hills Nursery. I first met Mike at Western Hills about forty years ago when he was working for Marshall Olbrich and Lester Hawkins. He was a long-haired hippie at the time. He was into palms back then and has remained true to his San Fernando Valley roots, although he transplanted to the redwoods quite well. He was the one who planted most, if not all, the palms at Western Hills. Dennis Shaw may have contributed a palm or two during his tenure there. He was checking up on their progress after something like 35 years. It was drizzling as we visited some of our other old plant friends in the  garden. Walking around the garden Mike commented on how Lester would want to take out the trees and shrubs that had now outgrown their allotted space and how Marshall would protest the removal of anything that he had grown and nurtured. Both Lester and Marshall have since passed away and remain on the grounds. Lester passed on  first and it was Marshall who dug out a Malus that was there. He placed Lester's ashes in the hole and planted a weeping Cercidiphyllum japonicum over them. When Marshall died his ashes were scattered beneath the tree. I would hope that all those conflicts in the kitchen between those two would have finally been resolved. After Western Hills we had lunch in Occidental where Mike ran into more people from his West County past. We then went to The Miniature Plant Kingdom which as you might imagine specializes in plants that don't get very big. I bought a few plants and then we made our journey back to Santa Rosa.

Entry Contributed by our very own Angel Guerzon.

Time to Celebrate your Mama

It is the time of year that we need to show our mother's the timeless love and gratitude we have for them.  So, why not celebrate by going to a plant sale! Annie's Annuals of Richmond, CA is having their annual Mother's day Sale this weekend, May 10th and 11th from 10am-5pm. There will be plenty of fabulous activities as well as tons of beautiful and unusual annuals and perennials. Also, every mother and grandmother will receive a free 4" plant. Please click here for more information.
Cabrillo College, in Aptos, CA is also boasting their absolutely fantastic Mother's Day sale this weekend, May 9th, 10th and 11th. Friday is the presale for members only from 3pm-7pm, Saturday the sale will be open from 9am-5pm and Sunday the hours are 10am-2pm. Cabrillo throws a wonderful sale with over 1000 different annuals, bedding plants, culinary and medicinal herbs, cut flowers, natives, perennials, salvias, species and hybrid fuchsias, succulents and vines. For more information please click here.

A trip to the Glorious Pinnacles

Carleton phoned me on Saturday afternoon and said that he wanted to go to The Pinnacles the next day. We left at about eight Sunday morning. After picking up his friend, Mary, in Salinas we continued south on 101. At Soledad, I took the highway 146 exit. We eventually left the flat fields and rolling pastures as we ascended higher into the hills. With altitude the roadside flora became more interesting. We spotted patches of shooting stars and yellow Johnny-jump-ups.
We arrived at The Pinnacles west entrance, paid our fee and parked. The jagged geology is more immediately impressive on the west side than it is on the east side. The climb up is also a little steeper, and the various habitats are more compressed.
From the flat area around the parking lot we went from fiddlenecks and yellow Johnny-jump-ups into a shady canyon trail overhung with oaks. There were colonies of shooting stars in the more open areas along the tiny stream. I only saw one small clump of baby-blue-eyes. It grows more abundantly on the east side among the blue oaks.
Purple fiesta flowers bloomed along east facing slopes along with the related white woodland Nemophila. Scattered among them were milk maids nearing the end of their season and woodland stars just beginning theirs. The predominance of white was relieved by the chartreuse panicles of sanicle and an occasional midnight violet larkspur. Colonies of Chinese houses looked a little stunted from the lack of rain. Coffee fern and bedstraw added their interesting textures. Here and there along the stream were a few buckeyes and elderberries. Poison oak was everywhere.

West on Highway 58

On the way to the Carrizo Plain, I met with friends for a birthday party picnic and a day-before-Easter egg hunt at Shell Creek. The baby-blue-eyes were particularly spectacular forming streams and pools amid the undulating landscape. Goldfields were abundant as were bright orange California poppies and fiddlenecks. There were large patches of red maids, cream cups and tidy-tip daisies. Blue dicks were beginning to bloom. It was still too early for most of the lupines. We only found a couple of owl’s clover in bloom.
Further down the road at the La Panza turnoff the baby-blue-eyes gave way to carpets of shooting stars. It was evident comparing the vegetation inside the fences to the vegetation outside the fences that the wildflowers were doing much better on grazed land.
The Carrizo Plain was less showy, but the goldfields were smothering acres just south of Soda Lake. There were patches of purple Phacelia along the road. The ubiquitous and tenacious fiddlenecks, if not actually thriving were present nearly everywhere.

Following is a list of the incredible plants I saw:
BABY BLUE EYES - Nemophila menziesii
FIDDLENECKS - Amsinckia grandiflora
CALIFORNIA POPPIES - Eschscholzia californica
CREAM CUPS - Platystemon californicus
TIDY-TIPS - Layia platyglossa
OWL'S CLOVER - Castilleja exserta
BLUE DICKS - Dichelostemma capitata
SHOOTING STARS - Dodecatheon clevelandii
GOLDFIELDS - Lasthenia californica

Silver Leaf Nursery

PLANT SALE!
April 12th and 13th
8am-5pm
Silver Tree Designs is pleased to announce the opening of our new nursery, Silver Leaf Nursery. This weekend, April 12th and 13th, is our grand opening to the public. We offer a wonderful assortment of unusual and beautiful plants for your landscape. Silver Leaf Nursery is a private nursery, however, we will continue to be open to the public for occasional weekend and weekday sales. Just look for the large yellow 'Plant Sale' sign at the corner of Mt. Hermon Rd. and La Madrona Dr. in Scotts Valley and follow the arrows. If you have any questions or inquiries, please call Cathy at 831.419.5359. or visit the Nursery website  at www.silverleafplants.com. You will find our current inventory list, plant descriptions as well as plant images on the website. 

The Astounding Assortment from Annie's Amazing Annuals!

After experiencing the cool urban chic of Flora Grubb Gardens in San Francisco, it was time to dive into the unfettered flower mania of Annie’s Annuals across the Bay, in Richmond. Aside from both places being situated in dubious surroundings, their horticultural offerings appeal to very different garden aspirations. These are no ordinary annuals you’re dealing with here. Annie unabashedly flashes her fun and funky Berkeley sensibilities while, at the same time being informed and informative about so many more plants that could ever be found across the Bay.
Every year she adds more interesting plants to her repertory. Last year it was the true-blue Impatiens from the Himalayas. It’s been a while since she branched out into perennials. Now you can find even trees and shrubs as well as succulents and bulbs.
Annuals are still the mainstay of her business. There are benches full of various colored peony poppies, antique varieties of sweet peas from before they had the fragrance bred out of them, and more kinds of sunflowers than you ever imagined existed. However her accompanying plant descriptions often end with the exuberant comment “Reseeds!” as if this is always a good thing.

Let's Get some Grubb!

Last year Flora Grubb Gardens moved from San Francisco’s Mission District to the industrial area east of the 280 and 101 interchange. Poised between the loading docks of the prosaic Produce Market and the dicey Hunters Point neighborhoods the nursery is like a lobster full of delectable succulence encased within a hard shell. Foliage is Flora’s forte. Jumbo-paks of gaudy annuals are always out of season here, but color is not. A Chinese red Chippendale-style garden chair is strategically placed among ‘Sango-kaku Japanese maples. The blue-gray needles of a Chinese fir are cunningly set off by the inky purple glaze of the pot it resides in.
Form and texture as well as proportion are well represented by towering rare palms, elegantly unfurled cycads, bizarre bromeliads and various swollen succulents and a smattering of cacti. An Acacia pravissima stands weeping near the entrance beside a Leptospermum ‘Dark Shadows’.
There are also great books, stimulating coffee, yummy snacks plus more playful garden furnishings. Hopefully you have plenty of time.

1634 Jerrold Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94124
T: (415) 648-2670
F: (415) 648-2674
Please click here to visit the website.

Garden Show Season

It's that time of year again (...can you believe it?) The San Francisco Flower and Garden Show starts on Wednesday March 12th. There are quite a few highlights that you will not want to miss. Obviously, you will have to peruse that main room to view all the innovative display gardens. There will also be a wonderful container garden display, a wide variety of interesting seminars, the California Horticultural Society 'Hot Plant Picks', the great bonsai and orchid displays, Sproutopia: a family fun garden and of course the Marketplace if you are in the mood for shopping. The show runs March 12th-16th, Wednesday-Saturday from 9am-8pm and Sunday from 9am-6pm at the Cow Palace 2600 Geneva Ave, Daly City, CA 94014.
Please click here for more information.
Hope to see you there!

Into the Hills of the West

In the 1960s and on through the 80s Western Hills Nursery located in Occidental, was one of the most inspirational of places for incipient plant and garden geeks. It was what many of us aspired to create. It contained treasures both great and small all woven into a four dimensional wonderland changing through the seasons and evolving over the years. It was a paradise for the guest and visitors who wandered its paths, although at times it was a green hell for its creators, Marshall and Lester. But if you're going to have issues at least be in a beautiful place with a Haydn chorale blaring on the stereo and some hot tea brewing in the kitchen. Marshall alternated appropriately between Hadyn's 'The Creation Oratorio' and the 'Mass in Time of War'. Lester probably likes jazz.
Contributed by Angel Guerzon.
For more information on Western Hills Nursery please click here.

Annie's Annuals (and perennials)

Last weekend, I made a pilgrimage to Annie's Annuals Nursery in Richmond . It's not the best time of year to see plants in bloom, but it is a great time to plant them. The middle photograph is the formerly rare but still relatively expensive blue Impatiens namchabarwensis. This was only discovered in 2003 in a remote gorge in Tibet. I imagine someone somewhere is working on turning this plant into a compact little blue ball.
As I walked into the nursery I nearly collided with Barbara Worl and Betsy Clebsch. Fortunately we were not overly distracted by all the botanical booty around us and avoided becoming road kill. Barbara has specialized in old roses and rare books for most of her life. She was recently the subject of an article in Pacific Horticulture magazine. Betsy has authored two books on the genus Salvia published by Timber Press.
Contributed by Angel Guerzon.
Annies Annuals is hosting their annual 'Fabulous Fall Planting Party' the weekend of October 6th and 7th from 10am-5pm. Enjoy 25% off all 4" plants, music, food, talks, arts, and fun for the whole family. Please click here for more information.