A Walk Through Golden Gate park in January

It was a chilly morning in San Francisco for early January, but the day was clear and dry outside, so it was a perfect day to spend roaming around Golden Gate park.




Being cooped up the past few days of wet weather really brought out the explorer in me, I hiked all over the park, enjoyed new discoveries and old favorite spots worth re-visiting in the park.






Surprisingly, there were quite a few blooms still going on in the midst of winter (well at least a cold for me). I could always count on a beautiful display and visit to the Conservatory of Flowers in the park. A whole section of the entry walk way to the conservatory was filled with colorful spring-like icelandic poppies and blue pansies
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These guys will lift up any spirits during the cold doldrums of winter.










A new installation inside is in progress so its closed for visits - no worries, there's still alot of things outside to see. At the dahlia dell to the left side of the conservatory, the last few scrappy survivors were struggling to put on their last show during the new year – I'm amazed to see these few blooms in January!


















Still gorgeous to see with its last ‘hurrah’ of winter….








Around the dahlia dell is a succulent and cactus garden that it is coming out with full blooms from the various varieties of aloes and yuccas.  Their winter blooms dazzle like sculpture, and project spiked blooms all over the garden and up into the blue skies.









I love how the sun is highlighting these flower spikes below.

























The yuccas are also giving a great show with huge spikes of yellow-drop florets.  Its so beautiful seeing them at this time of the year when mostly everything else is quiet in the park.







Close-by to the dell is a shady area filled with these beautiful calla lillies, so perfect and with huge white blooms. Their bright yellow spadix attracting a slew of hungry bees flying everywhere – it was so nice to see them here, active and plentiful.












A busy bee inside the calla working its magic.





I can always count on my visits to the Conservatory of Flowers in the midst of wintertime in the park. It’s a nice bright spot to visit.






Here’s a nice last shot with a detail of the glass pavilion and insignia of Golden Gate park below
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Filoli Re-visited

 

Part two of my Filoli visit was filled with more garden rooms to explore. After walking through  the knot garden with beautiful sprays of lavender, santolina, rosemary and chrysanthemums,  we walked quickly through the small potager garden, most of the harvest were being utilized for the café menu.

 

 

 

 

 

The cutting gardens were extensive, most covered with chicken wire and different cages to deter the wildlife, unfortunately, I was only able to take two photos of this area.

 

A detailed poppy shot with bees fluttering everywhere.

 

 

 

We entered a shady dell where the tennis court is located but mainly used now for rental and outdoor functions. A small stand of white dogwoods where in full display along the walled court.

 

 

 

 

We passed quickly through this blue garden with a central sundial as a focus with potted pansies.

 

 

The pool area is very simple with brick walkways and large potted digitalis flowers in full bloom.

 

The borders along the pool contained elevated beds of California poppies and other

springtime annuals.

 

 

 

Heading back towards the side of the main house are views back to the garden room with large chinese pots filled with purple clematis. 

The other side of the same fence was lined with deep yellow roses with the clematis spilling over from the large pots.

 

Almost hand sized red poppies were clustered in beds next to the yellow roses, I’ve never seen poppies this large, I should have used my hand in the photograph to give some perspective.

 

 

Along with the outside garden tour, there is also a nice tour of the inside, much of the interior furnishings were sold off, but there were a few original pieces that have been donated back to the organization to fill out most of the interior spaces.

 

I love pictures looking out and making a silhouette of the doors.

 

In most of the rooms, gorgeous floral displays were set in prominent areas utilizing the flowers from the cutting gardens. Volunteers expertly create large and amazing floral vignettes.

 

The main dining room below.

 

I love crystal chandeliers like this elaborate beauty below.

 

 

Another sublime display in monochromatic shades of orange.

 

 

Again another display of different orange colored blooms, I actually love monochromatic mixtures, what do you think?

 

A detailed study of alstroemerias below

 

One last peek into the walled gardens before I head out to the gift shop.

 

This was such a fun visit, I loved all the time spent in the gardens and inside the home. If you have a chance to visit the Bay Area, you won’t be disappointed in taking the time to visit Filoli in Woodside.

A Visit to Filoli

I wanted to visit the gardens again at Filoli while I was back in the Bay Area in June. Its been awhile since I’ve been here and I was looking forward to seeing the beautiful roses and transition to summer flowers in the various gardens.

It’s wonderful to see a well run organization with lots of support at Filoli. I was impressed with all the gardeners, docents and other volunteers helping to make every visit special. Starting with our volunteer docent Donna, she gave an educational and entertaining two hour visit to the home and
gardens.





The tour began with the gardens since it was cooler in the morning, and the grounds were not too crowded,  leaving ample space to have great discussions to the various rooms and their history and for picture taking.




We entered the sunken garden facing the garden pavilion and pond. A stand of delicate purple alliums popped out with huge purple globes dotting the walled border, along with salvia and cotinus coggygria in the background.


A detail of an allium head.





One area of the walled garden had beautiful grass walkways lined with topped Irish yews, pansies and spring flowers creating a nice vista down to the natural meadow.






The garden pavilion over looking the pond was built to just the right scale mimicking the grand brick home. The English renaissance style with the formal gardens is not so common in Bay Area gardens, but it works very well in this naturally preserved environment.







A colorful spring bouquet inside the garden pavilion filled with flowers from the cutting gardens. Many of the interior rooms of the home were decorated with impressive floral displays from  experienced floral volunteers that have worked here for many years.








On the other side of the tea room is the rose garden and it is an amazing collection! Every rose and experimental variety seemed to be perfectly displayed and cared for in this garden. No doubt, the organic treatment and over 1200 Filoli volunteers help to make the beds impeccable. (not all gardeners though). The summer displays of roses were just starting to come out into full glory, I would love to see this place again in a few more weeks to see even more glorious summer display.






Perfect beds with trimmed boxwood edges allow you to see the roses closely and even take unlimited whiffs of wonderful scents. You can see that the rose gardens are the main showcase garden at Filoli.



Rounded and lined boxed topiaries and trimmed green walls add form and texture to the rose garden, and create a green base to make each rose plant shine into a stained glassed effect which is what the owners wanted in this garden.




Lots of beautiful sitting areas including this bench and arbor covered with this dazzling display of creamy white to peach roses.







Purple irises and blue campanula, create a sea of calm in this section of the walled garden.







A beautiful shady parterre garden with just planted summer blooming plants, (I’m guessing zinnias). This all green room will be bursting with hot colors in a few more weeks.






From the parterre, I spot a beautiful ornate gate leading into the orchard and flower cutting beds and further down into the Irish yew corner where the one and only official family wedding took place at Filoli, a restriction the owners wanted before deeding the property to the non-profit organization.






Many of the fruit trees like these bartlett pears are starting to develop fruit, this one looks loaded with fruit already.  The gardeners experimented with espaliered techniques to add more trees and to include a design element into the orchard.





One of my favorite rooms was the ornate herb and knot garden. The colors were just starting to come out with the various herbs that were blooming.





A detailed shot of the various herbs in this garden including santolina, berberry, lavender and rosemary, and thyme.







All the masses of colors are so beautiful clumped in large clusters and the red berberry interspersed to introduce the knotting effects.






Surprisingly the working kitchen garden was very small, I’m assuming that since the home is not in full use, the kitchen garden is mostly used for display and some of the greens grown to be used in the café.







There were large sections utilized for the cutting gardens so the beautiful floral displays throughout the home could utilized a plethora of year round flowers available for arrangements.
Below is one of the areas showing beautiful beds developing new flowers plants.





It was a full day touring the home and gardens so at this point, I think I will end for now and continue in the next post to show more rooms and then the beautiful exteriors to the home.

This is my contribution to June garden bloom day, to visit more gardens around the world go to http://www.maydreamsgardens.com/