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Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Looking Ahead to 2014

Happy New Year! I love the feeling of another year stretching out ahead of me. Granted, most of it is spent in the mundane – eating, sleeping, bathing, working, cleaning, and moving from place to place. But there is always room in the margins for exploration, fun, and trying something new!

Looking ahead, I plan to continue some of the themes started last year:
  • Visit private and public gardens throughout the seasons, both locally and around the country. This includes exploring my family roots, and locating the family farm in Vermont!
  • Identify some good native (or near native) plants that can thrive in the San Francisco Bay Area’s dry climate (whether sunny or shady), clay soil (hard but full of nutrients), and pests (especially deer). Using this information, I intend to rejuvenate the planters in my front yard.
  • Continue exploring gardening history. As part of that, I plan to investigate the theme of “plants on the move”. With the discovery of the New World, the quest for marketable crops, Linnaeus and his disciples collecting specimens and spreading the new binomial classification system, the frenzy to collect exotic plants, and scientific curiosity, plants (and their diseases) experienced a “diaspora” of sorts all around the globe.
  • Enjoy all the beauty and bounty of the San Francisco Bay Area, and its gardens, raised beds, roof gardens, hanging gardens, and wild preserves!

Roots and the family farm

 


Peaceful gardens and their plants
 

Native and near-native plants
 

Estate gardens
 

I may publish once a week for part of the year, to give myself more time to research and immerse myself in my areas of study. But stay tuned, and continue with me on this quest for beautiful gardens in Eden By The Bay!

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