MmePerdu

I’ve just posted the last of this summer’s garden blogs, the most interesting for visiting purposes, Filoli in Woodside, south of San Francisco, and the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek, just east of the Bay Area.

http://www.travelgumbo.com/blog/port...-garden-lovers

The first 2 posts are some local to me in Nevada County, north of Sacramento in the foothills, on this year’s charity garden tour. For those who’ll be in Northern California next May, there’s a link to the organization, Soroptimists, for next year's tour.

Earlier posts, mid-list are more in California, then last, gardens “farther afield”.

gailscout

Thanks! I live in Northern California (Orinda) and always enjoy a lovely garden and nature area.

MichelleY

Thank you for the info. Ideas for our garden club trip.

MmePerdu

Thank you, ladies!

One of these days I'm going to get back to S. CA and revisit several favorites down there. If you know of others in N. CA please let me know. I've heard there's a Japanese garden near Sacramento I must look into.

Dayenu

Japanese Garden in Golden Gate park in San Francisco is interesting. The Tea House can be a lunch stop.

MmePerdu

I haven't been there for a while, Dayenu, but was a visitor since grammar school field trips in the '50s, having been born in SF. I thought of it when I mentioned the one near Sacramento and think it's time for a trip back to GG Park.

StuDudley

There is a large Rose Garden in San Jose
https://www.sanjoseca.gov/facilities...ity/details/74

Of course, there is also one in San Francisco.

Stu Dudley

MichelleY

Our garden club visited Boonie Lang's Japanese garden in both spring and fall. Wonderful and located near Granite Bay. This was a number of years ago.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/csgd.wo...anquility/amp/

MmePerdu

My husband, a landscape architect trained at Cal Berkeley, worked in S. CA and for the Park Service (now lives in Brasil) and having grown up in the desert, liked the pictures of the Ruth Bancroft Garden best (I do too). He lamented this morning by email the fact that the garden had yet to be "born" when he was at Cal.

MichelleY, I'm sure that's the one I'd read about. Now to see if there are still occasional tours and an opportunity to visit, a new quest!

MmePerdu

Here's another, in Saratoga. "...100 years old, Hakone is one of the oldest Japanese estate, retreat and gardens in the Western Hemisphere."

http://www.hakone.com/main.html

So many gardens, so little time!

CaliNurse

Mme Perdu et al, there's a beautiful, little-used Japanese Garden in, would you believe, Hayward, near the Civic Center.
The few photos on this site don't do it justice, but there's interesting information about its history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japane...rd,_California).

Thanks for the tip about the Bancroft Garden. How have I missed that??

MmePerdu

Very interesting, CaliNurse. I usually go through Hayward on my way to the San Mateo Bridge to visit my family. Not often, as I so dislike the traffic and try to get them to come up here, but an entertaining stop next time I can't get out of it. Thanks.

I've made myself a list which I keep on the desktop of my computer. There are several more I want to visit or revisit on the Peninsula and more in the East Bay. I'd better get busy.

CaliNurse

Clarification: the Japanese Garden is near Castro Valley Civic Center (not Hayward CC).
Another lovely quick side-trip on your way down 880 (if you go that way--traffic hell) to the San Mateo Bridge, is to take Marina West and head for nearby San Leandro Marina, with its lovely one mile walk around a small peninsula with great views of San Francisco and the Bay

Dayenu

MmePerdu, yes, it's time to go to GG park, if you haven't been for a while, it's different now.

CaliNurse, I remember the Japanese garden in Hayward, loved it!

MmePerdu

It's probably been 10 years since I was there. In the '70s I volunteered at the de Young, the only one working for the conservator of decorative arts in the old building which I loved. Last visit I made my way around the new building for the first time, hating every moment. Time to get over it and go back, to be sure. And to the tea garden which I've loved for over 60 years now, last memorialized in black & white with my big Rollei, to see what I can do on a tiny memory card.