Sunday Best – Seventh For Saturday (Yesterday)
Spring in Guadalupe Gardens & Wildflower Show (2010)
(This article is from 2010, so contains irrelevantly outdated information.)
Now that the world renowned San Francisco Flower and Garden Show is over, it is time for an even more important horticultural event; Spring in Guadalupe Gardens, on April 24, between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.. This celebration of Guadalupe Gardens, Earth Day and the Great Outdoors may not be as big and as fancy as some of those ‘other’ shows, but it is so much more important because it is local, centered around the Guadalupe Gardens Visitor and Education Center, which is located at 438 Coleman Avenue in San Jose.
My favorite part of Spring in Guadalupe Gardens is all the vendors of unusual plants. In past years, I found several fuchsias, aloes, cacti and weird tomato plants at Spring in Guadalupe Gardens. I never know what to expect until I get there. I hope to find unusual fig trees this year.
Spring in Guadalupe Gardens is also a great opportunity to meet with representatives of all sorts of gardening clubs. Gardening questions can be brought by the Master Gardeners of Santa Clara County’s Gardening Advice booth, where I will be working throughout the day. There will be workshops and lectures, music and entertainment, as well as fun activities for children.
Spring in Guadalupe Gardens happens to be at the same time as the peak of bloom in the Heritage Rose Garden, which is the largest public garden in the United States of America dedicated to the preservation of old roses. There will be tours in other gardens and trail walks too. If I did not need to work at the Gardening Advice booth, I would want to tour the Historic Orchard, which is literally a tree museum of the many fruit trees that once filled the vast orchards of the Santa Clara Valley.
Earth Care Recycling will host a free electronic waste drop off at the Visitor and Education Center to collect all sorts of computers, keyboards, monitors, televisions, stereos, radios, printers, fax machines, telephones, cell phones, DVD players and VCRs. (I thought mine was the last of the VCRs!) Proceeds benefit the Guadalupe River Park Conservancy.
Admission and parking are free. Just follow the signs from Coleman Avenue or West Taylor Street. More information about Spring in Guadalupe Gardens can be found at www.grpg.org or by telephoning 298 7657.
The unfortunate news about the Wildflower Show organized by the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of the California Native Plant Society and the Mission College Biological Sciences Department is that it will be at the same time (with another hour until 4:00 p.m.). The fortunate news is that it will continue the following day on April 25, so we all can attend both events! The Wildflower Show will be at Mission College in Santa Clara. Parking in lot C and admission are free.
More than four hundred specie of wildflowers and native plants will be displayed and accurately labeled. There will be free classes for native plant identification and wildflower gardening, and nature activities for children. Books, posters, seeds and note cards will be available for purchase. More information can be found at www.cnps-scv.org, or by telephoning 650 – 260 3450.
The San Francisco Flower and Garden Show (2010)
(This article is from 2010, so contains irrelevantly outdated information, but the link to the website below is accurate.)
The big Pacific maples outside my window never seem to get enough rest through the brief winters. Not too long ago, their leaves turned yellow and fell during autumn. Their branches were bare for only a short time through the middle of winter. Now their buds are popping open to remind me that it is now early spring. Gardening can no longer be put off because the weather is too cool and rainy to go outside, or for that matter, because it is too cool for the various plants to be actively growing and in need of much attention. Gardening now becomes a rush just to keep up with all that is going on, and to not miss out on the many excellent gardening events this time of year.
The San Francisco Flower and Garden Show, the grandest of these events, has already begun and will continue though March 28 at the San Mateo Event Center. More than 70 seminars feature topics such as sustainability in the garden, edible gardening, new plants, garden design, container gardens and water conservation. Guests can also learn how to create bonsai, build trellises, grow orchids, prune properly and how to determine what plants are best for each garden. Sproutopia has fun and educational activities and entertainment for young children.
There are also many displays exhibiting everything from garden sculpture to victory gardens. The pocket parks and container garden display shows the potential of gardening with limited space, or with little time to devote to gardening. The Bonsai Society of San Francisco is exhibiting impressively mature bonsai specimens, and demonstrating bonsai techniques. Flower Lane exhibits floral design by California Garden Clubs. Hot Plant Picks displays some of the most recently introduced or developed plants. Some are still too new to be available in nurseries yet.
Gardens for the Future, the twenty display gardens that are the most prominent component of the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show, illustrate themes ranging from simple and refined to opulent and lush. ‘Velvet Daggers3’ may be my favorite because it “suggests that we seek out new applications of simple technology” and “demonstrates the beautiful qualities of xeric plants” (yuccas perhaps!?). ‘Pulling Up Daisies’ defies conventional thirsty lawns and consumptive landscaping, suggesting evolution of environmental compatible landscaping with natives. “The use of native plants makes ‘Native Garden 3.0’ a model of sustainability.” These are merely three of my favorite gardens. There are seventeen others that are worthy of more theatrical descriptions!
The San Francisco Flower and Garden Show will be open from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., except on Sunday, March 28, when it will close two hours earlier at 6:00 p.m.. It is at The San Mateo Event Center, which is located at 2495 South Delaware Street in San Mateo. Admission is $20 for all five days, or $4 for youths sixteen years old and younger. Children four years old and younger are free. Student admission is $15 with valid student identification. After 3:00 p.m., or 2:00 p.m. on the last day, half day admission is $12. More information can be found at www.sfgardenshow.com.
Horridculture – Too Busy To Write
It will be a while before I resume blogging as I formerly did, if I resume. I may just continue to share my gardening column here. The situation is too complicated to explain, and too irrelevant to bother with.
So, if I do resume, I hope to write more about my own home garden. I have been negligent in that regard for a few reasons. Firstly, my home garden is not very interesting. I am a nurseryman, so am in the habit of giving away anything in the garden as it becomes appealing. Secondly, my uninteresting home garden has been neglected for too long. I have been too busy with several other obligations that I still can not keep up with. Thirdly, the landscapes where I work part time are far more interesting than what I would grow in my own uninteresting and neglected home garden if it were not so uninteresting and neglected.
In the future, I hope to renovate my home garden and make it more interesting. Seriously, all those interesting species that I bring back but do not give away from Southern California, the Pacific Northwest and even the Phoenix region deserve a comfortable garden in which they can perform as they should. Seven cultivars of banana grow fast! It would be unhealthy for them to remain canned much longer.
Because I know nothing about landscape design, I do not know how to renovate my home garden, but can figure it out as I proceed, even if most of it is as simple and utilitarian as it had formerly been. Palms do not conform to a simply utilitarian garden, so do not leave me much choice about incorporating them as aesthetic elements. It should be fun. At least that is what I continually try to remind myself.
Spring in Guadalupe Gardens
(This information is now outdated.)
Spring in Guadalupe Gardens, a celebration of healthy living, gardening and the environment, will be here in little more than two weeks, on April 28! The 5 kilometer Fun Run that begins at 9:00 a.m., an hour before anything else, makes its way through the park and back to the main event, where there will be various health professionals to share information about healthy living, and for health screenings. Other exhibits will feature information about the environment and green technology, including presentations about solar energy and worm composting. Recyclable electronic waste can be dropped off free of charge. There will be all sorts of lectures, workshops, activities for children and even dancing and live bluegrass music.
But honestly, the main reason that most of us who read this column attend Spring in Guadalupe Gardens is all the gardening goodies! There will be an abundance of all kinds of plants from all kinds of specialty nurseries. Spring in Guadalupe Gardens has always been a great source of rare and unusual plants, as well as some of the more familiar plants, at reasonable prices.
Not only will there be plenty of plants to buy, but experts and some of the nurserymen who grew many of the plants will be available for advice on selection and cultivation. Representatives from the American Fuchsia Society, the John. E. Stowell Dahlia Society and the South Bay Heritage Rose Group will be there selling their plants, and sharing their expertise and information about membership. It is not too late in the season to select warm season vegetable plants, including heirloom varieties, from the extensive assortment that will be available.
Besides the shopping, Guadalupe River Park Conservancy and Greenwaste will be giving away one free bag of compost to each household. The San Jose Heritage Rose Garden, which is the most extensive public collection of old-world roses in the Western Hemisphere, will be in full bloom and open for tours.
Spring in Guadalupe Gardens will be from 10:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., in the Guadalupe River Park and Gardens between Taylor Street and Coleman Avenue in San Jose. There is no charge for admission or parking. More information can be found online at www.grpg.org or by telephoning 298 7657. Registration for the Fun Run, which begins an hour earlier at 9:00 a.m., can be arranged at www.grpg.org/FunRun.shtml.
Tony Tomeo 