Every February I get a nice preview of most of the new things that will show up at our local nurseries by attending the NORCAL trade show in San Mateo Event Center. This one-day program is intended for all the wholesale vendors and suppliers to show their products to retail outlets. Naturally the most important visitors are the buyers from retail nurseries and some of them will place orders on the spot. As a landscape designer, I am also a potential customer and I get to see a lot of cool new garden products such as fountains, containers, tools, etc. However, the plant nut in me is always attracted to those star plants making their debut, and this year we have several noteworthy newcomers.
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Right before the beginning of this week-long barrage of storms, I went on a tour to see a Persian fruit tree nursery (Pars Produce in Alamo, CA) and a hilltop garden in Lafayette. Even though the nursery was messy and had exorbitant prices, they do stock some unique fruit cultivars from Iran. I ended up getting a Saveh Pomegranate and a tart Cherry of Esfahan.
Our next garden, however, is a total gem that covers nine acres of a south-facing slope studded with native oaks. The homeowners are young and energetic, and one of them owns an exotic plant nursery. Naturally his garden has become a trial ground of some of his favorite plants. Here are some snapshots of that wonderland.
Garden Gate with flanking Chamaedorea radicalis
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Ask any serious art collectors and they will tell you that the contemporary art scene in Beijing is on par with all of those traditional strongholds such as Paris or New York. For many, 798 Art District is a poster child of this movement, if not already a little over its peak since its popularity with tourists has made it less attractive for artists.
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As the capital of China for the last six hundred years, Beijing is blessed with many huge and elaborate royal gardens. Surprisingly, it can not lay claim to the largest surviving royal garden. The 1380-acre-plus Imperial Summer Villa is in a small city called Chengde about 160 miles to the northeast of Beijing. Since I have never been there even though I lived in Beijing for over ten years, I made sure to include this garden on my trip back to China in October. (more…)
A good way to get over jetlag is to follow the local time schedule with lots of physical activities, and I did just that by going to the 7th China Flower Expo the next day after I landed in Beijing. This once-every-four-year event is the Olympic Games of the Chinese horticultural industry. A brand new exhibition center was built for the show with many green features such as these membrane roofs doubling as rainwater collection system.
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