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 […]
Sorry if there is any confusion, but my topic today is a new garden of ancient plants at the San Francisco Botanical Garden near its north entrance . I happened upon this garden after I took my brother to the California Academy of Sciences last month. Even after a tour that is too brief, I […]
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 […]
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 […]
I went back to Beijing, China for almost three weeks in October to both visit my parents and to see one particular Imperial garden that I have never been to before: The Summer Villa at the city of ChengDe. The weather was very nice with many clear days, although air polution is still an issue […]
My son had a play-date last Sunday afternoon (5/24) and my wife said that we have not visited a garden together for quite some time. I guess I must have been really good in my previous life to be this blessed, so we decided to go visit Filoli. For those of you who do not […]
A local APLD (Association of Professional Landscape Designers) officer asked me to put a garden on their joint garden tour with Foothill College. Since the theme this year is small gardens, I just volunteered my own garden. Last Wednesday (5/27) was the day and about 50 people came for the tour. First benefit for me […]
In the evening of April 20th I gave a talk to the California Horticultural Society about Classical Chinese Gardens in Suzhou, China. I thought it would be nice to show a local garden at the end of my talk. Unfortunately we do not have a public Suzhou style garden in the Bay Area, even though […]
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With the only un-interrupted cultural development in the world for 4000 years, China has a great heritage of magnificent gardens and garden building techniques. Unfortunately, few people in the western world are aware of this treasure. As China is prospering again under the current economic boom, its gardening traditions are generating new interests worldwide. A […]