A garden, perhaps, lay hidden under 70-years of debris. (Photo: Heligan Gardens LTD.)

It was February 16, 1990. Only the tops of palm trees gave a hint of what might lay beneath. Workmen began to chop away with machetes at monstrous blankets of undergrowth, a 70-year accumulation of fallen trees, brambles, ivy, and once-tidy boxwood hedges grown rampant into high, impenetrable walls.

Completely obliterated under the accumulated debris were acres of gardens laid out on land that came into ownership of the Tremayne family in the 1700s.

Gardens designed to impress …

Squire Henry Hawkins Tremayne instigated the shape of the gardens in 1780. Three succeeding generations of Tremaynes nurtured and expanded his lay out to create what was to become one of Cornwall’s grandest “show off” gardens.

Reaching its heyday at the turn of the 20^th century, themed garden “rooms” designed to impress showcased shrubs and trees brought back from the far corners of the world by expeditions of plant collectors intent on procuring the rare, weird and beautiful. Extensive production gardens – vegetables, fruit, and flowers – bountifully supplied the entire estate.

The same garden, pictured above, returned to former turn of the 20th centuryglory. (Photo: Yvonne Michie Horn)

Then came World War I ….

Mike Friend, Lost Gardens of Heligan head gardener. (Photo Yvonne Horn)

“Prior to the war, the estate employed 24 full time gardeners,” Heligan’s head gardener, Mike Friend, told me during my May 2011 visit.  “Of those, sixteen went off to fight in the war. Only four survived the conflict.”

War’s end found a Britain changed forever. The idyll had ended. The old landscape of grand mansions, deference, and cheap labor was no more. The Tremayne estate was not exempt. In the 1920s, the magnificent house was tenanted out; the last resident squire departed. With that, the glorious gardens gently went to sleep.  

“In 1943, the Americans came to rehearse the Normandy landing.” Friend continued the story. “Officers were billeted here. Decay continued to settle in throughout the estate. At World War II’s close, a decision was made to sell the house.”  

A first find, the Thunderbox Room. (Photo Lorna Tremayne Heligan Gardens Ltd.)

In 1990, the most recent inheritor of the 1000-acre estate, John Willis, a Tremayne descendant, determined to take a look at “’what went before” and put together an exploratory work force. 

 A first find …

A gateway, obscured by a dense forest of bamboo, attracted their attention. Hacking through, they reached a small space, now known to be the Melon Yard where once cold frames and glasshouses sheltered not only melons but where such exotics as bananas and pineapples grew.  Inching forward they discovered a cottage in a far corner with its roof caved in. A first find – the Thunderbox Room, with graffiti signatures of those who’d worked in the garden scrawled on a wall.

Uncovered, the head gardener’s office was discoverd  virtually intact. (Photo Lorna Tremayne, Heligan Gardens Ltd.)

Nearby, another find – the head gardener’s office, the tea kettle still at the ready on the stove as if ready to pour. “It was if on a day in August 1914, everyone just stood up and left,” Friend said.

Today twenty gardeners work at Heligan, alongside two volunteers, nearing the number who looked after the garden during its heyday.

“In homage to those who worked here long ago, we tend the gardens as authentically ‘period correct’ as possible,” Friend said as we set out together to explore Heligan’s two distinct areas – the Production Gardens strung down the estate’s center and their surrounding Pleasure Grounds.

We began in the Northern Gardens, following the “rides” (as Squire Henry Hawkins Tremayne called the gardens’ circuit of paths) as laid out in 1839. Giant rhododendrons, a century-old Magnolia, and towering camellias provide a spring-time show over carpets of daffodils, snowdrops an cyclamen.

A spring-time show …

Giant rhododendrons flourish in the Northern Gardens. (Photo: Yvonne Horn)

Continuing on the “eastern ride” we came to the New Zealand area that received an infusion of new plants courtesy of New Zealand’s dismantling of its 2004 Chelsea Flower Show garden after its gold-medal win. Nearby, Friend showed me the Crystal Grotto, its roof set with crystals. “On summer evenings candles would be brought out. Imagine that twinkling display!”

Victorian bee boles ensured crop pollination. (Photo Julian Stephens Heligan Gardens Ltd.)

“Victorian bee boles,” Friend identified the series of vaulted cells built into a wall close to the Production Gardens to ensure crop pollination.

 Turning into the Production Gardens, an alleé of apple trees centered the Vegetable Garden with varieties chosen to ensure a parade of spring blossom. Here, as in the Flower Garden, “period correct” means everything from sourcing Victorian varieties as much as possible, to labor-intensive double-digging, to bringing seaweed up from the cove to dress the beds. “We did, however, decide to garden organically,” Friend said, “and not follow the Victorian’s penchant for the use of such chemicals as nicotine and arsenic.’

Once cleared, the Ravine Rock Garden  again resembled a walk through a mountain pass. (Photo Julian Stephens Heligan Gardens Ltd.)

Original greenhouses have been restored to their former glory. In the Flower Garden, Friend introduced me to Carly Holmes, the gardener in charge, who told me that she, for example, spends many an hour “with my little brush laboriously removing scale from the branches of fruit trees wintering over the glass houses and thinking, ‘What on earth am I doing!’’ she laughed.

I could have lingered for the remainder of the afternoon in the fascinating Production Gardens, but Friend wanted to show me the Ravine Rock Garden where overgrowth had accumulated so deeply that no one remembered there had been a ravine. Cleared, it again resembles a walk through a mountain pass.

On to the Jungle …

And then, the Jungle, one of the last gardens built. There you see the largest collection of tree ferns in Britain, 60 varieties of bamboo, palms and conifers, rhododendrons and camellias, proteas, succulents, banana, kiwi – and much more. Man-made watercourses connect four ponds. At attempt was made to recreate the original Georgian pathways – an effort abandoned in favor of a system of boardwalks.

Boardwalks take visitors through the lush plantings and across the four ponds of  the Jungle, one of the last gardens built. (Photo Lorna Tremayne Heligan Gardens Ltd.)

Where was the Mud Maid? …

At the end of my tour with Friend, it suddenly dawned on me that I’d not seen the Mud Maid, a haunting photo of which had made me determined not to leave Cornwall without visiting Heligan, the Mud Maid’s home.

The Mud Maid, a sleeping beauty awaiting awakening.  (Photo Lorna Tremayne Heligan Gardens Ltd.)

Friend took me to see her, deep in the woodlands. There she lay, exactly as pictured – not an old fallen sculpture, as I’d surmised, but a commissioned work by local artists, Sue and Pete Hill, brother and sister.

No matter! It was a fitting symbol for the Lost Gardens of Heligan, a sleeping beauty awaiting awakening.

If you go …

The Lost Gardens of Heligan are open daily the year round, save for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, April-September 10 am – 6 pm, October-March, 10 am – 5 pm. Admission: L10, adults; L6, children over 5 years;  free, children under 5 years.  Guided tours are offered daily April – September at 11:30 am. L1.50.

Stout footwear is recommended, especially for those wanting to explore the Jungle and areas of the wider estate beyond the garden.  With over 200 acres to explore, one could easily spend an entire day; the Willows Tearoom offers a seasonal lunch menu based on local products.

To find the gardens, from St. Austell take the Mevagissey Road (B32743) and follow directional signs to Heligan .

The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Pentewan, St. Austell, Cornwall PL26 6 EN; Telephone: 01726 845100; E-mail: info@heligan.com; Web: www.heligan.com.

Bo-n-n-n-g! A sonorous brass gong announced my arrival.

It certainly made me feel important, and I’d not even come for an overnight stay at what may well be Yangon’s most luxurious hotel: The Governor’s Residence, an Orient-Express Hotels property.

Nor was I a remnant from the past, when under British colonial government rule the teak mansion was built to house officials traveling from the  semi-autonomous Karenni states. Bo-n-n-n-g! An important someone had arrived.

My reason for visiting was the garden surrounding the Victorian-era villa, a place of leafy and quiet respite in the heart of tumultuous Yangon.

During my days in the city, I’d found serenity and greenery in short supply. Yes, I had made my way to the extensive, park-like lawns and shaded areas surrounding Kandawgyi Lake; its footpath, however, edges a traffic-impacted road. The street roar was impossible to ignore, even while caught up in the not-to-be-missed magic of Shwedagon Paya at sunset on the lake’s eastern edge, when the massive stupa’s mirror reflection turned from shimmering gold to crimson to orange in the last rays of the setting sun.

Somerset Maugham stuff…

Now, with the fragrance of frangipani and jasmine in the air, I was seated under whirring fans on the fretwork-embellished verandah of the Residence, sipping a tropical drink. Somerset Maugham stuff. Khin Khin Soe, Chief Gardener, would be along shortly to show me about, I was told. No hurry. I’d happily wait.

Soe arrived, her gardener’s smock topped off by one of the woven-bamboo, conical-shaped hats worn throughout the country by all who spend their days outdoors.

With a certificate in landscape architecture from the University of Yangon following a previous degree earned in mathematics, Soe came to the Residence’s garden three years ago. Today, she oversees a staff of four who meticulously tend the garden completely by hand — sweeping leaves as they fall, and edging and mowing the lawns. It would not do to have mechanical gardening devices shatter guests’ calm.

The garden represents over 100 different plants…

With Soe’s mastery of English minimal and my Burmese nonexistent, we set out to tour the 2-acre site, Soe with a book in hand on Southeast Asia horticultural written in English.

Over 100 different plants are represented in the garden. In answer to my “What’s that?,” Soe simply quickly looked it up and handed its description over to me – Bat Flower.

My visit was in  December.  Quickly I learned that, as beautiful as the garden was that day, it would be even more glorious come the January-through-March rainy season during which every flowering plant would burst into bloom. For example, but one long flower was dangling from the  Amherstia Noblis Burmese, known as the Pride of Burma, the queen of flowering trees. Soon it would be a crimson extravaganza.

The Dracaena marginata I recognized as one of my houseplants. Here it was as tall as a tree. Passionflower and bougainvillea were certainly familiar, as was the orange-red spike of flowering ginger.

Dendrobium orchids were well represented, planted in boxes hung along the covered walkway leading from the entrance road to the villa.

A hidden nursery …

Soe took me to her “nursery,” hidden behind dense foliage, where she tends for plants awaiting their turn in the garden, including an array of orchids.

Among others needing tender care at the moment was a rather straggly specimen labeled Betel Nut. So that’s what the plant looks like that provides the red teeth and the spitted, blood-like sidewalk blotches ubiquitous throughout the country.

We strolled past lily-filled ponds, with koi swimming lazily about, and water-filled clay pots in which frilly green “water lettuce” floated.

On it went, with Soe intent on showing me every nook and cranny of the garden, opening her book to explanations along the way, until, dizzy with plant variations and descriptions, I began to long for the verandah.

Finally, the gracious and knowledgeable Chief Gardener closed her book, allowing me to dip into my all-but-nonexistent Burmese to say, “Tze zu timba deh”, a “thank hyou” to Khin Khin Soe,  along with a thank you to the historic Governor’s Residence for maintaining the oasis of greenery, blossoms and calm I’d enjoyed that day.  

If you go ….

The Governor’s Residence (35 Taw Win Road, Dagon Township, Yangon, Myanmar; phone [+95-1] 229860, fax 228260, www.governorsresidence.com) is located in Yangon’s Embassy Quarter.

The hotel consists of 45 spacious rooms and 43 suites, with rates in low season beginning, depending on accommodation chosen, at$335 per night escalating to $450 . High season rates, $550 – $760. November through February, during the dry season, are considered high season.  The lowest of low-season rates are May and June, the hottest and wettest months. Two dining rooms, the elegant Mandalay Restaurant and less formal Burmese Curry Table, open to the public, provide a distinctive Burmese dining experience. During my garden visit, I chose my lunch from a lavish buffet (about $12) in the open-air Mindon Lounge and enjoyed it at a table set on the verandah overlooking the garden.

If I could have but one of my gardening tools, I’d choose my CobraHead. It digs, makes furrows, gets out weeds all the way down through the roots, cultivates – and more.  Sturdy, feels good in my hand. Here’s what it looks like.  You can buy one on line for about $25.

St. Michael’s Mount as seen from the sea. (All photos courtesy  St. Aubyn Estates)

If the tide is out, you can walk a quarter-mile cobblestone causeway to St. Michael’s Mount.  Don’t worry if you linger on your tour of the castellated mansion atop this tidal island, a mirror image of Normandy’s famed Mont-St-Michel directly across the English Channel. When the tide comes rushing in, a motorboat ferry will carry you back.

Most visitors travel to the island for the sole purpose of wandering the public, grand rooms of the castle, owned and continuously lived in by members of the St. Aubyn family since 1646.

Surprise, there’s a garden!

“People have no idea there’s a garden here,” head gardener Alan Cook, in his 15th year on the island, told me, “until they look down on it from inside the castle and discover that, ‘Wow! There’s a garden here!’”

Cook finds it interesting that while the castle on “the Mont” is one of England’s best-known National Trust properties, the existence of the island’s unique and dramatic garden remains a surprise.

Through the years, some 50 terraces have found niches in the near-vertical, 200-foot-high granite face on the island’s south side. So steep is the garden that gardeners — of which there are four — abseil from one level to another working in teams of three.

“Everything we do is with ropes on, in full harness, with special fixings hidden in the rocks,” Cook said. “We take our time. A misstep means you could fall out of the garden.”

Gardens of one sort or another have been tended on the island throughout its long history. Cook has found remnants of culinary and medicinal herbs introduced when the island was home to a fortified Benedictine monastery.

Established in the 11th century, it was dissolved by Henry V in 1535.

Some 250 years later, Colonel John St. Aubyn purchased the island. Soon after, the first terraced gardens appeared. In 1780, the daughters of the fourth Sir John St. Aubyn created gardens curved and lined with brick, the better to capture heat from the sun. Peaches, nectarines, plums and strawberries flourished.

Terraces on either side were added in the 1870s and 1880s as the gardens entered what Cook refers to as “the grand time for plant collectors,” the Victorian era.

The Victorian era, a grand time for plant collectors …

“It was an era of expanding worldwide communication,” he explained. “Ships sailed the seven seas on trading dispatch from the Crown. They began to bring back completely unknown plants and seeds, the more exotic the better.”  Estates vied to outdo each other, pushing the boundaries of what could be grown where. Fortunes were paid to obtain the horticulturally weird and wonderful.

St. Michael’s Mount enjoyed enviable gardening conditions. “South facing and warmed by the Gulf Stream, its granite expanses absorbed the warmth of the sun during the day and released heat during the night,” Cook explained. “Perfect growing conditions for a variety of delicate species!” Palms, succulents , citrus, lilies. . . . For more than a century, it appeared that anything planted on St. Michael’s Mount would flourish.

Mother Nature says, “No you can’t” …….

“And then came the disastrous winter of 2009,” Cook related. “Half of our succulents along with a host of other tender plants were gone.” Replacement went under way.

“And then came 2010 — another disastrous winter. Electricity failed in the greenhouse. All was lost. It was heartbreaking to find plants grown from seed, nurtured, trained and fed dead in an instant. After years of thinking we could grow everything, nature said, ‘No, you can’t’.”

While tender exotics continue to be tended, plantings today must answer questions of hardiness, salt and wind resistance, and ability to be propagated. “The estate couldn’t afford to keep planting over and over again,” Cook said.

As the head gardener and I talked, the thought occurred that the Mount is basically a huge granite rock surrounded by water. I wondered, ‘How did planting soil get here? Did Victorian gardeners abseil down its face carrying bags and buckets of imported dirt to pack into crevices?’

“No need to,” Cook told me. “Wonderful soil has always been here.”

The reason? St. Michael’s Mount has not always had its feet in the sea. Centuries ago it was an enormous chunk of rock situated some six miles inland. Then came the great flood; radiocarbon dating establishes its happening at about 1700 BC.

“For some 6,000 years, the Mount was in the middle of the forest,” Cook said. “Leaves fell from the trees, humus developed, and birds and worms went about their work. When the rock in the forest became an island in the ocean, it remained insular, giving us wonderful soil — virgin gardening material.

“The result is that we enjoy today an incredible garden, on an island, in one of the prettiest bays in the world. I could never imagine tending plants anywhere else. Where would I go? By contrast, any other garden, any kind of garden, no matter where in the world, would be tame.”

If you go …….

Cornwall’s St. Michael’s Mount is located east of Penzance, at Marazion. The castle is open 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except Saturdays, mid April through September. Gardens are available for touring during castle hours Monday to Friday through June and then Thursday and Friday until the end of September. Admission to the castle costs £7.50 adult or £3.75 child; to the garden, £3.50 adult or £1.50 child, or to both, £9.25 adult or £4.50 child. The motorboat ferry costs £2, one way. Visitors to the garden do not have to abseil between the terraces; rock stairs wind between many of them, and coastal views along the way are spectacular. Footing is uneven, and handrails are not always available; sturdy shoes are essential. Contact St. Michael’s Mount (Manor Office, Marazion, Cornwall, TR17 0EF, U.K.; phone 01736 710507, www.stmichaelsmount.co.uk; for tide and ferry information, phone 01736 710265). ITN

(Photo Yvonne Michie Horn)

Spring is a delightful time of year to follow the winding road that edges Sonoma County’s Dry Creek Valley. Hills are green; mustard adds brilliance to quilted vineyards on the verge of leafing out. The highlight of the drive, however, lies at the valley’s northern end: The gardens of Ferrari-Carano Vineyards and Winery.

While the gardens are a treat to visit in any season, tulips are springtime’s showoffs. Spectacular beds of tulips, nodding in concert with hundreds of trumpeting daffodils, result from the planting of 10,000 bulbs each year.

Rhonda Carano enjoys the tulip display. (Photo: Alvin Jornada)

In 1997, when Rhonda Carano and her husband, Don, founded their Dry Creek winery, Rhonda Carano, a life-long gardener, looked at the parcel of land designated for the winery’s operations and envisioned it as a glorious garden. “A garden as important as the world-class wines we had in mind,” she says.

Carano, a second generation Italian-American and a native of Reno, grew up tending gardens and cooking with her grandmother. “In traditional Italian families, such as ours, it’s unthinkable not to maintain a garden,” she says.

(Photo Alvin Jornada)

While Ferrari-Carano’s 5-acre Dry Creek garden doesn’t include fruits and vegetables destined for the kitchen — Carano tends to that in the couple’s Reno and Sonoma County home gardens — it nevertheless celebrates the diversity and bounty that comes from the earth, expressed here in what amounts to a botanical garden of trees, shrubs and flowers.

“From the beginning, I had a strong idea of what this garden should be,” Carano says, “and worked closely with the architect designing the winery building to fulfill my vision.” Today she describes the plantings that encompass the estate’s entrance, the visitor parking area and the winery as “California park-like,” a relaxed and casual introduction to the garden areas to come.

(Photo Yvonne Michie Horn)

Once the vineyards and winery were in full production, construction began on the estate’s hospitality center, Villa Fiore (House of Flowers). In keeping with the building’s classic Mediterranean architecture, Carano envisioned Italian/French parterre gardens, in which geometric shapes outlined by paths and hedges dictate planting areas.

(Photo Alvin Jornada)

A third area, located off the main walkway leading to Villa Fiore, is entered through a wrought-iron gate. Visitors wander through “rooms,” that invite lingering. Bridges cross a tumbling stream; waterfalls at both end flow into fish-filled ponds. Throughout the estate, trees and shrubs are marked with identification tags, more than 2,000 species in all, including two Portuguese cork trees, a rarity for the area.

(Photo Yvonne Michie Horn)

Head gardener, Pat Patin with a background in landscape architecture, has worked hand in hand with Carano “since day one.” Today the garden is tended by Patin, his assistant and five workers. Carano is actively involved in the seasonal selection of plant material, the choice of annuals and their color palette. Twenty-five thousand annuals are planted each year. “It’s an all-season garden,” she says. “It must always appear fresh.”

(Photo Yvonne Michie Horn)

She is also the one who comes up with what she calls “the yearly garden surprise.”  For 2012, “F” and “C” was spelled out in red and white fibrous begonias on the slope leading to the Villa. The year before, visitors were greeted by the garden’s strolling, resident rooster.

“Many visitors return spring, summer, fall and winter, year in and year out,” Carano says. “The garden can never remain static. There must always be something new to see no matter how often or when one walks the garden.”

(Photo Alvin Jornada)

Sasanqqua camellias brighten the January garden. Rhododendrons and azaleas soon follow, leading up to the spectacular springtime display of bulbs, flowering shrubs and trees, colorful beds of pansies and violas. Late spring into early fall features roses, heritage and hybrid.

For Patin, winter is one of his favorite seasons in the garden, for it is then that its structure can most readily be seen in the variety of evergreens that provide the garden’s backbone and the bare branches of deciduous trees  reveal the artistry of their growth habits.

Spring’s tulip display, however, brings the most excitement, with visitors streaming through the estate’s entry gate. Color blocks and hues are thought out months in advance. Repeating “tulip peepers” can count on viewing a brand new tulip-extravaganza each year.

(Photo Yvonne Michie Horn)

And what will the 2013 tulip palette be? For that, you’ll have to drive the winding road edging Dry Creek Valley to come and see. For a heads up as to the tulip shows opening date, which comes at the whim of Mother Nature, Ferrari-Carano maintains a Tulip Hotline: (707) 433-5349.

(Photo Alvin Jornada)

May4,2013

When I stopped by SHED the other day in downtown Healdsburg, I came across the small but charming native plant garden provided by the Wetzels.  SHED occupies one side of Foss Creek, the native garden the other. Lovely little oasis.

April 21, 2013

There are sheds, and then there is SHED just off the square in downtown Healdsburg.

The inspiration of owner’s Cindy Daniel and Doug Lipton, SHED goes far beyond what one might expect to find in a shed, in a grand marketplace celebration of food from farm to table. There are bins of picture-perfect produce fresh-pulled from the earth; glass crocks filled with bulk items ranging from beans to preserved lemons; tried and true rakes, spades and hoes hang on the walls, awaiting transport to their purchasers real sheds.

Shelves hold the kind of  cookware you didn’t know you needed, but now you know you do.  Gorgeous cookbooks, some opened to pages with photos of finished culinary triumphs,  inspire putting that cookware to immediate use.

Not that one need do that. SHED  is also a seasonally driven cafe with a menu specializing in local ingredients from nearby farms.  Open seven days a week, plates complement selections of wine, beer, natural sodas, and kombucha on tap. Sit indoors or outdoors at picnic tables out front or on the deck overlooking the creek.

But that’s not all.  SHED also sees itself as a modern rendition of a grange. The second floor is  devoted to public and private events, a community center for learning  and sharing with talks and workshops of food crafts, gardening and sustainable living.

April 18, 2013

Out with the Oakmont Hikers, 34 strong this day. Wildflowers in abundance in Annadel State Park!  Even saw a scattering of the endangered fritillary.  Gorgeous day, beautiful oak woodlands, open meadows, views in every direction.

March 26, 2013

Spring Lake on a spring early morning ….

Lovely time of  day to walk around the lake, lovely light, lovely reflections. Bird song, water birds preening, red-wing blackbirds in abundance.

February 17, 2013   

Out for a hike in Jack London State Park …

Through the farm buildings, up to the lake – reed choked and croaking with a million frogs – and then following the Vineyard Trail.  Sunny, blue-sky day with yellow mustard brightening the bare grape vines.

January 23, 2013

A celebration of crab and wine in Mendocino ….

Cioppino on a blustery evening,

It all began days earlier with volunteer cook, Chris Smiley, coming down from Eureka to get his  fumé going.  A recipe that included 150 pounds of onions,  75 pounds green bell peppers, 20 pounds of garlic,  multiple restaurant-sized cans of tomatoes and three cases clam juice.  The 80 pounds of white fish, 50 pounds each clams, mussels and shrimp, would be added later.  Along with 400 Dungeness crab, brought in by north coast fishermen.  Six hundred or so people would be coming for dinner, all eager to tie on their bibs and dive into an evening of all-you-can- eat cioppino.

The night was blustery – my umbrella turned inside out between the car and the door to Fort Bragg’s historic Pentecost Hall.  Inside the welcome was down-home warm, with volunteers sporting crab chapeaus. (They were also for sale – thought I’d pass on that one.)

Wine was available at $5 a glass at the Crabby Bar  – all Mendocino, all donated to the evening’s good cause as a benefit for Mendocino Coast Clinics. One I especially liked was Graziano’s bold Zinfandel, perfect with the cioppino to come.

Locals and visitors blew in through the front door together – jeans and slickers the dress for the evening- with the hall growing lively with conversation and laughter.  A clang of a corkscrew against a 5 lb. can of crab donated by Caito Fisheries  announced the dining hall doors were swinging open, and all headed for the long, newspaper-covered tables to tie on bibs and prepare to eat unlimited amounts of cioppino.

Volunteer servers brought more and more, along with crusty slices of bread to soak up the juices.

Lovely bowls of fresh greens arrived – would we like more?  Yes, we would.

And so it went until little tubs of vanilla ice cream were metered out to be dipped into with little wooden paddles and it was announced that a pot of locally roasted Thanksgiving Coffee was on.  Warmed with cioppino and heady with red wine we headed out into the bluster – just as it should be on the Mendocino coast in deep winter.

January 3, 2013

Hitting the trails in Annadel State Park…..

On Oakmont Hikers’  annual New Year  “Bubbly Hike”   Hike Leader Larry did the honors, pouring sparkling cider so as to insure steady feet on the paths home.

November 19, 2012

Brilliant  fall color in the Valley of the Moon …..

Vineyards scorched the eye as I drove along Highway 12 this morning.  Gold, bronze, yellow, red  marched through the Valley and up the mountainsides.  Gnarled trunks of century-old Zinfandel especially picturesque, decked out in deep-purple leaves.

September 15, 2012

A Glendi – Greek for “party” -  is never to be missed …..

And so the Traveling Gardener didn’t, this one at Saint Seraphim of Sarov Orthodox Church in Santa Rosa, and ate her way successfully through the authentically prepared food of Russia, Romania, the Middle East, Balkans, Greece, Eritrea.  Not so successful trying to figure out the footwork of the circle dances – looks easy, but it’s hard!

September 13, 2012

A cornucopia of gardening inspiration at the Heirloom Exposition …….

The Traveling Gardener volunteered at the second annual Exposition at the Santa Rosa fairgrounds.  A day to get a gardener’s hands itchy to get in the soil!

But a smidgen of the goings on is pictured above.  Gigantic displays of veggies in colors and shapes unknown to grocery store produce sections. Vendors galore providing information, gardening tools, heirloom seeds, plants.  Gorgeous exhibits, inside and out – education and inspiration.  Giant pumpkin contest, winners weighing more than 1,000 pounds.  Bee keeping, sustainable garden ideas, composting ………..on it went.

In the barns – wooly sheep, goats, exotic chickens, heirloom turkeys.  What a day!

September 8. 2012

Such an oh-so-Sonoma County day!

Visited MacLeod Family Vineyard – family owned for decades – in the heart of Sonoma Valley.  Walked the vineyards with 90-plus-year-old patriarch George MacLeod listening to delightful tales, learning things I didn’t know about vines to end up for a tasting of MacLeod wines under a century-old oak.  Fabulous wines – Sauvignon Blanc, Zinfandel – accompanied by tasty tidbits.  While selling grapes to local premium wineries, MacLeod also bottles under their own label.  For a similar up-close and personal tour call 707 833-4312, $15. Web:www.MacLeodFamilyVineyard.com.

July 29, 2012

Taking a look at overlooked Suisun Valley …..

So easy to whiz by when driving 80′s multiple lanes enroute to Sacramento and the Sierra.  What a surprise! Wineries,U-Pick farms; produce stands, vineyards, vast fields of sunflowers, in a scenic valley surrounded by rolling hills.

April 19, 2012

Into the wilds of Annadel State Park  in search of wildflowers …..

Glorious spring day, so off the Oakmont Hikers went .  Given the rather crazy weather year, wildflowers were in short supply.  No matter – there were blue skies, gnarled century-old oaks  popping new leaves,  meadows abundant in greener than green grasses, and plentiful pollywogs in False Meadow creek wiggling their way to frogdom.

April 7,  2012

The Russians are coming in tall, tall ships……

Well, not exactly coming, let’s say came,  given they arrived in 1812 and left 30 years later, abandoning  their Fort Ross on the northern Sonoma Coast. I can hear them now as they took a long look back as they sailed away: “That will make a dandy state park someday.”

Today, two replicas of the brigantines that brought the Russians 200 years ago sailed into Bodega Bay, giving literally thousands of people  a reason for driving over to the coast.  Me, too,  getting there shortly after nine in the morning so as to avoid the crowds – nope.   Already a hundred or so were snaking their way around the edge of Spud Point marina waiting for a chance to step on board for a guided tour. I hate to stand in line for anything.  And, what I really wanted was  to look at them, not be shoved around with a bunch of others in their tight-spaced interiors.  Aha,  at the far end of the marina a  narrow, L-shaped pier thing wrapped itself around giving an unobstructed view.

Here they are – disarmingly small, their “tall ship” masts barely taller than the fishing boats cruising by.

During Myanmar’s colonial-British era, Maymyo –  named “May Town” after Colonel May then in charge of the Fifth Light Infantry of the Bengal Army – offered a cool “hillside station” retreat from lowland Mandalay’s oppressive summer heat. Horses, ridden or pulling carriages, provided transportation to an environment more than a little reminiscent of home. When the Mandalay to Maymyo railway was completed a few years after the station’s 1896 founding, Maymyo became the Burmese government’s summer capital.

An inviting getaway from Mandalay …

Today Maymyo, known by the Burmese as Pyin Oo Lwin, remains an inviting getaway for locals and visitors alike, not only from summer’s humidity, heat and smog but as a year-around escape from Mandalay’s human and traffic bustle.

I welcomed the opportunity to visit in December;  a month of pleasant lowland weather so my visit had nothing to do with seasonal swelter.  Maymyo’s botanical garden, the Kandawgyi National Gardens, would be readying itself as the showcase of the town’s flower festival.

The winding road to Maymyo ….

A taxi delivered me to the 3,500-foot-high retreat over a 42-kilometer, winding road. As we climbed, splendid views of the Mandalay plains appeared below.

Approaching Maymyo, the landscape flattened; vegetation became increasingly rich and varied. Stands of pines, oak and eucalyptus shared space with coffee plantations, fruit orchards, and squares of farmland abundant in vegetables and flowers.

And then we came upon the hill station itself, where the legacy of British Burma most visibly lives in Tudor and Victorian-style hotels and grand homes.

A clock tower does its best to imitate Big Ben. Miniature horse-drawn closed carriages clip-clop people about, stopping off at the golf course should one wish to play a round. Church spires peaking through the trees came as a bit of a jolt in this land of pagodas. Added to all that,  a magnificent botanical garden, its 1915 implementation aided by London’s Kew Botanical Garden.

In 1917, the government officially recognized the garden; in 1924, the site was declared a Government Botanical Reserve. Twelve years ago its 382-plus acres, expanded from an original 30, were renamed “Kandawgyi National Gardens.”

Garden workers were readying festival flower displays for the festival as I entered the garden gates (entry fee $5 USD for foreigners). From there, signposts bristled with directions to various garden areas.  Paths wandered sweeping lawns edged with bright flower beds. Reflections in a series of lakes and ponds doubled the effect of edging flora and the puffy-clouded, blue-skied day while exotic waterfowl, including pairs of black swans, serenely sailed by.

One could spend the entire day wandering Pyin Oo Lwin’s gardens …

In 95 separate areas, 589 species of local and foreign trees are planted ( not counting 42 acres of the site’s surrounding acreage designated as a protected forest area). Included is an orchard devoted to fruit-bearing varieties.

Crotons claim a special section of their own with 75 species identified; the nearby bamboo forest also lists a collection of 75. Medicinal plants for traditional use are well represented in their own area. A rose garden gives a small bow to Britain with a representative planting of 25 varieties.

An aviary duplicates life in the wild for a variety of exotic birds with Myanmar’s national symbol, the peacock, well represented with six species.

Kandawgyi Gardens’  Butterfly Museum showcases beetles as well as butterflies…

Two years ago, a Butterfly Museum was built to showcase over 40,000 butterflies collected in Myanmar and other areas of South East Asia. The butterflies are displayed in groups as framed “pictures” so arranged that each appears as a work of creative art. Beetles are also displayed, ranging from teeny-tiny, shiny creatures to those measuring in multiple inches, with some so intricately created they could be worn as jewelry.

Before leaving the garden, I made my way to Nan Myint Tower near the garden’s northern gate. A series of stairs winding around its 215-foot- high exterior offered a different panoramic view in their approach of the tenth-floor viewing deck. Along the way: the Kandawgyi Botanical Gardens in its entirety; the leafy, transported-from-Britain town of Pyin Oo Lwin; the Mandalay plains stretching in the far distance to the sprawling city of Mandalay – an hour and a half away and yet a world apart from Britsh, colonial-era Maymyo.

If you go …

National Kandawgyi Gardens opens daily from 8 am to 6 pm.  Entrance fees for foreigners, $5 USD adults, $3 children. Located at Nandar Road, Pyin Oo Lwin.  Telephone (011)  085-22497; e-mail nkgmyanmar@mptmail.com.mm. (No website).  Plan on at least two hours to tour the gardens.

Eight years ago, I traipsed behind Geoffrey Newman on a week-long Wayfarers’ trek titled “Dorset Gardens: Rambles and Roses.” The Wayfarers, a UK touring company, have led tours through the English countryside and beyond for close to 30 years.

Wayfarers’ guide, Geoffrey Newman, with measured tread and engaging charm led us from garden to garden. Only at the end of the trip, when Geoffrey mentioned that he was restoring his own family’s historic garden, did I learn we’d been traipsing after Sir Geoffrey Newman.

It wasn’t until April 2012 that I made my way to England’s South Devon to visit with Sir Geoffrey. Overlooking an idyllic curve of coastline, a hop and a jump from Dartmouth, his Secret Seaside Gardens of Blackpool Sands is now open for public wandering.

A garden inherited from a swashbuckling ancestor…

Sir Geoffrey inherited the garden from a line of Newmans that dates back to swashbuckling, sea-faring Richard Newman who sailed out of Dartmouth Harbour and established the family’s fortune trading in cod, wine and spices –  along with other activities. “Pirating?” I asked Sir Geoffrey, who cheerfully nodded ‘Yes’ over his cup of tea as we chatted in Blackpool Sands’ seaside café before visiting the garden.

“Well, actually not a pirate,” he clarified. “A privateer authorized by the crown to attack foreign shipping.”

In 1796, Richard Newman bought Blackpool cove. As the years passed, the Newmans gradually purchased the cove’s surrounding coastline to establish a holding extending from Dartmouth to the Start Point lighthouse 10 miles to the south.

“The purpose was not to acquire land for the sake of just owning it,” Sir Geoffrey said. “Instead, it was always with a view to preservation.”

Today the entirety of the holdings South Devon’s Heritage Coast is designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Sir Geoffrey’s grandfather, Robert Lydston Newman, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, treasured holiday weeks at Blackpool, taking his little boat out into the sea and puttering about the place. In 1896, he began to establish a garden, a “plantsman’s garden,” Sir Geoffrey told me, one designed to showcase specimens gathered from the far corners of the world,  as was the Victorian fashion of the time.

A fascinating era for England’s gardens…

The Victorian era was a fascinating time in England’s garden history. A powerful upper class and powerful navy traveled the world’s oceans, returning with exotic plants, cuttings and seeds unknown to English gardens. The country’s southwest coast, warmed by the sun and heat-collecting granite outcroppings, proved exceptionally welcoming to the semitropical plants gathered from the four corners of the world.

Grand, estate gardens emerged, “show off” gardens filled with acres of the weird and wonderful planted with an eye to impress. By contrast, Sir Geoffrey’s family garden more represents that of an inquisitive hobbyist in which one plant led to the searching out of another and another.

“While many estates jealously guarded their acquisitions,” Sir Geoffrey said, “many specimens in our garden resulted from my grandfather and father visiting neighboring Devon and Cornwall estates and asking, ‘Might I have a bit of that?’ and carrying home a cutting or seeds.”

Go back some 70 years and Blackpool’s idyllic cove was strictly for the enjoyment of the Newmans. World War II changed all that. US Marines requisitioned Blackpool Sands  in order to rehearse the D-Day landings. Once the war was over, the fences never went back up.

World War II changed England forever …

The war changed more than public access. While the garden continued to be cared for into the 1970s – Sir Geoffrey remembers his mother cutting greenery to send on to London’s florists – economics deemed it no longer a priority. Weather and time had its way.

In Spring 2000, Sir Geoffrey set about a restoration partially funded by European Community Regional Development money. Uunderbrush and brambles were laboriously removed. With an eye to opening the garden to visitors, gently sloped paths were installed, gradually leading to the Captain’s Seat, a bench where one can enjoy spectacular views over the sea.

New areas were cleared with an eye to continuing the gardens as a plantsman’s collection; at the time of my visit, Sir Geoffrey had just returned from a New Zealand specimen-scouting tour.

It was time for us to visit the gardens, its entrance via a small green door cut into a high stone wall on the far side of the coastal road. (Hence, the “Secret Seaside Gardens”).

As we set out on the path, Sir Geoffrey pointed out one of the oldest specimens on the family’s land, a California Monterey pine planted in 1848. I marveled at its majestic height and straightness, quite unlike the wind-sculpted, bent trees iconic of California’s Monterey Peninsula.

We continued past a long stand of enormous cork oak, collected in North Africa, planted as saplings in 1896 as an evergreen belt to buffer the garden from salt-laden winds.

As we walked the paths, I stopped to admire colorful patches of spring wildflowers emerged as undergrowth with Sir Geoffrey commenting, “Wildflowers yes, but you’ll find no pretty, little, regimented flower beds planted here, that’s not the garden’s intent.”

A plantsman’s garden, a garden married to the landscape…

An intent that was made clear as Sir Geoffrey introduced me to trees and shrubs as if to old friends, giving botanical names, where each came from, its date of entry into the garden, information gleaned from a lucky find of a generational-kept ledger. Chusan Palm, Central China,1920; Buddleia auriculata, South Africa, 1921; Feijoa sellowiana, Brazil, 1909.

And on it went. A collector’s garden, a plantsman’s garden, a garden married to the landscape, a garden reflecting a family’s care and generational interest in preserving the area, a garden Sir Geoffrey hopes will continue through Newmans to come.

If you go…

The Secret Seaside Gardens of Blackpool Sand, located on A379 coastal road between Stoke Flaming and Strete in South Devon, are open daily 10 am to 4pm April to the end of September. Fee: L3 per adult, children free. Website: www.blackpoolsands.co.uk. Telephone: 01803771800. Visitors are advised to wear sturdy footwear and understand that paths can be wet and slippery.

Yvonne Horn is accepting bookings for fall 2013 into spring 2014.  Following a successful February – May, during which The Traveling Gardener presented  “Exploring the World One Garden at a Time” 21 times to libraries, garden clubs and other organizations, she is taking a summer break.

Come fall, she is ready to go again with two new PowerPoint presentation.  “Chapter Two” of The Traveling Gardener will explore eight new gardens of the world.  The second responds to requests for close-by gardens, with again eight selected.

All of the presentations – Chapter One, Chapter Two, and Close By -  explore gardens with tales to tell, gardens that could be nowhere else but where they are, gardens that reflect the passion of their creator, gardens that sometimes have a bit of wacky imbedded in their beauty.   To book a Traveling Gardener program, contact Yvonne Michie Horn at Yvonne@TheTravelingGardener.com.

Yvonne Horn is accepting bookings for fall 2013 into spring 2014.  Following a successful February – May, during which The Traveling Gardener presented  “Exploring the World One Garden at a Time” 21 times to libraries, garden clubs and other organizations, she is taking a summer break.

Come fall, she is ready to go again with two new PowerPoint presentation.  “Chapter Two” of The Traveling Gardener will explore eight new gardens of the world.  The second responds to requests for close-by gardens, with again eight selected.

All of the presentations – Chapter One, Chapter Two, and Close By -  explore gardens with tales to tell, gardens that could be nowhere else but where they are, gardens that reflect the passion of their creator, gardens that sometimes have a bit of wacky imbedded in their beauty.   To book a Traveling Gardener program, contact Yvonne Michie Horn at Yvonne@TheTravelingGardener.com.

Eight gardens are spotlighted in a PowerPoint presentation of world gardens with tales to tell, gardens that could be nowhere else but where they are, gardens that reflect the passion of their creator, gardens that sometimes have a bit of wacky imbedded in their beauty.  Now accepting speaking engagemenst for Fall 2014.  To book a Traveling Gardener presentation, e-mail Yvonne Michie Horn at Yvonne@TheTravelingGardener.com.