A Trip to the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers…

Today, I got to feel the warmth of the sun. I think we reached about 70° F and expect the same for tommorrow. I have the day off from work and drove (with the windows open) to San Francisco to go to the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. They have free admission every first Tuesday of the month, so I thought I would take advantage of it.

It was my first time there (believe it or not) and I was surprised at all the plants they had. Mostly heat loving plants, like palms, orchids, tropical plants and aquatic plants. It was definitely humid in there and I was glad that I didn’t bring a jacket.

There was a special orchid exhibition, so I got to see and photograph all different kinds. One that really stood out for me was a blue cymbidium hybrid. I also saw some plants that I’ve only seen in photos, like the fruits of a banana, an actual coffee bean, a pitcher plant (which was really trippy), rice plants growing along with the aquatics and some variegated banana and palm.

I was glad I took the time to go, maybe next month, I’ll take my Mom, so she can experience it too. She was awed by all the orchid photos and surprised of the ones growing in trees; I guess she’s never seen that. A lot of the plants reminded her of the Philippines. She kept on saying that they had that plant there.

Of course… photos to come.

Scions + Grafting + 2 New Bulbs/Tubers…

Today I had a great gardening-related day.

I drove over to San Francisco for the California Rare Fruit Grower’s 2006 Golden Gate Chapter Scion Exchange.

When I first went in, I was so overwhelmed by the number of bags of scions (cuttings). This was my first time at any gardening function like this and I didn’t know quite what to do… so I told the woman at the door that I’ve never been to anything like this and I asked what do people here.

She explained that you basically go through the tables of bags filled with scions and if you see something you like, take 1 or 2. Then take some tape and label your scion with the name that was on the bag. They had so many varieties of different fruit trees, like apples, pears, asian pears, peaches, asian and european plums, nectarines, pluots, figs, pomegranate, kiwi, grapes, mulberries, persimmons and more.

Their were many group members who were happy to answer your questions. One of they said that even if I didn’t know how to graft trees, there were some scions that can be rooted like the figs, kiwis and pomegranate. At 1pm the had a grafting demonstration, which was very informative. There’s nothing like actually seeing someone do it up close.

I made a flickr set ( link ) with some photos from the event. Clicking many of the photos below will link you there.

In total I got about 25 varieties of fruit scions:

A list of the varieties of scions I got

MacWorld San Francisco 2006 + Non-gardening Photos on Flickr

I was able to leave work early to go to the MacWorld San Francisco 2006 Expo. The new Intel Mac look pretty impressive, but I don’t want to get one just yet, since it’s still in it’s infancy. I want iLife ’06 and the new version of EyeTV, though.

After the expo, as I walked over to the casual carpool line, I snapped photos. In addition to plant photos, I also like snapping up numbers, urinals, fire hydrants and street art (i.e. posters, graffiti, stickers, etc.). I don’t really post these photos, but think I should.

My “paid” Flickr account just contains plant and gardening related photos, but I think I will start using it for the above mentioned photos as well as friends, family and work photos, since I don’t want to buy another “separate” Flickr account. I’m going to stew this over and decide later. I’m going to continue to make this LiveJournal mostly plant and gardening specific though, with a few daily life thoughts here and there.

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year!!!

I finally was able to edit through all my photos from the San Francisco Botanical Garden. Below are 6 out of the 86 photos I posted on my San Francisco Botanical Garden (Dec 2005) album on flickr.com.

  

  

  

San Francisco Botanical Garden

Today, I took advantage of the break in the rains plus 11 days off of work and took a trip to the San Francisco Botanical Garden. I took numerous photos and will post them shortly…