Rites of Spring: Sakura Matsuri

One of the more beautiful preludes to spring time is the flowering of Japanese cherry blossoms. The Japanese Meteorological Agency tracks the sakura zensen, or cherry blossom front, as it starts in Okinawa and moves northward to Kyoto and Tokyo then finally to the northern-most  island of Hokkaido.  How lovely to track a front of flowers rather than a winter storm! The cherry blossom is a popular motif in Japanese culture, symbolizing the ephemeral nature of beauty and life itself.  In more recent times, cherry blossoms symbolized friendship between Japan and cherry blossom recipients. Thanks to the generosity of the Japanese people, many nations now have Sakura Matsuri, a festival to celebrate the arrival of the cherry blossoms. One of the most popular, The National Cherry Blossom Festival, celebrates the arrival of the cherry blossoms that surround the Mall in Washington, D.C.

Hubby and I were fortunate to attend the San Diego Japanese Friendship Garden this past weekend to view the blooms, purchase ceramics at the craft fair, and watch dance demonstrations by the local cultural societies.  The Japanese Friendship Garden has completed the majority of the new landscaping in the canyon below the Casa del Rey Moro Garden. It isn’t quite finished yet, but I can’t wait to go back and see the completed water features and filled-in landscaping.  The wisteria near the koi pond was only just beginning to bloom, and I must make another trip to the garden to see the blooms in all their gorgeous, fragrant glory. I love Japanese garden esthetic traditions; allow me to share some spring-time inspiration:

The festival through the petals of the cherry blossoms

Cherry blossom detail

Cherry blossom detail

Koi pond

Overview of main pathway

The bamboo trains the pines to grow in a desired fashion, like bonsai.

Pathway to lower canyon & cherry blossoms

I love rain chains - I want one!

Enjoy the Silence

One of my favorite places to relax, recharge, and seek inspiration is the Self Realization Fellowship Garden in Encinitas, CA. The garden overflows with tranquil beauty and multiple garden benches invite you to sit and behold the scenery. There are so many choices: watch the koi swim in the fish pond, revel in the jungle-like surroundings, view the brilliant succulents, or stare out to sea and watch the waves crash upon the shore. I like to write here and collect my thoughts. I do not shut my eyes to meditate, for I cannot shut my eyes for long in such a beautiful garden.

Stairway from lush jungle-like portion of garden to drier, succulent section

Aloe blooming against the backdrop of the Pacific. Succulents bloom from mid-winter to early spring.

Rich texture and color of lower lying succulents

Watching the surfers from the cliff's edge

Contrast of cliff, sand, and sea

 In a garden of gorgeous vistas, don't forget the lovely details!

Koi

Take a seat, be quiet, and rest.

Please keep in mind that this is religious center, and the Self Realization Fellowship generously allows public viewing. Please respect your hosts and the other guests by maintaining the quiet and meditative atmosphere as well as not disturbing the flora and fauna.

Hours: 9-5 Tuesday through Saturday, 11-5 Sunday, closed Mondays.

Directions: Take Santa Ana Freeway 5 south to Encinitas Blvd. (100 miles from Los Angeles). Turn right and go to Coast Highway 101. Turn left and continue to "I" Street, turn right. Drive one block and turn right onto Second Street. The Temple is on the right in the middle of the block.

Queen Califia's Magical Circle Garden

A sculpture garden is a testament to the beauty and diversity of public gardens. On this midsummer's eve, I share a hidden gem, located in the Iris Sankey Arboretum section of Kit Carson Park in Escondido, CA. Hubby and I decided to check it out on a recent stay-cation day. I am familiar with the artist, Nikki de Saint Phalle since I attended UCSD and her piece Sun God is the a prominent fixture in the Price Collection and de-facto mascot of the university.

Despite my preconceptions of the artist, I was not prepared for the magnitude of Queen Califia. We entered through the one open gate and entered an Alice In Wonderland like maze of white, blank, and mirror tile. Once through the maze, we found Queen Califia herself surrounded by eight totem courtiers. Queen Califia (also known as Calafia) is the mythical Amazon Queen of the Island of California and is the origin of the state's name. She reminds me of Eugene Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People or a Queen Boudica - Cali style! The mosaics sculptures that represent her and her minions are made of glass, metal, natural stone and tile. In the heat of the day the bright colors were dazzling and the reflection of the sun off the light pavement added to the brilliant (and overwhelming) aspect of the garden. There is a unique tactile quality to the garden, visitors are encouraged to touch the pieces of the sculptures and contemplate their part in the whole. The garden has a feel of not being of this world; it is a retreat into myth, imagination, and vivid color.

Main Entrance into Queen Califia's Magic Circle Garden

Mosaic Tile Maze

Queen Califia in all her glory

Queen Califia and her Totem Courtiers

Detail of the Yelling Man Totem

The Kighfisher Totem

The Bull-Headed Totem

The Step Totem

Detail of the Snake Totem

To see more pictures of Queen Califia's Magic Circle Garden - Click here. For more information about Queen Califia, please go to Wikipedia.

In the Inez Grant Parker Rose Garden

That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

Romeo & Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose.    Antoine de Saint-Exupery 

The aristocratic rose always imbues romance and culture. It captures our imaginations with its deep fragrance and beautiful blooms. It punishes the beholder with its vicious thorns, symbolizing the dichotomy of pleasure and pain. Yet the rose is also delicate, requiring almost daily care in order to produce its heady scent and signature flowers.

On the east side of Balboa Park, across the Park Avenue pedestrian bridge, is San Diego's most beautiful and extensive rose garden, named for philanthropist Inez Grant Parker. There are approximately 200 varieties of roses here, carefully tended by a staff of volunteers. I can only imagine the amount of tending these roses need. I have 5 plants and two hybrid variety roses in my garden, and it is a constant fight to remove spent blooms, prune, and fight rose blight. Orange rust spores continue to be a problem for my Mother of Pearl and Double Delight roses and I can see evidence of the scourge at the Inez Grant Parker Rose Garden as well.

Roses are beloved, favorites of florists, brides, and sentimental romantics. So, we continue to tend them, nurse them through sickness, and create new varieties to grow in our private and public gardens. They will forever adorn our bouquets and pique our memories of romance and days gone by.

For more rose pictures, please click here.

In the Desert Garden

Many gardens have their dormant periods during the winter, not so the occupants of the Desert Garden. On the east side of Balboa Park, follow the foot bridge from the Natural History Museum across Park Avenue and you will find a garden in winter just beginning to hit its blooming stride.

The morning of our visit was cold with a crisp azure sky. The cacti towered in the distance, indifferent to the temperature, comfortable in their own space and time. Cacti and succulent plants seldom have the soft angles of annual flowers or trees. Their harsh angles demand a sense of awe, their sharpness cutting into the scenery around them in their attempt at survival. But the desert does bloom again, thanks in part to the rain and winter sunshine. The first of the blooms were concentrated in the orange fire of ten feet tall aloe vera blooms and the sharp, blood-red crown of thorns.

Originally built for the 1935 Pan American Exposition, the garden fell into disrepair until 1976. Bulldozers moved 12,000 cubic yards of earth to create the current landscape designed to accommodate bands of variable height succulent plants around curving and gently sloping pathways. Cuttings from local nurseries have grown into the large specimens see today.

All descriptions aside, I feel it is best for me to let the images do the talking. Enjoy -

 

In the Zoro Garden

Past the Ruben H Fleet and beyond the dramatic Bea Evenson fountain, off the beaten path of El Prado, visitors will find the maze-like grotto of the Zoro Garden. As the elevation descends, so does the temperature, the foliage providing cooler pockets of air in between patches of sun. The garden is historically and presently a tactile tease, for the visitor is tempted to touch what the garden rules have deemed forbidden fruit.

Like the Alcazar Garden, the Zoro Garden was also constructed for the 1935 - 1936 Pacific International Exposition. But rather than showcase fountains and plants, the Zoro Gardens was marketed and portrayed as a Nudist Colony. Ever popular and scandalous, many peeped through the garden fence to get a glimpse of the comely women nudists cavorting in their “natural environment.” See pictures.

The Zoro Garden is now a butterfly garden, providing sanctuary to migrating monarchs on their way to Mexico. It has multiple varieties of plants that serve as food as well as shelter for transformative chrysalises. There still exists that tactile temptation to touch one’s surroundings or even a brave butterfly that ventures too closely. Park signs forbid it: Do not touch butterflies, caterpillars, cocoons, or disturb the winged wildlife in any way. The visitor must be satisfied to run a hand over the uneven mortar and stone that forms the meandering pathways of the garden.

While we missed the migrating monarchs, we followed the paths toward the central amphitheater, noting the remaining autumn blooms, white milkweed, purple salvia, and yellow cone flowers. The dappled sunlight was unmoving in the still air, providing relief from the late fall heat.  The tall ferns further augmented the sensation of tropical coolness.

I hope to revisit the Zoro Garden in early spring to experience the northward monarch migration. Perhaps if fortune favors me, I will be blessed with the light, feathery touch of butterfly wings.

In the Alcazar Garden

Winter dormancy has reduced my garden to one small winter vegetable bed that may or may not produce as planned. In the interim, I will take a tour of the senses in the beloved and beautiful public gardens of Balboa Park, the crown jewel of planned public parks in the San Diego area.

As visitors stroll across the Cabrillo Bridge, they hear the hum of the busy freeway below and the sounds of auto traffic proceeding into the park.  Little do some know, as they follow the thoroughfare of El Prado, the din of modernity dissipates into the tranquility of a Spanish style garden through the archways to the south.  This is the Alcazar Garden, originally constructed for the 1935 - 1936 Pacific International Exposition.

We walked into the garden after the chimes of the California tower struck noon; they continued their tune, drowning out the buzz of traffic nearby. After the ringing of the chimes, the most noticeable music was that of the two brightly tiled fountains, bubbling in the dry autumn heat. The fountains were recently renovated in 2008. Previously, unsightly damaged tiles and empty basins greeted visitors.  Skate boarders were accused of the destroying tiles, for it looked as if a skate boards had landed on and smashed the tiles.  Ugly, caged-like bars attempted to protect the remaining tiles, further marring the landscape. In an ironic twist, renovating workers discovered that moisture had seeped through the grout causing the cracking and decay, rendering the ugly cages obsolete and necessitating an apology to the skate boarding community.

The Alcazar garden was designed to mimic the more famous Alcazar Gardens in Seville, Spain. Besides the tile fountains, it has a shade pergola and numerous benches for taking in the tranquil scene.  It is a formal, structured garden with boxwood hedges and adjacent pathways that separate six large central plots, showcasing multi-colored annual flowers and eight plots encircling the garden with more permanent water-wise and butterfly friendly selections. At this time, the two largest central plots are planted with perennial lavender and impatiens, allowing the garden to retain its Mediterranean theme, while providing a water-wise solution for the dry seasonal heat.

I think it is the perfect place to while away a pleasant, balmy day, listening to the music of falling water. But Hubby would rather chase butterflies . . .