Thursday, May 2, 2013

New Meaning To The Term "Friendship Garden"



     While researching garden blogs on the internet some time ago, when I started writing GardenEnvy, I came across Organic Garden Dreams, a blog that featured beautiful roses. But I admit that it also caught my eye because the architecture and topography in the photos seemed familiar to me. 
  

The white stucco and palm trees


together with a backyard pool and the view of the mountains looked like it could be a garden in my home town.  I read a little bit more and, indeed, it was a San Diego garden; so I started following Christina at Organic Garden Dreams.

"Our Lady Of Guadalupe"
I was interested not only because of her beautiful roses and her post about pruning them, but because Christina appeared to be a bit of an Anglophile and a fellow San Diego garden blogger. We had a few things in common.


Orchid
After months of reading each other's blogs and posting comments, we decided to have a meet up at Starbucks. We bonded over tea and coffee, gardening and blogging.  Until I met Christina, I didn't personally know anyone as obsessed with gardening and blogging as I am. A couple of hours flew by as we shared about digging dirt and making back links. 

Calla Lily
A friendship blossomed.

"Sweetness"
One bloom led to another.


"Our Lady of Guadalupe"

 She even hooked me up with a great organic rose fertilizer and some powerful (but odor free) fish emulsion with seaweed extract that caused my strawberry leaves to at least double in size, and now I have more buds and blooms on my own roses than I ever had!



So it was only a matter of time before we would agree to photograph and blog each other's garden.


"Our Lady Of Guadalupe' rose
And Christina's garden is a lovely one at that.


Roses are her favorite plant; she has lost track of how many she owns.



 She is making plans for a new rose bed for these specimens collecting on her patio. 


She has numerous palms planted by previous homeowners and her north county garden in San Diego sits on a hill overlooking a canyon.  Her garden is prone to strong winds and it certainly was windy the day I photographed.


If a garden reflects the personality of the gardener then this garden speaks volumes about Christina.


Her garden is neat, tidy and carefully tended.




She likes the colors blue

Camellia
and white.



Her favorite is this David Austin rose, "Marie Rose."

And, as her blog implies, she is an organic gardener who is careful about food she chooses for herself as well.  She is gentle in other ways, I noted, as I watched her hand pick a snail from her plant and walk it across the street where she let it loose in an open green space.



About six weeks ago I visited the Japanese Friendship Garden in San Diego and I remember thinking later about that name, "Friendship Garden." Other than the name of the Japanese garden, it didn't mean too much to me then.  But since I met Christina and photographed her garden, now I have new meaning to the term friendship garden.  


This is GardenEnvy.

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