During the weekend of October 23rd and 24th, 2021, a huge storm came into Northern California and dumped 10″ of rain. With the rain and wind came the destruction of 3 Oak trees, a huge pine branch and a weeping willow at Dawn Gardens. One Oak tree outside the fence fell into another Oak tree…

There are more than 2,000 different varieties of Japanese Maples. They range from 12″ tall dwarfs to 30′ trees. The flowers are tiny as you can see on this Red Maple (Acer palmatum ‘Fireglow’) Here are the seeds of a Red Japanese Maple. They reseed easily in the garden. The straight species of Japanese Maple…

The Fall color is beautiful this year at Dawn Gardens. It is a little earlier than normal and with 10″ of rain, the colors are bright. Cherry in fruit orchard Sour Wood or Tupelo as it is called in Mississippi (Nyssa sylvatica). The female trees have blue fruit. Eddie’s White Wonder Dogwood in the back…

Today is the last day of the New England Garden Tour and we will visit a private garden in Gloucester, the city of Salem and a Museum in Boston. HILARIE HOLDSWORTH GARDEN Hilarie is a landscape designer with a 3 1/2 acre garden. She and her assistant maintain the garden with some outside help every…

On our way to the garden this is some of the scenery: Along the Maine coast a third of the way to Canada is this huge and beautiful botanical garden. This garden is set on 323 acres and was opened in 2007. There are 12 full time horticulturists (gardeners) with 20-25 garden volunteers. Beautiful flowers…

Today, on the New England garden tour, we are in the Portsmouth area of New Hampshire looking at a huge private garden, a medium sized private garden and an outdoor museum. BEDROCK GARDENS This is a 37 acre garden created by Jill Nooney and her husband, Bob Munger, over the past 40 years. The garden…

On our New England garden tour the weather has been great – in the 70’s every day. On our way we saw the beginnings of fall color: Today we see a huge garden, a small garden and a medium sized garden. STAN & CHERI FRY ESTATE The gardens in this estate are on both sides…

Continuing on our New England garden tour: We had a long day today after the GPS sent our bus on the wrong route. But we still saw 3 beautiful gardens in Vermont as well as seeing how they make maple syrup from sugar maple trees. Note: I am one day behind in posting this blog…

Some were worried about rain today but it turned out to be cloudy and foggy for part of the day. On the hour trip to NW Massachusetts we encountered beautiful scenery – green fields and forests. THREE SISTERS SANCTUARY The three sisters are the owner’s daughters and when one of them died there was great…

It didn’t rain today and we visited The Breakers in Rhode Island, Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Massachusetts and the private garden of Shirley Williams which is called Brigham Hill Farm also in Massachusetts. THE BREAKERS Cornelius Vanderbilt built this mansion for his family in 1895. His fortune was made from his father’s investments in…