You Grow Girl™

I recently returned from a trip to San Francisco. I have been going out west almost every summer for the past 5 years and I am always amazed at what a gorgeously gorgeous city SF is. The locals and their casual, broken sentences, McDonalds commercial-waiting-to-happen speak (example: hey bro, you gonna wrap it up?, translation are you getting a burrito too?) kind of drives me up the wall, but other than that, I always have a blast in Americas most relaxed and refreshing city. This trip, I took about 300 pictures. 8 were of my friends. I was so amazed at the variety of plants growing right next to one another, aloe next to roses, wild poppies next to yuccas, okay so it was mainly the mixing of regular plants and succulents. It is going to take a few entries to share my excitement.

My last entry I was stressed about developing some empty land I "discovered". While In S.F., I was inspired, in a city that can sometimes appear as 'land of the homeless', people planted right onto the streets and sidewalks! Super showy flowers like Chrysanthemums, Roses, Poppies, and lots of other gorgeous flowers that I don't know the names of. More importantly, people were growing Food. Maybe they were growing it for the homeless, or maybe they were growing it for themselves, I don't know, but they took the chance! and from what I could tell, the flowers were admired, not ripped up and tossed into the street, the food was growing and blossoming. Everywhere I went gorgeous, almost wild, and respected flora! It was an urban gardeners dream!

Giant Jade (smaller than most jade hedges(!)

I saw a sequoia in someones front yard and a beautifully pruned crepe myrtle perhaps?

Another gorgeous flower

nasturtium

an urban eden

A jade hedge

After seeing how much somewhat depressed areas are beautified and lovlified by plants, I've decided to take the plunge into outdoor gardening. I am going to keep the ledge container gardening up to a maximum, while also getting some things going outdoors. I checked on the compost heap (see last entry), and after finally figuring out how to open the 'dirt door' I discovered plenty of rich soil. Yippee! I have already started to save my vegetable waste and throw it in the bin, let's hope I'm doing it right.

Next entries: yards of San Francisco, Muir Woods, alcatraz and Napa Valley.