Everything I Needed to Know About Gardening I Learned In Mendocino

What is it about Mendocino?  It's not much warmer than Eureka--average high in the summer is 67, compared to Eureka's 64--and the lows are almost the same. Average rainfall is almost identical, too--around 6 inches in winter months, and practically zilch in the summer. And yet the town is just stuffed with charming little gardens, full of all my favorite plants, only much bigger and happier than they ever are at home.  The Mendocino Coast Botanical Garden, where some of these were taken, is also totally inspiring.  See for yourself. 

Glorious heathers.  Heathers like to be with other heathers; they look best when they're all mounded together like this.  How I fantasize about ripping out my front garden and just doing this.

And yet my front yard is an attempt at this, just not as successful.  Fabulous salvias and grasses.  Very naturalistic, but never weedy.

Crazy sculpture is pretty much mandatory in Mendocino.  I think there's a zoning ordinance requiring it.

LOVE the wooden boardwalks through the gardens.  I so want one of these.  Made of recycled lumber, of course.

And finally:  happy, happy annuals.  To look at those cosmos, you'd think this place got sunshine and warmth.  But no.  Even in the fog, the whole town blooms its little head off.

Comments

[Ketzel Levine]

Too weird!! I just posted a pix from the Botanical Garden on my blog late last week. Check it out, Amy! http://www.npr.org/blogs/talkingplants/2008/09/dahlias_and_dogs.html

[Michelle Derviss]

I'm right there with you.
My working foundation of horticulture came from the Mendo Bot when it was under the direction of Gary Ratway ( now owner of Digging Dog Nursery).
When I was a gardener for several of the bed and breakfast inns and a some residential homes up on the coast it was the Nursery at the Mendo Bot that I frequented to purchase plants for my accounts. Back then, the back side wholesale nursery was a meeting grounds for us professional gardeners to get together and share our experiences as well as exchange cuttings.
The 'family style' wholesale nursery is no longer there but a retail nursery exists along with the ever expanding gardens that so many local gardeners contributed to.
The Mendo Bot will always inspire -
http://web.mac.com/dervissdesign/iWeb/design/Gardens.html

[susan harris]

Awesome. And NOTHING like cookie-cutter American landscaping.

[Robin]

thanks for sharing the Mendo story. I have some heartstrings attached to that area of the world & have (& will) visit it as often as I can in life. A particular treat is not only enjoying the coast but the redwoods just a bit inland from there. Truly, a treat!

Any chance you visited Cafe Beaujolais while there? The food is amazing; the gardens stunning!

[chuck b.]

I blogged about my visit to the MCBG in Aug-07, here:
http://coldcalculation.blogspot.com/2007/08/mendocino-coast-botanical-garden.html

and the town itself:
http://coldcalculation.blogspot.com/2007/08/our-mid-week-late-summer-visit-to.html

:)

[eve]

I would love to do that. I live on the Gulf Coast and we mow 9 months out of the year. How beautiuful those colors are.

[Heather's Garden]

Love the heathers, but what else would you expect?!