Western Hills Garden

We are becoming more adept at quick changes at the last minute due to unforeseen circumstances. Today we were scheduled to lunch in Sebastopol and visit a garden in nearby Occidental with our neighbor Ann's landscape architect's group. OilMan and I had been to this garden years ago with our Berkeley friend Nancy, also a landscape architect. At that time it was still a working nursery, although clearly in need of a lot of maintenance and care. It is renowned and beloved by gardeners from all over the Bay Area both for its collection of rare plants, gathered, planted and nurtured by the two men who started it in 1953, and for it's beautiful design.

While I was at my Pilates class, OilMan took Ozzie for a walk, and when I got home, he (Ozzie) was sneezing convulsively and clearly appeared to have a foxtail up his nose (again!) OilMan was feeling terrible for letting him go in a field, but otherwise ineffective. In the end, when I insisted that he call the vet immediately, OilMan went off to the vet (again!) with Ozzie, and I went with Ann to Sebastopol, where we lunched at restaurant called The French Garden, whose charming patio OilMan and I had driven by for years but never tried.

It presented a totally different face from the entrance around the side. I told Ann it reminded me of a big hotel on the main road through Oban where we once stopped with Lady Findhorn and HL for a coffee--charming on the outside, filled with old fossils in the lobby with a hideous carpet and smelling of last night's dinner. We took one look and fled. Today, Ann and I decided to stay and had a rather pleasant lunch.

The Western Hills Gardens were really quite spectacular.The place was purchased by a couple (from Berkeley!) who, with the help of many volunteers and a delightful garden manager named Stacy are pulling it back from the brink of extinction. It was overcast today--perfect light for photographing the beautiful colors, layers and textures in this wonderful place. Stacy, the owner, Tim, and a docent named Mary led us around , introducing us to a multitude of very rare plants. As the only non-professional in the group the botanical names of all these wonders were lost on me, but it was a photographer's paradise.

When I got home, Ozzie staggered to the door to greet me, still wonky from the anesthetic, and John proudly displayed the foxtail, preserved on sterile gauze, which the vet removed from his nose.