I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

But I did promise you more photos from the Bay Area. I may have only been there for four days, but I've got pictures for two weeks of posts. Don't panic. I won't actually post two weeks' worth, even if I do find that just looking at these pictures makes me feel at least 20 degrees cooler.

And I think we can agree that we can all use that about now.

Until my dream comes true of moving to California, I'll just stare at this rose and feel as if it has happened.























We stumbled upon this rose garden in Golden Gate Park while on our way to the De Young Museum. I think it just reinforces my thesis that gardening is just too easy in northern California. This garden is barely Google-able. MSS posted about the two more famous more gardening destinations in Golden Gate Park: Conservatory of Flowers and the Strybing Arboretum.

This rose garden is in the same park and gets almost no love.

And yet, look at these blooms. Don't they merit more love? Apparently not in San Francisco.



























































































































Even the rose petals were gorgeous.
















Even the blue bird (not sure this identification is correct) seemed blasé about the roses. He wouldn't even look at them.
















I wasn't able to get the names of all these roses. The museum was closing soon, and more significantly, the fog was rolling in. We still needed to head up to the tower in the museum for a view of the city.
































I was a little disappointed that we arrived a day early for the Chihuly exhibition, but we did get to see this sculpture of his on the museum's grounds.























Inside, we did visit some of the other exhibits, and I was thrilled to find the nation's first garden blogger: Edwin Hale Lincoln. Okay, so he wasn't the first, but he would have been with these gorgeous photographs. Here's one of a Turk's cap lily from 1904. (Yes, this is a photograph, not an illustration. I hardly knew one could take such pictures in 1904. Do you think it's a jpeg or a RAW file-)























From the museum's tower, I got a better view of the grounds.
















I was most fascinated by the rooftop garden going in at the Academy of Sciences.
















"The Living Roof´s 1.7 million native plants were specially chosen to flourish in Golden Gate Park´s climate.

After experimenting with thirty native species, the finalists were all able to self-propagate. They will thrive with little water, resist the salt spray from ocean air, and tolerate wind.

The roof will provide habitat for a wide variety of wildlife. A future project will seek to introduce the endangered San Bruno elfin butterfly and the Bay checkerspot butterfly to this new habitat."

The fog was really rolling in so we headed back over the bay.
















The temperature had dropped while were in inside, and my best guess is that it was 50 degrees. That's right, 50 degrees.

Northern California, I don't care if you'll ruin my nascent blogging hobby. Fifty degrees in June, and I'm yours.