Spring Break, day 5: Lotusland part 1

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The last morning of our trip, we went to Lotusland. Lotusland is an absolutely incredible garden. Ganna Walska, a mediocre opera singer and incredibly beautiful woman, built it with the money of the men who loved her. This isn’t just a garden. It’s art. We only got to spend a few hours there. I could have spent a few weeks. The entire garden is arranged into a series of smaller gardens, often hidden by large mass plantings, so walking into each one is a surprise.

She chose plants from almost everywhere in the world and she chose some of the most interesting she could find. She loved the bizarre and oddly textured. We all got in trouble for stepping off of the paths.

We took hundreds of pictures here, so I’m going to post only about a few gardens at a time.

The visitor’s center, where the tour starts, is surrounded by an Australian garden with some pretty bizarre plants. I was very impressed with the flower spikes of this grass.
incredible grass

The main road through the garden has the largest mass succulent planting I’ve ever seen.

garden entrance

Tomorrow, the Japanese Garden!  All the posts about spring break are found here.

Physics: final in two days

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Some of the problems in my physics book make me look twice.

This one waxed a bit philosophical:

What is it that is hot in sunlight and cold in shadow?

And this was just bizarre:

Imagine a baby alien playing with a spherical balloon the size of the Earth in the outer solar system

Botany Club Spring Roll Party

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Botany Club cooks for our end of semester parties. This spring we made spring rolls. We used a total of 20 plant families in our ingredients. I got ones with too many hot peppers.

more preparing

Spring Break, day 4

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When we arrived in Jalama the evening before, we decided not to sleep at the campground, but to sleep in this shelter someone had built on the beach.

some of us slept here

I was warm and toasty in the cramped quarters – the first night I wasn’t kept awake by my frozen feet! And it was wonderful to wake up to the sound of the ocean and such a gentle sunrise.

We spent most of the morning admiring the plants. The salvia was blooming and covered entire hillsides.

And I got to see my first giant coreopsis. The timing was perfect – they were all in full bloom.

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We finally dragged ourselves away from Jalama. I was almost disappointed we didn’t run out of gas on the way up to the main highway (a very real possibility). But the Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens were definitely worth it.