The Wave Garden, a wrap on my Bay Area Extravaganza

Gerhard and I visited the Wave Garden in Point Richmond, CA, on March 30th—8 months later and I'm finally writing about it! This is my final post from that intensive 3-day adventure spent touring gardens. 

This echium was technically growing just outside the garden, but with beauty...

...and fasciation like this, well I had to include it.

This was my third visit to the garden. The first was during the 2013 Bay Area Fling and the second was the next year, 2014. If you've read about the garden you probably know it's a most unusual public garden on private property. The previous owners of that white house with blue trim (which used to be a muted pale brown that blended into the garden) bought the property to preserve their view and hired a talented group of people to create the garden. As the new paint job might indicate, the property recently sold. Will the Wave Garden continue to be open to the public? We can certainly hope.

Gerhard and I mostly had the place to ourselves during our visit, so it's not like the nearby homeowners are having to deal with hordes of garden goers.

The Melianthus major was in full glorious bloom, along with more echium in the garden.

Many of the Proteaceae I remember from my previous visit were still there, but sadly the Leucadendron argenteum (silver tree) and Grevillea x gaudichaudii (which might have been Grevillea 'Austraflora Fanfare'?) were gone.

Love the dark leaf Cordyline...

A bit of that bay view...

The Leucadendron are so big, and colorful...

I could not stop photographing the Leucospermum...

Gerhard and I were both drawn to the Echeveria elegans

And the many happy healthy Aeonium.

I think that palm is new, or maybe it's just grown tall enough that it can be seen from the garden.

Leucadendron ‘Ebony’

Echeveria agavoides

So photographable!

A trio of Agave 'Blue Glow' (or something similar)

Lots of cement waves...

Beschorneria yuccoides ‘Flamingo Glow’

I think this is another Beschorneria?

NoID on this Grevillea bloom.

One of the garden's other visitors.

And it's time to leave... what an adventure that trip was. I'm ready to do it all over again!

The Bit at the End

Today I'm sharing a tour of Marcia Donahue's garden on Over the Fence Landscape Tours, a YouTube channel belonging to Donna Avallone, who is based here in Oregon. I was surprised to see her in Marcia's garden and really appreciated the reverence she showed Marcia. I'm sharing the tour because I was shocked to learn that Marcia's hellstrip eucalyptus—the one featured in the top photo of this blog post—is no more. It's gone!  No more stunning trunk with Marcia's clay beads hanging from it. Here's Donna's video, and yes, she does reveal what's now in that prime location in Marcia's garden.

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All material © 2009-2025 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

Back to the UC BG at Berkeley; Deserts of the Americas

We're back to the UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley and wrapping up our visit in one of my favorite parts of the garden, the Deserts of the Americas. Here's a view looking down on some of the plants, from above in the Southern Africa section...

Gorgeous agaves, yucca and cactus await, but oh, what's that at the base of the sign?

A dryland fern! Cheilanthes fendleri (Arizona)

I'm thrilled to now have a small 2" pot of this fern from Illahe Rare Plants, thanks to my friend Tim Batog who shopped the HPSO Fall PlantFest and grabbed one for me (and one for himself, of course). Yay!

Nice opuntia, "big" doesn't even seem to cover it.

I was thrilled to see this planting of Agave stricta (Mexico) was still looking good, it stands out in my memory from my previous visits (2009, 2014).

I couldn't tell from this vantage point, but it looked like perhaps one of the many had thrown up a bloom spike.

Yep! Once I made it to the other side of the planting I could see the bloom spike origin much better. 

Dasylirion leiophyllum (Mexico)

Something strange was going on in the center of this Agave parryi var. huachucensis (Arizona).

Could it be the beginnings of a bloom spike? That purple blush is odd but beautiful.

Maybe Agave filifera? (I didn't see a label)

Ferocactus glaucescens (Mexico) with Cheilanthes lindheimeri (Arizona)

Mammillaria compressa (Mexico)

Aren't they gorgeous!?

This patch of wavy agaves (labeled as Agave sp.) is another strong memory from previous visits. I believe they're Agave celsii var. albicans. I couldn't decide which photo I liked better, so you get them both.

Hechtia texensis (Mexico)

In the background is Deuterocohnia brevifolia (Argentina) and the fern is Myriopteris myriophylla (Argentina).

Have they grown over rocks? Or are they shaping themselves into these odd mounds?

My plant has bloomed but I've never managed a decent photo, this one isn't too bad.

Espostoa melanostele ssp. nana (Peru)

With moss and lichen!

Oreocereus leucotrichus (Peru)

I think these are all Puya venusta (Chile)

Cleistocactus buchtienii (Bolivia)

I love the rock they used in this part of the garden.

And this made me laugh...

I mean I know it just sort of moves itself around but...

These next few photos are from the Mexico/Central America section, first the Cloud Forest and then the Pine/Oak Woodland. Phlebodium pseudoaureum (Costa Rica)

Agave atrovirens (Mexico)

There is absolutely no way to convey how ginormous this agave is, definitely one of the largest I've ever seen.

Nolina sp. (Mexico)

And more Agave sp. (Mexico). Wow... it was so good to get back to this garden again.

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All material © 2009-2025 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.