California Field Trip - June 2011
By Hayden Foulds
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After three years in the planning, the IPPS field trip to California was a great success and enjoyed by all those who went along. This article is an overview of what we saw and did along the way. In future newsletters, I will go in depth more on some of the nurseries and gardens we visited, what impressed and what we learnt from them.
The US, as we all know, is not in a great shape at the present time although the high dollar made travelling and shopping easier! California was much the same as the rest of the country, high unemployment (officially 7-8% but unofficially people told us it was more like 17-18%) and money problems - the state of California had a $US10 billion dollar deficit and the state senate were trying to figure out what to do about it. Weatherwise, California had a very cold spring which was still having an effect in June with what the locals call the 'June Gloom' - cloudy mornings and fine, sunny afternoons.
Leaving from Anaheim, home of Disneyland, we headed south to the San Diego Botanic Garden at Encinitas. The garden covers 37 hectares and is home to a wide collection of plants including a great desert garden, children's garden and a good New Zealand collection as well. We also met up with Eddie's mate, Tim Mitchel, a plant broker who hosted us in San Diego.
We then headed to two retail outlets in San Diego. Cordova Gardens specialises in succulents and also had a huge range of statues and pots. Andersons La Costa had a wider range of plants and was also big in design services.
The day concluded with a visit to a historic Spanish mission and Old Town San Diego where margaritas and Mexican food were the order of the day.
Tim took us the next day to Coronado Beach, one of the regions premier beaches, for breakfast and a wander up the beach to the Hotel de Coronado where many famous people have stayed over the years.
It was then onto Balboa Park for a couple of hours, but more like four days would be needed to properly explore this 490ha park which includes the world famous San Diego Zoo, many art exhibitions and museums plus gardens.
We then visited the USS Midway in downtown San Diego, the Midway is an aircraft carrier which has been converted to a museum and you can wander around most parts of the ship. Definitely worth a visit.
The next day saw us drive north, breakfast at Laguna Beach and then onto Rogers Garden Centre at Corona del Mar. An amazing garden centre of the highest order, very tidy, plants extremely well looked after and many interesting ideas on show.
We hit LA and visited the Lar Brea tar pits not far from downtown Hollywood. Something a bit different but the museum was interesting with all the finds from excavated tar pits in the area.
It was then onto the John Paul Getty Centre in the hills above Los Angeles and with spectacular views to boot. An amazing collection of art is the main feature but the gardens and landscaping are also worth visiting for and best of all, its free - just need to pay for parking.
We drove north to Carpentaria, just outside Santa Barbara which was packed due to an equinox festival being held. Robert Bett (ex Lyndale) was due to host us, but work commitments took him to Germany instead.
The next morning we stopped at Seaside Gardens, an interesting retail outlet where plants were grouped by area of origin and also had a great display garden. It was then onto Lotusland which is well known as one of the best gardens to visit in North America. It didn't disappoint any of us, even me as there were few flowers in the garden. The garden is superbly laid out with great plantings, often on mass and around every corner there was something that you went 'wow'.
We headed for a quick look at Westerlay Orchids and then headed into the Santa Ynez Valley for some wine tasting before heading to San Luis Obispo for the night.
Breakfast at Morro Bay was followed by a visit to Hearst Castle at San Simeon. The castle was developed over 28 years by the well known publisher William Hearst, but he never got to complete it. While we did not get much of a look inside, the gardens were interesting but not overwhelming - the roses were not wonderful.
It was then a long drive up the Pacific Coast Highway through Big Sur with some amazing scenery along the way. Drove through Carmel (where Clint Eastwood was once Mayor) and then onto Salinas for the night. Salinas is known as the salad bowl of America with crops for miles and miles around.
It was an early start the next morning to the world famous Monteray Aquarium and then it was onto three excellent nurseries outside Watsonville. Pacific Plug & Liner produce 35 million plants a year from cuttings and tissue culture.
Suncrest Nurseries produce 1 million plants a year for independant stores in California with 3000 varieties under production. Monteray Bay Nursery had a huge 4500 varieties in production but everything looked great. It was then onto Gilroy for some outlet shopping.
Another very early start got us on the road to Yosemite National Park which lived up to its reputation as one of the great National Parks in America. Our visit co-incided with the pass over the top of the park opening up after the winter season so rather than head down the San Joquan Valley and visit Monrovia, we headed over the top enjoying the scenary along the way. We also took a short walk into the forest to see some large sequoia trees but what was a pleasant stroll down, was a very tiring hike out so we needed some refreshments before we continued down the other side. We were at quite a high altitude - up to nearly 10,000 feet above sea level which was certainly noticed by everyone.
Mammoth Lakes was our stop for the night before we headed back to towards LA, not without a shopping stop at Bishop first and then it was onto the Bristle cone pine trees. These are some of the oldest known trees on earth, up to 4000 years old and living in a very hostile environment high up in the mountains.
Back on the road, we hit the outer reaches of Los Angeles and yet another shopping stop, this time at the Bass Pro shop at Rancho Cucamonga which had 180,00 sq feet of everything to do with the great outdoors
Our last day of the tour started at the research and development facilities at Weeks Roses, located on the Cal Poly campus at Pomona. Weeks is the largest rose nursery in the US and has an extensive breeding program for new roses for the garden trade.
It was then off to Huntington Gardens, another amazing garden for which our time was not enough. A superb collection of plants, particularly a large collection of cactus and inside there was a large library and art collection.
We then headed to Anaheim and our own separate ways after a great trip. A huge thanks must go to Philip & Janine Smith (Taupo Native Plants) for putting together the trip and making sure all the little things happened that made the trip such a great success.
Coming Up
IPPS Interantional Japanese Tour October 2012
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