Continuing the previous Sonoma/Mendocino thread, here are the photos
from the wonderful Mendocino Botanical Gardens in Ft. Bragg, CA.
This was our second visit in three years and is a must if you are
ever in this area. Located on 47 acres, half of it is an easy coastal
walk that loops around and takes you back to the Visitor's Center and
parking lot.

As you walk out of the Visitor's Center, this is the view of the garden
beds. The Pacific Ocean is about a mile straight ahead and the bldg
you see in the background is an open-air display area.
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MBG is famous for its rhododendrons. Not all of them were labeled,
unfortunately. This is "Ring of Fire":
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I had never seen a rhodie like this. It was more like a datura. This is
R. dalhousiae:
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Unnamed rhodie:
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Another unnamed rhodie:
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This rhodie had a very lily-like structure:
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Finally, a name! This is "Markeeta's Flame":
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I loved this yellow rhodie, a color you don't see often:
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There are many other plants besides the rhodies, though. I once tried to grow a Geranium maderense, and it's probably a good thing I wasn't successful. It would have looked awful in the spot I was aiming to fill! G. maderense starts off in a lovely little clump....
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...but when it blooms all the leaf stalks fall downwards. And the stalk is huge - 5' tall and easily that much around!
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Some brilliant blue Pacific Coast iris:
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A really unusual salvia. A big gray-green bush erupts once a year into these rusty brown flowers - Salvia africana-lutea (Beach salvia):
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Much of the MBG is designed to look natural. A few streams run through it on the way to the Pacific:
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I don't always care for garden art, but who doesn't like a handsome dragon? And this "Water Dragon" beauty by sculptor Keena Good, looped its way across fully 10' of lawn area:
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Alas, it's an ephemeral display: a sign said the dragon is sold and will soon be taken away.
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Out through an impressive gate (keeps the deer away), you start the coastal walk. There's a couple of steeper, more energetic side paths, but we kept to the easy flat trail. We detoured for the Cliff House, a small cabin built halfway-down an inlet that has a wall of Plexiglas windows.

We've heard that at high tide or in a storm, the waves crashing in are spectacular! But it's always been low tide when we come, so it's calm and peaceful instead. The windows are dirty, thus the soft focus of this shot:
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We were lucky; the often-changeable coastal weather was warm and sunny. The Pacific is a brilliant blue today:
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Iceplant is in full bloom for us:
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Even many Californians don't realize that the tall, bright orange poppies which brighten up so many areas every spring are NOT the state flower. The CA poppy variety that is our state flower is this one - short and bi-colored:
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As the trail turns away from the coast and heads back towards the Visitor's Center, you pass the Events Lawn and the Vegetable Garden. You will also pass this tiny little cemetary:
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The Mendocino Botanical Gardens are on what used to be the Parrish farm. The Parrishes, who worked with Luther Burbank in Santa Rosa, moved up here and experimented with growing over a hundred varieties of potatoes in partnership with the state agricultural board, to see which ones would do best. Some of their children and at least one adult are buried here; the remainder are buried elsewhere after the Parrishes moved away in 1924.

A child's grave, one of the few marked:
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