Some more sages Salvia raymondii ssp. mairanae closeup - Cabrillo College This Bolivian beauty surprised me, as I had gotten the impression it was not showy. It matched S. curviflora in display, and had burgundy colored leaf undersides, blending well with the fuchsia flowers. It might do well along the Gulf coast of the USA. Bloom period unknown, probably late summer or autumn. A closeup of Salvia melissodora Grape-scented at Ginny Hunt's home. You can really smell the grape scent, and the moths, butterflies, and bumble bees were busy. Salvia macrophylla tall form - Cabrillo College An erect form of macrophylla, with large leaves which have burgundy colored undersides. This appears to be more humidity tolerant as well. It looks like it could give Canna lilies a good run for their money Salvia x westerae This is a naturally occurring Bolivian hybrid of S. orbignaei x S. haenkei, and has rather large flowers. Again, it might do well along the Gulf coast. Bloom period unknown. That's all for today.

Bravo! Beautiful photos, rcnaylor. My family used to live in Austin (some still do) and the Hill Country is so beautiful. Do you know the common name for the cactus...is it prickly pear? I think the botanical name is Opuntia something? We have one that we found in our lawn and my husband kept mowing over it. We finally transplanted it and it has bloomed last year and this year. I especially love the one with the church steeple peeking over the trees and the creek? river? shot. Pam

In 1965 my husband to be and I stayed two weeks in the Hotel Royal Bretagne at 11bis rue de la Gaîté in Paris. Years after I read in Simone de Beauvoir's memoirs that she'd stayed in this hotel for several months in 1937, commuting from her teaching post in Passy. She describes it as a very decent hotel and it still was in 1965 and also in 2000 when my husband was given a room there purely by chance when he attended a conference. A room then cost much more than the 17 francs we paid and was much improved. On this same visit we looked at the nearby Hotel Orfila in rue d'Assas where the Swedish author August Strindberg experienced the psychosis he described in his book Inferno. Another literary place I've actively sought out was Jane Austen's Chawton in Hampshire, on our way from Mottisfont Abbey. We arrived too late to see the inside but the outside loo was open, to our relief. The greatest disappointment was the long detour we made to Little House in the Big Woods near Pepin, Wisconsin, where we had hoped to show our children Laura Ingalls Wilder's childhood home. It was a shiny new replica with hardly a tree in sight. 29 years later it looks more weathered in internet photos.

I have to post a couple more pictures from the incredible Blue Mountains Botanic Garden at Mount Tomah. It was my favorite garden on this trip. Although not having the variety of Rhododendrons that can be found in Olinda, the scenic aspect of it is just mind boggling. I can think of only 2 other gardens I've visited with such an amazing natural setting and attendant sense of place - UC Berkeley, and Villa Taranto on a mountainside next to Lago Maggiore. (In fairness, I should really wrap in Isola Madre and Isola Brissago and just say "the absolutely incredible Gardens of Lago Maggiore". The latter two merely sit in the lake, while Villa Taranto allows you to climb at least a couple hundred feet up and feel like you're in the clouds looking down, as does the UC Berkeley garden. As close to the Horticulturally Edenic as you will find, I think.) Looking at these pics years later, I now spot, for example, that there was a Glyptostrobus (probably!) that I hadn't even noticed. Here were some of their native grass trees, albeit smaller than ones I saw in coastal Victoria: A few more from Australia. Here is the lush undergrowth of the Blue Mountains. The is the biome that the Wollemi pine comes from. Phil explained to me what this plant was. It looks like a South African Erica, but is actually the Aussie version. It's either also in the Ericaeae, or is another plant family that co-evolved to look similar. Sorry, can't remember! Finally a view of the forest-y part of the Sydney Botanical Garden. Looking and feeling every bit like being on a tropical island, but quite a ways from the tropics. Sydney is as far south as Myrtle Beach is north. 33S. Good luck creating anything like this in Myrtle Beach! Practically any plant recognized by northern tourists as a 'tropical' plant grows here, barring coconuts. You have go closer to the Queensland border to find those, they simply can't deal with the frost-free albeit slightly chilly winters of Sydney. On to Christchurch! A quintessential NZ scene at the Christchurch Botanic Garden. NZ Flax, of course! Tree ferns, of course! Weird little conifer - probably one of the shrubby Podocarps, of course! Nearby was the bizarre looking Phyllocladus alpinus, aka 'Celery Pine'. You can grow this in the milder parts of the PNW, definitely not in the eastern US. Typical plantings...a young Telopia, a Callistemon, and Kniphofia northiae. Although clearly not as mild as most of the gardens I saw in AU, it's still pretty damn mild, as is evidenced by the fact they can use Clivias as bedding plants! I suspect Christchurch is probably 10a in the milder parts, 9b if you get away from the coast or 'urban heat island'. IIRC the guy who used to post on GOTE from there put 9b in his profile. I saw, for example, winter blooming South African aloes, but far more infrequently than in AU, and maybe only in sheltered north facing gardens har har har.