Thuja plicata, approx 154 feet tall, 49 feet wide, over 800 years old, known locally as the Big Cedar
Even as a part-time local, it took me a couple passes to find the tight entrance off 101 to the Cedar Wetlands Nature Preserve just outside Rockaway Beach. (I think there’s a small sign if you’re heading south on 101; northward, the reverse of the sign says Welcome to Rockaway Beach.) I wanted to catch the skunk cabbage in bloom again.
Turns out I was late for the bloom — late March/early April is when the bog lights up with the swamp lanterns. Still I made the mile-long walk down the boardwalk to see the old cedar again.
That narrow entrance off Highway 101 leads to a mighty sight, to this old cedar that has seen it all, from the first sailing ship to anchor in Tillamook Bay in 1788, to the beginning of commercial logging in the 1850s, to the last of the sea otters by 1900.
A champion tree, a witness tree to life on the Oregon coast for maybe the past thousand years or more. Middle-aged in 1700, it shuddered and swayed to the largest earthquake in North American history., a 9.0 that took out many of its compatriots and caused some parts of the coastline to drop several feet, leaving “ghost forests” that can still be seen at low tide.
from Wikimedia Commons
Total coincidence, but my visit coincided with Earth Day, April 22, so some context is appropriate in the spirit of the occasion. This rare patch of cedar bog is itself part of the rarity that is the Pacific temperate rainforest, the largest temperate rainforest in the world. Temperate rainforests comprise a meager 3% of the earth’s surface. They excel as carbon sinks due to slow decomposition rates.
boardwalk makes it ADA accessible
The main bloom of the skunk cabbage may have been over, but their massive leaves are a sight in their own right. The largest leaves of any native plant in the PNW.
a few Lysichiton americanus were throwing blooms but nothing like the carpet of gold I had seen a previous March
we’ve been playing around with the idea of a “boardwalk” for the muddy/grassy east side of the house, and I think we’re committed. Gravel, pavers, bark always first come to mind for paths, but I’m liking more and more a simple raised boardwalk without digging out the turf underneath. Drawbacks are a bit of slipperiness during the rainy season.
respect
This 50-acre old growth cedar bog was donated by a lumber company. Managed by the Nature Conservancy, it’s now been deeded to the City of Rockaway Beach. It is a hauntingly ancient place, a primordial experience sandwiched between the small towns of this stretch of the Oregon coast. Actually, I kind of like that it’s hard to find.
view over leucospermums in bloom of the Golden Gate Bridge from Tunnel Tops/MB Maher
I first heard of what has come to be known as the Presidio Tunnel Tops in 2015, when visiting landscape architect Rania Reyes mentioned her involvement in a new Presidio Parklands Project in San Francisco. Rania was being given a personal tour of the garden at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles by its landscape architect Mia Lehrer. We were all there for an installment of Shirley Watts’ Natural Discourse symposium “Flora & Fauna,” at which Mia Lehrer was a speaker, and I sort of tagged along for Mia’s after-hours tour of the garden.
Mia Lehrer, Rania Reyes, Senior Project Manager for the construction of the Presidio Tunnel Tops Project, and me standing a discreet distance away
As far as what I could discern about the Presidio project, as a tag-along not wanting to be too intrusive with endless questions, I had a vague sense that there was to be some heroic geoengineering involved. And then over the next seven years I completely lost track of the project. In defense of my inattention, this was a long, winding, extremely complicated project with a lot of moving parts and overlapping administrative jurisdictions*.
roadway opened in 2015, Tunnel Tops 14-acre park opened 2022 (via SF Chronicle)
The year of Rania’s visit to LA’s Natural History Museum, 2015, marked completion of the Presidio Parkway. This new roadway, comprising two tunnels, seven lanes, replaced the earthquake-damaged, bottleneck-prone elevated road (Doyle Drive) that had led motorists in and out of the city to the Golden Gate Bridge since 1937. It would be another seven years before the planting of the tunnels over the parkway would be finished and the mostly privately funded Tunnel Tops opened to the public.
proteas!
(*Agencies that Built the Presidio Parkway California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) Metropolitan Transportation Commission San Francisco County Transportation Authority The Presidio Trust Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District The National Park Service — from the website)
stunning surprise to find Tunnel Tops filled with blooming members of the proteaceae family in early April
The Presidio and I go way back, to when this former Spanish military fort dating to 1776 was a quiet, uncrowded destination to walk when I lived in my 20s in the Marina district of SF. After moving away, the Presidio was always a beloved place to revisit on yearly trips north to plant nurseries (e.g. Western Hills). Over the years, I think every family dog has romped through the Presidio. San Francisco’s embarrassment of riches in parks and open space has always been a source of envy to this Angelino. (Yeah, I know, in LA we have the beaches as our parks/open space, but I stubbornly prefer parks/botanical gardens.). And now with completion of Tunnel Tops, a project on a creative, technical par with the High Line, my envy is going to require frequent visits to assuage.
for all ages/MB Maher
Unlike the High Line, there’s not a lot of media coverage on Tunnel Tops, even though James Corner’s firm Field Operations had a hand in both projects. Tunnel Tops’ salient evolutionary points, to me, are that in the year 1989 the Loma Prieta earthquake made the main conduit to Golden Gate Bridge, Doyle Drive, unsafe. Also in that year, the military gave up the site as a military post. What followed were years of inter-agency debate over use and access. The favored solution was building a freeway to modern standards that would continue the tradition of bisecting the Presidio, sequestering it from a view of the bay and adjacent jewel of the city Crissy Field. Ultimately, a landscape architect’s vision that prioritized this incredible setting of natural beauty as an opportunity for recreational space for people thankfully won the day.
an adventureland for kids and families
During the long inter-agency period discussing a new roadway, somehow amidst the gravitational pull of conventional traffic solutions, landscape architect Michael Painter’s improbable proposal to build a park atop tunnels slowly gained traction. From SPUR (San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association, a nonprofit): “For infrastructure projects like roads, landscape architects are at the bottom of the professional pile. A common attitude is, We’ll build it, then give you a little money to pretty it up. The focus is on objects, while landscape architects focus on spaces.”
I watched a family accept a Door Dash delivery for a picnic
“Presidio Tunnel Tops reimagines a once-elevated highway into a vibrant, ecologically rich 14-acres of public space. Built atop 7 lanes of Presidio Parkway tunnels, the new landscape stitches together historic parklands with the San Francisco Bay and transforms infrastructure into an immersive experience, choreographing movement, topography, and ecology to create an open, accessible pedestrian connection across 40 feet of grade change.” American Society of Landscape Architects — read more about the project from ASLA here.
For my first visit, to find the park ablaze with flowering leucospermums was pretty special. (I especially noted the coastal woollybush from Australia, Adenanthos sericeus, because I just planted another one in my SoCal garden.) Leucadendrons and other proteaceae, succulents, California natives, grasses, it’s a gorgeous mix that’s maturing beautifully in the propitious climate of the Bay Area.
leucospermum and on the left coastal woollybush Adenanthos sericeus
former military fort turned into park — one-third of the buildings are residential
This April the current administration fired all the board members of the Presidio Trust, the federal arm that manages the Presidio along with the National Park Service and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. For now it’s uncertain how this will affect the park’s future operation. But it’s all the more reason to experience Tunnel Tops now in all its glory.
(“Oregon Route 6, known as the Wilson River Highway, is a scenic but treacherous 52-mile route connecting Tillamook (U.S. 101) to the Portland metro area (U.S. 26) through the Tillamook State Forest. Completed in 1941, this critical coastal artery is notorious for steep grades, heavy winter rain/snow, and constant slope erosion causing hazardous conditions.”)
Corsican hellebores line a path in Christine Weaver’s garden
The Hardy Plant Society of Oregon helpfully arranged a “mini-tour” of gardens on Sunday April 19, a bright warmish day. For someone still grappling with issues of dormancy and spring emergence in this climate, I was determined to attend. The big obstacle as always is Highway 6, the essential highway to Portland from the coast. On a good day the two-lane highway is a challenge to drive. With road crews working on portions of the highway washed out over winter, the anticipated lengthy delays totaled maybe five minutes — great job, ODOT! The road conditions are very reminiscent of the continuous land movement issues of the Palos Verdes Peninsula’s coastal road in Southern California.
Weaver’s garden. Podophyllums were in every garden toured
Weaver garden
buttery tulips line a path in Weaver’s garden, possibly a form of Tulipa sylvestris
A perennial spring-flowering sweet pea, possibly Lathhyrus vernus ‘Flaccidus’ with atypical narrow leaves. Grown in a container which it filled wall to wall — Weaver’s garden
Arbor and borders surround a small central lawn in Weaver’s garden
peonies in Lisa Brauckmiller’s garden (Itoh?)
Brauckmiller’s garden
a sweet rock-garden type daphne in the sidewalk raised planters of the Brauckmiller garden
Broad swathe of Dicentra formosa in the Emel & Welch garden. Leaves appear in March. Summer dormant, Ms. Emel says she elevates pots of annuals over the area for summer
A hardy fuchsia in the Emel & Welch garden that didn’t miss a beat over the mild winter
These were all smallish urban gardens showing decades of experience in plant selection to absorb — just the kind of gardens I want to see. The major distinction to my full-sun garden is that the majority of plantings were with woodland plants that cover the ground early in spring. Big thanks to the generous garden hosts — so glad I braved Highway 6 for the tour!
the gate to Granada Coffee opening to the mature pomegranate tree
In spring 2025, Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson was published, a nonfiction work examining why we can’t seem to get things built for the common good anymore and the bureaucratic difficulties facing small businesses. Using examples like California’s high-speed rail project, 30 years and counting in development, the book arrived amid a maelstrom of DOGE’s chainsaw destruction to the federal workforce and wanton deregulation. Abundance was championed by both the right and left, and the contentious, pro-and-con criticisms of the book’s stated desire for a “liberalism that builds” made for engrossing reading that dismally chaotic spring.
With these issues front of mind, over the 2026 winter it was exciting to discover a low-key but encouraging instance of innovative growth exemplified by a Los Angeles neighborhood coffee shop that opened January 2026. Granada (Spanish for pomegranate) was built in the downstairs space of the home of Sydney Wayser and Isaac Watters, musicians, film set designers, and parents of a 3 year-old. Their dream of a community gathering space, borne out of the isolation of Covid, blossomed under an expedited regulatory umbrella known as a Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation (MEHKO).
Located in the quiet historic neighborhood of Angelino Heights, where most patrons arrive on foot
Under MEHKO, a California state program subject to local county health & safety rules, a commercial food service business can be opened in a private residence in as short a period of time as six months, with snarls of red tape quickly slashed and trimmed into festive opening day bunting. Up-front costs for permits can run as low as $500. Abundance!
I’d heard the buzz about Granada before knowing about its origins in the MEHKO program. On my first visit, it was the outdoor space that grabbed my attention, planted with pearl and cutleaf acacias and leucadendrons. There are a lot of coffee shops to compete for our business, some with sidewalk bump-outs, but how many can boast a tranquil garden in which to sip your first cup at 9 a.m.? I’m not reading a lot of emphasis on the garden’s contribution to this little business’ runaway success, but for me this outdoor setting is truly what sets it apart as a unique experience. And I freely admit to bias where gardens and outdoor spaces are concerned.
around 9 a.m., right before opening
On my first visit, all the outdoor seating was taken. People lounge and chat and bring laptops for extended visits. I’ve heard it described as a WeWork space that actually works. The owners are very interested in exploring hosting small concerts and other community cultural events.
The French ancestry of one of the owners may account for the European/Luxembourg Garden feel to Granada. Indoors and out, the space is welcoming, refreshingly noninstitutional, carefully thought out but not fussy. The owners’ long-standing experience in design fields is felt everywhere.
stairs lead to upstairs living quarters. After closing at 2:30 p.m., the downstairs reverts to living space too. Under MEHKO rules, the owners’ toddler must not be present during operation hours.
joining forces with fruit and vegetable growers and a bakery as well
For more information on the MEHKO program and the making of Granada, check out this article in the Los Angeles Times. The program was introduced in California in 2019 and authorized in LA County in 2024. Just this April 2026, Long Beach, Calif., also passed an ordinance allowing MEHKOs to operate under their local guidelines. Oregon has a similar program under Home (Domestic) Kitchen Licensing. If you can include a garden with your MEHKO, count me in.
growing in a stock tank situated slightly under the patio overhang, keeping it somewhat drier than the main garden
It’s raining. There’s tons to do. Five minutes home and we’re already chopping up the neighbor’s downed tree limb and beginning cleanup. Absent since November, there’s that burning question immediately upon arrival in spring: How did the garden fare over winter? A singular event answered that question in a kind of visual shorthand. Not only did the beschorneria (aka False Agave) keep all its leaves relatively presentable over the winter, it greeted me with something wholly unexpected.
labeled Beschorneria septentrionalis. Beschornerias are generally considered for USDA zone 8 and warmer, to zone 7 with protection
Whether the north or south garden, beschornerias just do not easily jump into bloom for me. Off to a good start! More soon, AGO.
The Long Beach garden is throwing a low-key sendoff, mainly with the blooming of Geranium maderense ‘Alba.’ It is almost distracting enough to take my mind off the delayed cutback urgently needed right now in the Oregon garden — possibly needed weeks ago. Neighbors blithely emailed that a large branch from their tree fell into our garden, oops! and another section of fence is failing, so any distraction is welcome. I can’t help contrasting this drowsy, relaxed spring in Long Beach with the time-sensitive rush of things to do in Oregon when we return mid-April — can’t wait to get started!
This biennial has been reseeding in the garden since its introduction here in 2011.
Marty getting irrigation sorted off the pergola
A new experiment involves rigging sprinklers on timers for 20 minutes every four days.
Between the upcoming move and the devastating news cycle…yikes, I’ll say no more. Hope you’re managing as well as possible too. Take care, more soon. AGO
With the heat wave mostly over, yesterday I drove south to Newport Beach for some garden time. Bathed in the cool coastal conditions at the Pacific Ocean, the Sherman Gardens & Library are a genteel lunch and garden destination that always has something worth looking at. The succulent and cactus garden, for instance. The first clue that this was not going to be a relaxing wander through the lath houses and brick pathways was the free admission. Didn’t I used to have to pay to get in? The entrance had been changed as well. The newly improvised entrance led straight into the succulent garden.
The path out of the succulent garden led into what used to be the central planting area that opened up as you entered from the old entrance. These beds were mass-planted with ranunculus. The rest of the gardens, estimating maybe 75 percent, was under renovation, blocked with fencing. So head’s up: Call before you go. The renovations look to be extensive.
From the website I should have checked before visiting:
“Pardon Our Dust!
From March 9–27, enjoy free admission to the gardens. Please enter on Dahlia Avenue and follow the signage marked “Enter Here.”
We are laying important pipes and will close the pathway that leads to the central garden until March 21. You can still enjoy our adobe courtyard, train display, pepper tree, and succulent garden.”
peeking through the construction fencefrom a visit in 2020, the central path between the lath houses, looking roughly toward where the construction fence is now to the rightUnless I’ve got my orientation completely wrong, this is the central area in 2020, this year planted with ranunculusThis planting in 2020 would be just beyond the construction fence
There was, however, an indoor clivia show and sale. Not growing clivia and not particularly interested in doing so, I spun around the entrance a few times before plunging through the doorway and into an unfamiliar horticultural world.
clivia are dappled shade plants for the greenhouse or zones 9-11 that require dry and cool resting periods in winter to bloom well
It’s not often I’m surrounded by plants with which I have no point of connection. But what I could connect with was the hybridizer’s zeal and enthusiasm that was evident in the varied shapes and colors of the clivia blooms. They were identified only with numbers, no names.
similar colors and flowers shapes with Vireya rhododendrons
in vases I was reminded of freesias but without the strong scent
The clivia show and sale continues on Sunday, March 22, 2026.
We were given pencil and paper to vote for our favorite, and I chose No. 7, which reminded me of Alstroemeria isabellana
After leaving the Sherman, and starved for lunch, I grabbed some sushi and headed for the Newport Beach Civic Center, where I lunched with agaves, dyckias, dragon trees and cactus.
A pink-flowered puya in bloom, possibly Puya spathacea
lots of spineless dyckias were massed near the path, possibly the cultivar ‘Naked Lady’
Dragon tree underplanted with Euphorbia resinifera
It was a day of contrasts, for sure. More soon, AGO
first poppy, a dwarf breadseed — in bud last night, in flower this morning. Papaver setigerum
Monday morning dawned fresh and cool with a minor epiphany. Stepping out the backdoor, the opening of the first poppy scrambles a sleepy brain with the sensation of a delicate jellyfish floating over the garden (upside down).
Salvia ‘Waverly’ in large pot planted from a one-gallon in November, needing water every morning this week
This week’s West Coast heat wave has been written up in all the national newspapers. Yesterday, taking in our nightly PBS Newshour, we were dumbfounded to be looking at our local park on the newscast, near the beach where Marty runs, with locals being interviewed on how hot it’s been. As much as 35 degrees above normal for this time of year, is how hot it’s been.
house at the beach where Marty runs and we walk Billie, stopping to admire this flawless Agave guiengola ‘Creme Brulee,’ a large, soft-leaved agave that’s not easy to grow unblemished
Monday wasn’t too bad, with a lovely scrim of morning fog, then reaching mid 80sF in the afternoon. Tuesday soared to a stupor-inducing 99F. *Wednesday is predicted to stay in the 80sF here at the coast and through the week. (*Edited to add: W-F reached 90F here at the coast.)
With the garden set to return to autopilot when we leave in a few weeks, it’s time to get the final tweaks in as far as best chances for survival. Emergency moves included a large clump of pyrrosia that was poorly sited and getting burned by some sneaky shafts of sunlight penetrating the grevillea’s canopy. Neighbors have promised to check in and water the pots.
salvia thriving even in full reflective sun
A couple weeks ago the Garden Conservancy put out a request for volunteer docents for their Palm Springs Open Days this Saturday. What a great day trip! Checking the forecast, I was dumbfounded that it could get that hot in March. Regretfully, no way. Not a good look when the docent passes out in the garden.
this salvia just exudes cool even in a heat wave
planted today Sideritis syriacus from High Country Gardens
A box of plants arrived Monday from High Country Gardens, impeccably packed and on time, most destined for the Oregon garden (intriguing Verbascum ‘Letitia’). I built the order around the only source I could find for sideritis, plants I really miss having in the garden. I’m hoping these two Sideritis syriacus reseed, as it has in the past. With the forecast showing cooling at the coast, these were planted this morning.
the past few years I started adding lots of new varieties of tulbaghia. Incredibly tough plants. This is ‘Flamingo’
fairly sure this is ‘Tequila Sunrise’ kangaroo paw, very tall and slender
There’s been more activity at the far boundary wall since Bilbergia ‘Hallelujah’ was introduced there.
the remnants of a formerly largish brick patio nibbled away over the years for more planting area
former patio now barely holds a stool. Pot holds Sansevieri:a cylindrica aka Dracaena angolensis
Other shady characters are on the move to the cool back wall too, including more bromeliads and a few ferns, Blechnum gibbum ‘Silver Lady,’ Asplenium bulbifera and Pleopeltis lepidopteris. The latter tolerates dry conditions very well, not sure about the other two…
funnel planter was getting some witheringly strong morning sun and needed a change of exposure
a small clump of pyrrosia tucked into the cool shade against the wall
ferns getting a trial here like Blechnum ‘Silver Lady’
Queensland Bottle Trees at the flea market on a mild morning last Sunday. Brachychiton rupestris.
Canopy of my container-grown Brachychiton discolor, a large-leaf evergreen bottle tree
African Veldt Grass at the beach
What I’ve been calling couch grass has been identified by a landscape restorationist neighbor as African Veldt Grass. It is a fairly recent menace and of the very worst kind. Ehrharta erecta (annual) and Ehrharta calycina (perennial) are both perpetually in seed spread by birds, wind, shoes, etc. One of my short-lived theories accounting for its vigorous presence in the garden was that the generous spacing around plants now that I’m not here full time allowed in more weeds. There was rarely bare soil showing when I gardened year-round. But this nasty weed penetrates the densest clumps of sesleria and tulbaghia and sneaks in under the rosettes of large succulents. It infests the entire neighborhood now and needs constant vigilance to control. I really don’t recall it in the garden prior to 2020. My neighbor used Fusilade when eradicating this weed from acres of native plant communities.
With temps in Los Angeles unable to stay out of the 80s°F for long, the absence of a picnic table in my life rose to the level of an all-consuming void. Marty knows this fixation of mine well and has talked me out of my sense of picnic table deprivation for years. Too big, too heavy, termite candy, another albatross to maneuver around, not critical, important or necessary. And the kicker: We’re spending summers elsewhere. All sound arguments against.
Sonchus palmensis jumped into bloom this warm week. 87F on Sunday March 8.
That I’ve long craved a picnic table and not just another table and chairs or benches might have had something to do with everything signified by “picnic” — a lark, an escape, an impromptu playful gathering. The more chaotic things get, the more power that word holds over me.
Last weekend I idly search-stringed “modern picnic table” and was shown a powder-coated, lightweight aluminum table and benches with rounded corners. Orange color on sale. With tax return in the bank, I dusted off my standard picnic table pitch but this time had photos and dimensions. To make him laugh, I included my disingenuous running joke of a justification, “Think of the parties we’ll have!” (He prefers more parties than I do.).
benches tuck under table for a small footprint, and the fence works as back support if desired
This time the pitch worked, and my arguments in favor won the day. The table arrived three days later. In the interim I admit to worrying that my picnic table fever just possibly made me an easy mark for some junky merchandise.
The hardscaped east side of the house has been bare since downsizing pots and stuff in 2021. In other words, crying out for a picnic table. The orange Loll couch was moved beyond the fringe tree in the background.
Marty assembled the table and benches in under two hours, expressing admiration for the packaging, design, assembly instructions, and inclusion of all necessary components. He loves it and is no doubt dreaming of the parties we’ll have (ha!)…and with picnic weather temperatures nearly year-round now in Los Angeles, my crazy picnic table fixation arguably just makes good sense.
When the blog Late to the Garden Party, a steadying presence appearing on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, abruptly stopped at Monday, I wrote yesterday: “Hi Kris — what a disturbance in my world when there’s no Wed/Friday posts by you. Just letting you know your garden musings are missed — maybe a Blogger issue?” This morning Kris’ husband Jeff responded that Kris has some medical issues and will resume blogging as soon as she’s able. So we’ll all have to be patient until that kind, thoughtful voice rejoins our online community. Feel better soon, Kris!
“High up on a windy hill, on the site of an old quarry, two people level and plant and build and dig and move rock to mend a gouge in the earth. Each night cautious paws softly explore the smooth, hand-laid paths, releasing the scent of thyme into the night as the garden darkens and the builders briefly rest.” (lath house Jeff built for Kris, AGO 2018)
