{"id":110449,"date":"2026-08-07T21:19:38","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T01:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=110449"},"modified":"2026-08-07T21:19:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T01:19:38","slug":"more-san-francisco-botanical-garden-in-july","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=110449","title":{"rendered":"more San Francisco Botanical Garden in July"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It’s Friday. We’ve been up to our eyeballs in weird all week. How about a walk through the San Francisco Botanical Garden? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At the southern entrance was a searing melange of annuals that was repeated beyond the gates throughout the entrance plaza. Beautifully grown as far as gradation of heights, etc. The bodacious planting had me imagining the staff brain-storming this splashy summer display to knock the socks off visitors, and then the methodical work of ordering seeds and planting out hundreds of annuals. The saturated color impulse was so aggressively retro it felt brand-new. A horticultural middle finger to San Francisco’s typically overcast summer skies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jack Kerouac-style hat in a nice touch at the entrance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A standout among the petunias and ageratum was a tall, silver-leaved orange daisy, maybe an arctotis of some kind. Wasn’t there once an annual called Venidium ‘Zulu Prince’ or has it now changed names?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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needs sun to fully open<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After looking around at seed catalogues, I’m fairly certain this is Venidium ‘Orange Prince.’ Looks like a scorcher, right? From my reading, it actually prefers a cool summer like San Francisco (or my Oregon coast garden, maybe next year).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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inside the plaza with tibouchina topping the fence<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And that marigold was a nice choice too, a simple tall-stemmed single, color of burning embers, maybe ‘Cinnabar.’ The kind that Christopher Lloyd made acceptable again, along with tall-stemmed ageratum. No dwarf varieties, no Victorian bedding-style blobs allowed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And don’t panic, the entrance plaza is filled with all the cool plants that thrive here year-round, like cussonia, beschorneria and agave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The first day we arrived was a hot muggy mess. What had become of my San Francisco, with its unsurpassed weather for long cool city rambles? The next day the city mercifully returned to its baseline overcast conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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old gnarly banksia arching over a path<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now we’re wandering into the garden, through the Mediterranean, South African and Australian sections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n\"IMG_3726\"<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\"IMG_3731\"<\/a>\n<\/div>
tree with the rounded leaves reminds me of the Robinson Crusoe tree Dendroseris litoralis that used to be available through Annie’s Annuals<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\"IMG_3841\"<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The cactus and succulent garden is not large but the gravitas leant by its age and maturity make up for size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"IMG_3839\"<\/a>\n<\/div>
like a lot of its tribe, Euphorbia lambiii is a robust reseeder<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Agave chiapensis in bloom<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\"IMG_3849\"<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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the Pewster Bush was dotted around quite a bit, Strobilanthes gossypinus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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fuchsias leave their heart in SF year-round<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\"IMG_3804\"<\/a>\n<\/div>
Brugmansia sanguinea. Because of this visit, I was primed to admire this in a friend’s garden over the weekend, and of course he had a rooted cutting to share…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\"IMG_3782\"<\/a>\n<\/div>
Incarvillea arguta<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A couple standouts not frequently seen were the hardy gloxinia Incarvillea arguta and francoa. The latter I grow in the front garden and mine was in bloom in July as well. From Chile. Great stiff evergreen crinkly leaves, loves a cool summer. Makes an incredible container plant too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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massive bloom display on francoa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\"IMG_3817\"<\/a>\n<\/div>
whether white, pink or purple flowers, I believe all are Francoa appendiculata var. ramosa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Have a great weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s Friday. We’ve been up to our eyeballs in weird all week. How about a walk through the San Francisco Botanical Garden? At the southern entrance was a searing melange of annuals that was repeated beyond the gates throughout the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[850,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-garden-travel","category-garden-visit"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paNJ2E-sJr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=110449"}],"version-history":[{"count":73,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110785,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110449\/revisions\/110785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=110449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=110449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=110449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}