Tag: gardening

Fantasy grows at San Diego County Fair!

Once Upon a Fair is this year’s theme for the San Diego County Fair. Fairy tales, beloved picture books, popular fiction and timeless classics are celebrated in fantastic exhibits throughout the Del Mar Fairgrounds.

The ever-popular Garden Show, not surprisingly, has become a place where gardening clubs from around the San Diego region have “hybridized” beautiful flowers and plants with . . . fantasy!

Walk around the Garden Show and you’re likely to discover scenes from wonderfully imaginative works like Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Snow White, The Three Little Pigs, The Tortoise and the Hare, The Little Mermaid, and more.

I always delight in the huge model train layout built by the San Diego Garden Railway Society. Their display this year contains fantasy elements from many well known tales.

Check out the following photographs! What stories can you identify?

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Geranium show brings color to Balboa Park!

The 2026 Geranium Show and Sale was held this weekend in Balboa Park. Members of the San Diego Geranium Society filled Room 101 of the Casa del Prado with beautiful living color!

There’s something very homey about geraniums. They’re easy to propagate and grow, and their cheerful blooms endure most of the year. What home doesn’t have a pot of these flowering plants on a porch or window sill?

In addition to the different varieties of geranium in the show, visitors could view works of art and special displays that celebrate the geranium.

Some photographs…

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A walk in WorldBeat Center’s Healing Peace Garden.

There’s a special garden in Balboa Park you might not know about. It’s located outside the WorldBeat Cultural Center. Those heading along Park Boulevard can glimpse the greenery just south of the circular WorldBeat Cultural Center building.

Known by several names, including the Healing Peace Garden and Children’s Ethnobotany Garden, this green oasis can be visited by appointment or on special occasions.

Fortunately, the garden was open during the Global Earth Day festival last weekend. Having never stepped inside, I took advantage of the opportunity!

When I entered the Healing Peace Garden, I did feel at peace. The nearby street and urban surroundings seemed to vanish. I had entered what felt like a wholly natural place–a world of deep green, full of life and living.

Several footpaths pass shady nooks–places for mediation and contemplation. There are bits of art among the trees and plants, including a seating ring where people can gather to talk, create music, or simply absorb the surrounding beauty.

I was interested to learn the award-winning garden is considered the first sustainable, edible garden in Balboa Park, as well as a monarch butterfly waystation certified by Monarch Watch, and a wildlife habitat certified by the National Wildlife Federation.

The garden is used as an outdoor classroom, too. This webpage explains: The unique organic herb, fruit, and vegetable garden honors the memory of George Washington Carver, and is dedicated to teaching young people about the role of plants in society. Gardening classes are available to schools, youth programs, individuals and families by booking a workshop or requesting a docent at the WorldBeat Center.

Now let’s enter the garden and walk around…

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Persian carpet garden in Escondido!

This is one of the most uplifting and creative exhibitions of art you’re likely to experience. It’s a garden of flowers, trees and animals that was created using Persian carpets! You read that correctly!

This unique exhibition at the museum of the California Center for the Arts, Escondido is titled Maryam Bayat: Unrolling Paradise.

I stepped into the “garden” yesterday during my museum visit. With the sound of birds chirping in the background, I wandered through the plush, colorful foliage and wished there was a “park bench” where I could sit and simply be happy and alive.

In this garden paradise life is good. All cares drop away. From my photos you might understand the wonderful feeling this installation produces. It’s like a comfy living room that has come to life all around you!

The exhibition webpage explains: Unrolling Paradise explores the Persian garden as a living design tradition carried through textiles, memory, and everyday objects. Interdisciplinary artist Maryam Bayat reinterprets centuries-old carpet aesthetics through sculptural works that merge traditional Persian rugs with contemporary form and function.

Raised in Tehran in a family of rug producers and now based in North County San Diego, Bayat draws from inherited craft to create installations that reflect on place, belonging, and cultural continuity. Her woven sculptures—appearing as furniture, abstract trees, and domestic interiors—extend the symbolism of the garden into three-dimensional space, linking ideas of sanctuary to personal and collective memory.

If you tend not to visit museums, this might be the time you consider going. There are several other exhibits, as well, including one that concerns graphics used in computer and video games. Swing on by and have a great time!

Maryam Bayat: Unrolling Paradise can be experienced through Sunday, August 16, 2026, at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido’s museum.

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A legacy of creating beauty in San Diego.

This memorial plaque should be read by all who love beautiful San Diego. It’s set in a bench by the fountain east of Balboa Park’s Botanical Building.

Here’s what it says:

In Loving Memory Of RUTH C. SMITH

Known for her generosity and her Love for San Diego

San Diego can be proud of Ruth C. Smith for her work to preserve Kate O. Sessions and Mt. Soledad memorial parks; for her promotion of the ecology by the planting of 10,000 trees in San Diego Parks, and the beautiful poinsettia display at Balboa Park’s Botanical Garden from December 3rd to January 3rd.

As the founder of the City Beautiful of San Diego, Ruth C. Smith has left a legacy of beauty for all San Diegans to enjoy for years to come.

She was loved by everyone.

Will you have a similar legacy?

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Thank you to Balboa Park’s many volunteers!

Thank you to all the volunteers in Balboa Park!

What would Balboa Park be without its dedicated volunteers?

What is the park with its volunteers? Much more beautiful and amazing!

Today I noticed a crew of people beautifying the Alcazar Garden. I learned that in several weeks new spring plantings will be made. But the garden is always lovely.

Let’s all give thanks to the raking, weed-pulling, hard-working Garden Stewards you see in these photographs and the many other volunteers!

I encountered more volunteers busy roaming about Balboa Park picking up litter!

Check out the bags of garbage in the next couple photos. Those bags represent only one hour of work!

It is the generous work of many volunteer hands.

Would you like to volunteer, too?

There’s lots of different stuff you can do! No experience required!

Interested? Click here!

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Making progress on Balboa Park’s Central Gardens!

Today I noted that progress is being made in creating Balboa Park’s Central Gardens. Work continues to be done around the Botanical Building and along one side of the Lily Pond!

The new pergola west of the Botanical Building is taking shape, the grassy area around the fountain to the east is all dug up (as you can see in the above photograph), and new grass and garden plants can be enjoyed by park visitors in various other places!

Exhibit: Japanese American gardeners in San Diego.

A fascinating exhibit at Balboa Park’s Japanese Friendship Garden will soon be ending. It concerns the history of Japanese American gardeners in San Diego. You can view the exhibit through Thursday, January 22, 2026.

Composed primarily of historical photographs from the early 20th century through World War II and beyond, the exhibit shows how first generation Japanese immigrants, with limited opportunities, brought beauty to San Diego through gardening.

It includes a look at Japanese Americans held as prisoners in Poston, Arizona during the war and their efforts to bring beauty into an ugly situation.

Photographs take the viewer into the present with amazing gardens in Balboa Park and Japanese inspired landscapes in San Diego.

The exhibit is made possible by the Japanese American Historical Society of San Diego.

Pruning demonstration at Balboa Park rose garden.

Every year, in Balboa Park, around the middle of January, the public can learn to prune back roses. Today the San Diego Rose Society, Balboa Park Garden Stewards, Rose Garden Corps, and the UCCE Master Gardener Program of San Diego County were educating would-be green thumbs at the award-winning Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden.

I blogged about this free educational event three years ago. I noticed that this year a number of friendly folks were also on hand to sharpen garden tools! Very handy!

Why not click the above links and consider becoming a member of one or more local gardening groups. If you’d like, you can even volunteer to help maintain Balboa Park’s very beautiful rose garden!

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Art and nature at Paradise Creek Educational Park!

If you’re ever in National City and in the neighborhood of Paradise Creek Educational Park, you might pay a visit. I enjoyed a ramble through the park a couple weeks ago and found the beauty of nature and surprising public art!

I began at the north end of the park at West 18th Street and Hoover Avenue. That’s where I spied two gorgeous mosaic benches depicting birds and other wildlife. Near the path rose a silvery wing-like sculpture.

I then proceeded over a long curving bridge above the wetland. Arriving at the amphitheater with its shade structure (in the shape of the moon), I discovered colorful art tiles. Students from Kimball Elementary School, which is directly adjacent to the park, have outdoor classes here.

From the amphitheater I walked past the community garden and playground and on, until I reached the south end of the half mile, 6-acre linear park at West 22nd Street, just east of Wilson Avenue. I turned around, headed back, and discovered a flower-like windmill sculpture between the playground and community garden!

Paradise Creek Educational Park was an Urban Greening Project of National City. It was designed by Schmidt Design Group. The park has won multiple awards, including an Orchid from the San Diego Architectural Foundation.

You might enjoy a similar walk on a sunny day. You’ll spot some birds, too!

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