San Francisco Botanical Gardens

The second Tuesday of each month is free entry day at San Francisco Botanical Gardens. Yesterday just happened to be that day so after dropping Ava off at school in the morning Lola and I hopped on the train and headed into the city with some friends for a few hours amongst the flowers.  

So much green

A little gardening

When you live in an apartment with no outdoor space of your own planting a garden becomes a little tricky. Our apartment building has beautiful shared garden areas so we're surrounded by greenery but we do miss being able to grow our own veggies, herbs and ornamental plants.

Today we decided to start a few little gardening projects:  Grow A Tree and Eggling Crack & Grow.

First let's take a look at the Grow A Tree...

Ok, so as the name would suggest this isn't exactly a "little" gardening project. Especially considering that we're growing Giant Sequoias and Coast Redwoods - two of the largest trees in California! Of course, they start out little but eventually our trees will be too big for our apartment and we'll have to plant them in the ground somewhere. Maybe by then we'll be living in a house with a backyard - fingers crossed.

Our Grow A Tree kits

Winter?

It's Winter here in California - although it seems that nature missed the memo...

While it was actually quite chilly here today, this cooler weather was uncharacteristic of the weather we've had recently and for much of Winter. A few days ago it was 21c and sunny. 21c and Sunny! That's like Winter in Brisbane. Winter in the Northern Hemisphere is supposed to be cold and grey; or at least that's the impression you get in Australia. For the most part, Winter here has been warmer than I anticipated. Most days have greeted us with blue, cloudless skies which, considering we don't have a car and the girls and I walk everywhere, is not a bad thing. A little variety would be nice though.

The trees seem to be really confused about which season it is at the moment. While walking Ava to and from preschool this week I couldn't help but notice the amazing variety in seasonal attributes amongst the trees.

Some trees have decided that Spring is already here and are covered in blossoms in varying pink hues.
The sweet scent of their nectar fills the air and the sound of bees gently buzzing by imparts a warm fuzzy feeling - although Ava is freaked out by the bees and she runs as fast as she can past the trees with blossoms!

Spring blossoms