Ruth Bancroft Garden - Walnut Creek, California (June, 2015)

The Ruth Bancroft Garden is having their annual sculpture show right now. We saw a few large-scale artworks getting installed on this afternoon walk. It was painfully hot this day—102 degrees would be my guess. My camera, with its tiny lens, struggles in the bright light of the summer sun. And the garden, with its crazy array of sculptural plants (never mind the sculptures, which are varied and plentiful—the plants are just as sculptural in my opinion), still alludes my ability to find a fixed focal point when I'm shooting here. Maybe it's one of those places that has to be experienced in person. Or I should try shooting people standing next to the plants to give the sense of scope.

Bear with the exposures and experience the textures.

Ruth Bancroft Garden - Sculpture Show

Sculptures in the Ruth Bancroft Garden, now through July 16th. Lots of sculptural surprises, and very excellent sculptural-like plants, as always.

Cactus - Ruth Bancroft Garden

I revisited Ruth Bancroft Garden today but last week's freakish and unseasonal cold spell has zapped the garden in a frostbitten manner. I'd say half the more delicate succulents and cacti are beneath tented plastic at this time. Now, if you like gardening, you'll actually appreciate all the nicely made wooden frames with clear plastic staple-gunned all over in dozens of variations and sizes, including a walk-through greenhouse-sized awning over the central succulent garden by the pond. But if you're a regular plant-lover who just came to witness dry-garden layout at its finest--wait for the temperature to regulate around here.

Here's some cactus that are doing quite well.


It's worth seeing throughout the year.

Ruth Bancroft Garden

It's hard to take a bad photo at the Ruth Bancroft Garden. It's like a combination dry garden/sculpture yard. Ruth Bancroft who's still going strong in her 90s, started collecting succulents in the 1950s and her interest blossomed into this three-acre wonderworld of rock and tough, drought-tolerant beauty. Plants from all over the dry world are thriving here within beautifully thought-out natural clusters.