On a recent trip to the Los Angeles area, Alex and I visited Descanso Gardens, in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains near Pasadena. We were accompanied by my friend Joyce,who lives in the area.
The entry garden, which changes with the seasons, was already showing an autumn theme, with sunflowers, pumpkins, and these bright red amaranth plants. Hard to believe that it was already September, with the sun blazing away and the temperature in the 80s.
Alex noticed a train signal and some tracks in the road, and we found a miniature railroad setup operated by some enthusiastic volunteers. So we all cllimbed aboard and took a lovely short ride through a section of the gardens. (That's me in the middle.)
The main part of Descanso consists of a live oak forest with camellia bushes growing in the shade of the oaks. In the 30's, Descanso was a big camellia plantation, and has many exotic varieties imported directly from China. The camellias bloom in the winter, so there wasn't much to see, but I loved the gnarled shape of the live oaks.
One area that was in bloom was the five-acre rose garden. Called the International Rosarium, this garden was organized by region of origin and contained more than 3,000 varieties of roses, including species, old garden, and modern roses. A rose enthusiast would go crazy here - there is so much to see. We just enjoyed the color and fragrance and views of the San Gabriel Mountains.
Descanso offers a guided tour in the form of a 1-hour tram ride that takes you around to the more distant reaches of the garden, especially welcome on this hot day. From the tram, we saw the California Garden, which included both native species and other plants that would grow comfortably on a chaparral hillside. The surprise for me here was to learn that the chapparal plant manzanita is in the same genus (Arctostaphylos) as our northern New England (and Arctic region) bearberry. We went through the Fern Canyon and then stopped briefly at the Boddy House, home of the original owner of the estate, where there was an exhibition of art and pottery for sale, and returned past a shady Japanese Garden.
After the tram tour was over, we walked back to the Japanese Garden, where there were cold drinks and Japanese snacks available, and enjoyed a California roll and some almond cookies on the shady deck of the tea house.
There was still some daylight left, so we took a drive up into the mountains toward Mount Wilson Observatory. Unfortunately, the site was closed when we got there, so we couldn't get out to the dome, but had to stop just past that knoll with all the antennas that you can see in the left-hand picture. There was an extensive view of the LA basin, but it was very hazy and I didn't even try to take a picture. It was very strange, that even though we had driven 16 miles, since the road was so windy and had so many switchbacks, we were really only about 8 miles from downtown LA as the crow flies. So on a clear winter day, the view would be something like this (well, probably without the decoration). You can see the buildings of central LA just above the helix part of the antenna. The right-hand picture is a view east along the San Gabriel Mountains.
On the drive back down, we took a different route that took us down Tujunga Canyon and past the Tujunga Canyon dam. Somehow I picked this part of the trip to ask Joyce about earthquakes, and it was a sobering thought to contemplate what it would be like to get caught in an earthquake on these narrow mountain roads with tons of rocks just waiting to fall on us.
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