Election Section
A Few More Local Garden Events
After my March 12 Daily Planet article on spring garden shows, tours, and sales in the Bay Area, readers have suggested a mention of some additional events taking place from this weekend through May.
Fourth Annual Mountain View Cemetery Tulip Extravaganza
Mountain View Cemetery—designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, and final resting place of many notable Berkeleyans—hosts this event in its Tower Chapel. More than two dozen local “florists, garden clubs, and college floral design classes,” including several from Berkeley, have created flower arrangements featuring tulips. The event includes a “daily floral arrangement demonstration” and the cemetery grounds should also have beds of tulips in bloom.
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, March 27 through Sunday, March 29. Free. (Not far from Berkeley, at the top end of Oakland’s Piedmont Avenue.) www.mountainviewcemetery.org/tulip.html.
Macy’s Flower Show
The main Macy’s department store complex on Union Square in San Francisco has an annual flower show, where displays are set out both in the show windows along Stockton Street and O’Farrell Street and inside amidst the goods for sale.
This year, the 63rd annual event, the theme is “A Bohemian Garden.” That’s Bohemian as in Czechoslovakian. The displays include “an enchanted forest of manzanita, oak, maple and eucalyptus (and) a creek through the center aisle,” and go beyond flowers with promised “jewel encrusted eggs, butterfly rainbows, peek-a-boo fairies, richly colored peacocks and twinkling fireflies.”
Of course the purpose is to lure you there to buy consumer goods at department store prices, but what’s to prevent you from looking at the flowers with credit card or wallet firmly tucked away?
“Slightly used” flowers and plants from the displays will be sold off in Union Square as a fundraiser from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday, April 19.
April 3-18, San Francisco.
Annual Wildflower Show, Oakland Museum of California
UC’s Botanical Garden, Jepson Herbarium, and the California Native Plant Society bring hundreds of fresh-cut native California wildflowers to the Museum for temporary display in the galleries. Specimens are labeled for identification.
May 2 and 3. Museum admission required. www.museumca.org.
Merritt College Horticulture Club Spring Plant Sale
The sale takes place in the demonstration gardens at the Merritt College campus in the Oakland Hills, and has always included a nice array of plants at quite reasonable prices. It also benefits a well-regarded community college program. The sale features “Mediterranean, California natives, bamboo, vegetable starts.”
9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 9. 12500 Campus Drive, Oakland. 436-2418. Free.
Flower Show Update
We went to the San Francisco Flower & Garden show last week, and while the new venue at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds doesn’t have the spectacular surroundings or size of the old settings—Fort Mason, then the Cow Palace—it was still worth attending, with a solid array of plant and garden product vendors on hand.
The show was on the verge of ending forever, but several vendors said they were told during the show that likely buyers have been found. The website now announces there will be a 2010 show. (This year’s show also saw union picketing over wage issues). www.gardenshow.com.
