Originally posted July 2013. Last weekend we hit up the SF Bromeliad Society’s super rad garden tour AND busted out the good old DSLR for the first time in almost a year. Brian Ransom’s garden was my favorite of the bunch. The mix of bromeliads in all shapes and sizes along with California natives, succulents and orchids is so so good.
Love the little pops of hot pink on the orchid (maybe an epidendrum?). There’s so much fun stuff going on back here. We rented and gardened in SF, so I really appreciate how portable most of the plants in this space are. It’s hard to bring a five foot shrub with you, but plants in pots aren’t so bad.
Gotta love this wild wall of bromeliads, which are perfect for vertical life as many are epiphytic (they live on other other plants and objects, not to be confused with parasitic).
One of my favorite blue California natives and bringer of bees Gilia capitata. Super easy to start from seed and grow in general. Love the Clarkias in the background, too. There is no California native wildflower I dislike.
Sweet succulents with a fun array of bromeliads.
Look at all those colors! We didn’t realize we could grow all these cool plants outside until we were seduced in to attended a SF Bromeliad Society meeting by SF Succulent Society folks (there’s a lot of crossover). Their website is a great resource of information if you want to do something like this in your own space.
Do I spy a hummingbird sage tucked in there?
Thunbergia blooms and Tillandsias chilling out next to each other. We’ve had way better luck keeping our Tillandsias (air plants) outside.
So many good things! I’ve always wondered about mosquito issues in bros, but didn’t think too much about it until I found tons of larvae in one of ours recently. I also keep fish, so I used a turkey baster, sucked some out and fed them to my fish (extreme integrated pest management). They loved it, so I went crazy sucking water out of all our bros to find more and couldn’t find any in our relatively decent sized collection.
Far Out Flora 