The flowers are really coming in here now, the roses are just awesome this year.  If you go to the site, there are about 5 or 6 of the photos I took today.  Be sure to look at them in full size, you can almost smell them.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/westcoastimages/

Mmmmmgh, Virginia wants some roses

And how did you know I love getting flowers? That's one of the downsides of transitioning for me, is no more flowers. The sunburst rose is beautiful. As soon as my mother's gardens and my office gardens (tended by our receptionist) flower, I shall return the favour.

Dennis

The sunbursts are my fav.s as well. My mom had some in her rose garden 
I did most of the tending 

Without getting too smoochy
Isn't life wonderful.
The smell of a rose the look of a beautiful flower.

The roses are just starting to die off here (South Australia) and starting in San Fran, how do they know?

Thanks for the Pics

Cindy JAmes

Lovely, Kat, thank you.

We've been busy planting wildflowers: woodland sunflowers, Bleeding hearts, New England Asters, Spiderwort and not wild at all, just profuse, impatiens!! Our roses aren't very far along quite yet, although after our third 90 degree day in a row today perhaps they'll be ready to rise!!

Nichole

What a sweet gesture, thanks tekla. The blooms are really picking up around here too, in Southern New England, and I just love it. I picked my gf up from her job yesterday and brought her to see some flowering trees I saw earlier in the day, flowering plums I think, which were at peak. Silly me left the camera on the desk.

Very sweet!  Thank you Kat!

-Sandy

Ah.  I love Roses, especially Red Roses.

I wish I could grow flowers where I live.  Maybe I might just get some wildflower seeds and speard them around.

Thanks Tekla.

Janet

I love  the red rose.

There is a reason that Luther Burbank set up his gardens here, and why Santa Rosa is home to more unique breeds of roses (its a huge hobby here, breeding roses and developing new types) than any other single place.  Someone from Portland (ORE) tried to tell me that Portland was the 'rose city' but I told them that in my town, the rose itself was a saint.

But just about everything grows here, from roses to redwoods, ferns, apple, orange, cherry. and lemon trees (all in bloom now - many people hang sacks on their trees and put the fruit in them and you can just walk or ride by and take a few, I had some killer oranges when I was out taking these pics, huge ones, very sweet and juicy, right off the tree) - not to mention our grapes are pretty special too.

Ahhh... thanks Tekla.

Quote from: tekla on April 29, 2009, 12:23:35 AM
There is a reason that Luther Burbank set up his gardens here, and why Santa Rosa is home to more unique breeds of roses (its a huge hobby here, breeding roses and developing new types) than any other single place.  Someone from Portland (ORE) tried to tell me that Portland was the 'rose city' but I told them that in my town, the rose itself was a saint. (Santa Rosa)

I am actually related to Luther Burbank. He also developed the russet potato and a few other things. Some of the roses in my mom's rose garden were from starts of his  That's a long time of rose gardening. I can't remember if I'm the 3rd or 4th generation. My sister has a book all about it. I'll have to look at it again

He is much revered here (along with Robert Ripley (of Believe It or Not fame and Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts - who built a huge ice arena).  But the Burbank Gardens and Farms are historic sights.

i like ripley, though he did steal one of the lives i would like to live

Please don't flame me.
From total ignorance the ? thingy  (name is on my tip of the tongue, hate it) and Martin show in the 80s? had a running joke about the Burbank  place, theatre?, I never understood it, but laughed anyway (peer pressure?).

What does it mean?

Burbank appears to have been a remarkable botanist.

I love flowers.

Sorry Dennis you have been sent to male world. You are no longer allowed to have an emotion.


Cindy J

Those are all pretty roses. Mine haven't started yet. I have some nice tulips though. Dennis will have to stick to fishing. In the proper stated of mind fish smell better than roses. FYI, fish heads buried in the garden at the base of a rose bush are very good fertilizer.

Quote from: CindyJames on April 29, 2009, 06:07:15 AM
Please don't flame me.
From total ignorance the ? thingy  (name is on my tip of the tongue, hate it) and Martin show in the 80s? had a running joke about the Burbank  place, theatre?, I never understood it, but laughed anyway (peer pressure?).

What does it mean?

Burbank appears to have been a remarkable botanist.

I love flowers.

Sorry Dennis you have been sent to male world. You are no longer allowed to have an emotion.


Cindy J

Dan
Rowan

Dick
Martin

Rowan & Martin's "Laugh In"

They would make fun of the city of Burbank (where the Laugh In studio was located), mostly sexual innuendo, for it's somewhat conservative population (it was the height of the sexual revolution).

It ran from January 22, 1968 to May 14, 1973.

I always wanted to be Jo Ann Worley.

They say that Richard Nixon saying "Sock it to ME?" on the show is what won him the election.

Dennis can still have emotions, he just has to suck it up.   

-Sandy

QuoteI also wanted to be Goldie.  I still love her.



Sock it to me. 

Old Luther was akin to Edison, Ford, and Firestone (all of whom he counted as friends) in that with only a high school education he accomplished some pretty awesome work.

He developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 55-year career. Burbank's varied creations included fruits, flowers, grains, grasses, and vegetables. He developed a spineless cactus (useful for cattle-feed) and the plumcot.

Burbank's most successful strains and varieties include the Shasta daisy, the Fire poppy, the July Elberta peach, the Santa Rosa plum, the Flaming Gold nectarine, the Wickson plum, the Freestone peach, and the white blackberry. A natural genetic variant of the Burbank potato with russet-colored skin later became known as the Russet Burbank potato. This large, brown-skinned, white-fleshed potato has become the world's predominant potato in food processing.

That's from the Wiki article, and if you go to that site, there a picture of Burbank with a spineless cactus.  That cactus is still growing and about the size of a house.  I should go out and take a picture of it today for comparison.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Burbank

The town, Burbank, was not named after Luther, but after a dentist, and is home to some of the major sound stages including Warner Bros. Entertainment, NBC Universal, The Walt Disney Company, Viacom, and PBS.  They built a lot of them there because its right up against Griffith Park (the largest single filming site in the world) and Hollywood.

The running joke on Laugh-In as I remember was about 'beautiful downtown Burbank, because there really is no downtown there.

As for Goldie, never met her, but I did play with her grandkid one afternoon at the Fillmore when mom was there with the then husband (and dad) Chris Robinson of the Black Crows -

And that's thread drift.