May 2026 Garden Tour – The Christensen’s at 416 Costa Mesa St.
Welcome to our garden! Our guided tours will start at the front gate at 9:15 and 10:15. Some of our plants have sharp edges, so please use care if you need to touch something. We have snacks on the deck in back. We have on the deck a one-plant-per-person selection of cuttings and seedlings from our garden for you to take home. First come first served, and one per person please. We also have a gift for all of our fellow Master Gardeners: homemade jam. blackberry, blueberry and raspberry. Please find them on the deck and help yourself to ONE!
The bathroom is off the hallway past the kitchen, on the left.
Our garden was started in 1986 and has evolved a lot since then. All of the larger and obviously older plants are between 30 and 40 years old. Many were grown from seeds or seedlings. Many are not found in any retail nursery, are grown only by collectors, are often rare in cultivation and endangered in the wild. Many were rescued from the plow where coffee, bananas and cattle grow now. Collection can be conservation. Ask Kelly.
Our palms are easy to maintain, they provide the type of filtered sun we prefer for the understory plants, they are somewhat drought tolerant, they remind us of Kim’s home in Hawaii – and the bees love the flowers.
The other main and obvious feature is the large number of cycads, known generically to most as sago palms. Not related at all to palms, cycads are gymnosperms (naked seed) that date back in approximately their current form to about 300 MYA, before the dinosaurs. Green cycads are understory and blue cycads are full sun.
The petrified wood logs and slabs in the front and back yards date from about 200 MYA. Quartz and other minerals have replaced the wood. They were collected in Arizona and were a species of a pine tree relative. A piece of petrified cycad stem is on the deck.
Some of our plants and objects have stories to tell. Use the QR codes where you find them to get their stories, and why we enjoy them.
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