Gaia On A Billowing Cloud of Life

There's a goddess in the garden, reclining on a cloud of flowers:
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The last of my Fling garden visits, to an artist/garden designer's home in the San Francisco Bay area.  A modest street of modest homes.  The garden we were visiting was not the only plant-adorned home on the street.
I looked over the street because there was a bit of a visitor-jam when we first arrived.  
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Next door:
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Across the street:
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The front of the Fling garden was wild with plants, color, and artwork.
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The driveway was full of stuff you'd expect to see at the home of a garden designer.
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Out front there was also a horrifically hacked Liquidambar tree--I would have loved to know the story on that.
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All the bright colors were what struck me first.
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The house was as bright as the flowers.
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The level of detail in the garden was high.  It created an effect like needlepoint.  Looking at the photos long after I left the garden, I saw so many things I missed in person.
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The garden might have appeared haphazard, but it wasn't.  A large ornamental banana created an anchor as a balance to the Goddess statue.
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Design and balance were there--they had to be to balance out all the color.
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 Plants could admire themselves in window glass reflections.
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This added another dimension of wonder--Alices everywhere, considering looking-glasses.
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And not just the plants.  We were all Alice, out of our ordinary world.
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The Yellow-And-Purple Corner, at one side of the homeowner's studio, heavily shaded.  The plutonium-yellow paint lit up the area:
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In the Yellow-And-Purple Corner, this visitor fit right in:
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 Colors, colors everywhere...
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...but not random.  Colors were carefully grouped to create effects.
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Bright, yes--but carefully, if boldly, placed.
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Beyond all the color, to me it seemed a very feminine garden, enveloping, embracing the visitor.  How could one not be joyful?   
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 A weeping conifer (Cupressus macrocarpa 'Conybearii Aurea', possibly) seemed to raise arm-like branches in greeting.
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The homeowner's artwork was everywhere.  I liked the glass table etched with plates and cups and fruit. photo kee7857_zps075645c9.jpg

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Flowers were a constant motif in the art.
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An archway of cast Brugmansia flowers.
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An elaborate arch as gateway
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There was a crayon sculpture in the parkway strip--ironically, it was beige, the only beige to be seen.
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 I liked the chairs on the studio roof.
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Lillies look down at the colorful pavement:Kee photo kee7939_zps131b7496.jpg

By this point in the Fling, I felt like this:
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However, the zest and joy of this garden revived me, and made me feel like Gaia on a billowing cloud of life. 

And that was my Fling adventure. More posts from other bloggers, and more information on the Fling at the link.
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Comments

  1. There is a lot going on here -- I like it! What is the artist's name? I'd love to check our more of her work.

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    Replies
    1. Good catch Alan, I updated the post to put links to the artists web site and to the garden fling website. They are in bold print.

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  2. Haha, it looks like an interesting, adventurous garden full of colours and ornaments. Nice to watch it, but afterwards closing my eyes to have a rest.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, after the garden, a big hedge of plain green shrubbery looked beautiful!

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  3. This is a wonderfully thoughtful post about a garden that I have to admit overwhelmed me to the point of tune-out. I felt much like you did at this point and like that piece of art depicts. There's lots I didn't realize, it did feel too chaotic to me. And...well...I just didn't particularly like the artwork.

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  4. You photographed a lot of cool stuff in this living collage of a garden! So much to see! I think that Boris and Natasha would look perfect in this setting, providing a nice infusion of white to this colorful place!

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  5. Wow, the color, the color! I love it all especially the cast brugmansia arch.

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  6. Nicely done Hoov. Keeylas garden is pretty hectic, but I like how you refined the views in your photos. I have a couple hundred photos taken there over a few visits, and these is so much going on it can be hard to focus.

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  7. Such a very creative garden.

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