Berkeley Botanical Gardens

I got here Wednesday afternoon. I’m staying with a couple I have known since 1983. I’ve had breakfast and lunch with friends every day. Today, I went with Marta and her granddaughters, Bea and Sophie, to Berkeley Botanical Gardens and the marvelousness of this part of the world descended upon me anew.

This trip has reminded me that America is a beautiful country if you discount its human inhabitants. (The jury is still out on most of them.) California is a beautiful State with almost every kind of topography you can imagine (I don’t know of a glacier here). The San Francisco Bay area is the embodiment of California’s exquisite beauty in its current faded glory. The Berkeley Botanical Gardens is a poignant metaphor for the current state.

Tucked in the Berkeley Hills with San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean to the West, the Diablo Valley and Sacramento River Delta to the East, the gardens are a microcosm of California native plant life. Within a few acres is encapsulated a taste of nearly all the flora that is so abundant in the State. The garden is laid out in paths and meadows that, like a Japanese garden, provide a different view with every turn. The unusual weather this year however, enhanced I suspect by budget constraints, have not been kind to la belle botanique. The big trees, the redwoods, cedars, live oaks, and firs are fine for the most part. But the quaking Aspens have already dropped their leaves and the trunks of many of them are covered in a golden lichen. Many of the smaller plants look tired as if they/ve been fighting the good fight against what is normally a benign ecosystem.

There is still a feeling of abundance. There is still so much beauty. There are still surprises. It was my first visit, but my companions, who have been here countless times, were delighted by discovering crayfish in the stream running through the garden. As we were leaving an early fog rolled in curling through the trees and lowering a scrim over the landscape. Looking out over the garden from the parking lot entrance, listening to Marta talk of other visits in easier times, I hoped that the garden will recover from the current unpleasantness and thrive once more - that the weather will behave and resources will be restored.

Back in sun soaked Walnut Creek we got a no skimping on the butterfat ice cream at San Francisco Creamery before going back through the Caldecott Tunnel to meet more of Richard and Marta’s family for tacos at Cactus. A rich and varied mix of a day not easily duplicated in many parts of the world.  More pictures on my Facebook page.