Ruth Bancroft Garden Visit

The Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek, CA is the land of giant succulents. Planted 40 years ago after the walnut trees died in a working orchard, today’s specimens span many varieties and ages. Handy tables underneath expansive shade, winding paths around islands of cacti and human-scale sculptures hidden everywhere make this garden far more private and intimate than other similar undertakings.

If I was a good tour guide I would show you photos of the grounds for a sense of scale and the variety of the cacti. Garden Bloggers Fling and Far Out Flora have done a great job of the first. Master Gardner Betty Holmer and Danger Garden show you the second.

What I’m really excited about is how incredible these plants look in variety of pattern and elements of form: