The gardens are maintained by my colorful and knowledgeable master gardener, Terry Kelly, who is quite willing to share his expertise if you happen upon him during your visit. Terry has written the following tour of the gardens, which provides botanical information and historical anecdotes for many of the plants grown in the garden.



From the east side of the horseshoe driveway looking toward the house a climber grows up the fence to the eaves, the Tea Noissette rose Mdme. Berard 1870. (A gem from the fabled Vintage Gardens)

Clematis Prince Charles twines around the lower canes.
This is a durable, clematis that loves to bloom. (Twice a year, if you cut it back by 1/3 just before the spring bloom comes to an end.)

On the fence to the right, just before the Asian Pear tree, Clematis Tanguitica is beginning to spread. It’s from Khazakistan, China, and Tibet. Tanguitica’s old friend from the Himalyas grows on the other side of the tree; Clematis montana, a mountain vine that ranges from Pakistan to upper Burma. The montanas can easily cover a thirty foot tree.

Three low growing plants from the mallow family are in front of the Clematis tanguitica. They are Modiolastrums, with exquisite apricot flowers in the summer. They should cover this area soon.

The dark leaved shrubs in front of the English laurel hedge to your left are California coffee berries (Rhamnus californica). They grow in the hills above Berkeley. Another California native, Carex Tumicola, the Berkeley sedge, grows beneath the Coffeeberries. Sesleria caerulea, Croatian moor grass, grows on the parking strip in front of the Eugenia hedge.

Arthropodiums

The Comptesse Bouchaud


Camellia Lutchuensis


Lady Hillingdon


Gliore de Dijon


Phyllostachys aurea

Lonicera nitida aurea


Alchemilla pectinata


Cistus ladanifer.


Jasmine polyanthum

"It climbeth aloft
and taketh hold with its crooked claspers upon everything that standeth near it."
- John Gerard,
16th century herbalist

Campanula posharskiana

The bed to the right of the path to the gate is planted with Dichroa febrifuga, the Hydrangea relative from Nepal. Its roots can be fried with wine and used as a cure for malaria. “It should be used with caution.” (This advice could apply to anything fried with wine.) White Astilbe, Claytonia (a California native), Abutilons grow farther on toward the gate, with Impatiens mengtziana from China as an understory.( Extremely rare. Soft, golden orchid like flowers brushed with pale apricot. Go ahead, steal a cutting.)


Ballerina, (1937)


macropetala clematis Bluebird (1962)


Cornelia (1925)


Daybreak


Clematis Campanulata


Mourning Dove


Anna's Hummingbird


Western Kingbird


American Crow


California Thrasher


Cedar Waxwing


California Towhee


White-crowned Sparrow


House Finch

Abutilons

A tired swimmer in the waves of time
I throw my hands up: let the surface close:
Sink down through centuries to another clime,
And buried find the castle and the rose.

There are three clematis entangled with Mdme. Carrier, The Comptesse Bouchaud, Gipsy Queen, and Mary Rose. The Comtesse grows in Monet's garden at Giverny. The Comtesse and the Gipsy are large flowered varieties, and their pruning requirements often make gardeners nervous. Christopher Lloyd had the last word on this: "If you are daunted as you approach a clematis with your shears, think of surgeons, who, no matter what horrible mistake they may have made, retain their jolly schoolboy sense of humor."

(A note for any Clementarians who may have strayed down this path. Mary Rose is an old variety, going back to 1550 at least. As with any old variety, there are many forms out there. Purpurea Plena elegans, the one raised by Morel in 1899, is the best of them. I bought it from Kaye Heafey and Murray Rosen at Chalk Hill Clematis, growers who always hunt for that elusive, long lost form of an old clematis.)

The branch over the gate ahead is from a California Live Oak. The gate opens onto a stone paved courtyard with Camellia Lutchuensis growing in the far corner. It's a rare form of almost wild Camellia from the the Lu Chu Islands south of Japan. It has tiny, cup shaped vanilla scented flowers.

The small gold green grasses are Hakonechloa macra Japanese forest grass.

"There is a mountain called Hakone which is covered with thick woods. We could have only occaisional glimpses of the sky and Mount Fuji. Along the dark trail uraha gusa grew from the stones to light our way. We lodged in a hut at the foot of the mountain."
- Lady Sarashina, 1045.

Back on the path at last, on the way to the patio, facing the house, on your left is a bed with Lady Hillingdon, the tea rose from 1917, and the Hybrid Musk Bloomfield Dainty (Beverly Hills 1920). The grey leaved border along the path is Salvia perovskia , Siberian sage.

To your right against the cabin wall will be the rose Meg and Gloire de Dijon (the cuttings are rooted). Jane Austen and Robert de Diable grow there now. Clematis Louise Rowe will soon join them.


Grewia caffra

The hedge in front of them is Grewia caffra, the lavender star flower. The shrubs in front of them are Westringia. A colony of Iphion, the blue star flower, is laboring to fill the border along the path. Three or four more springs and we'll have a large colony.

Phyllostachys aurea, the notorious golden bamboo that can tear up a sidewalk, serves as a hedge on the west side of the garden. The small leaved shrubs in front of the bamboo are Lonicera nitida aurea, a member of the Honeysuckle family. Alchemilla pectinata from Western Hills rare plant nursery covers the ground in front of these, adding its chartreuse flowers to the gold in the hedge. Its larger cousin, Alchemilla mollis, grows in the bed of pectinata.

The South African mallow Anisodontea capensis is surrounded by Westringea rosmariniformis from Australia to frame the patio. The California coast is one of the five coastal deserts on earth. Australia and South Africa are also coastal deserts. That's why the Anisodontea and the Westringea are so happy to be here.

The shrub with dark green leaves is Cistus ladanifer. (Very sticky leaves in the summer, but beautiful white flowers that have dark velvet centers.) Halimiocistus wintonensis, a bi generic hybrid created by plants from two different genus, Halimia and Cistus. The small tree in this group is a Leptospermum. (I'm not sure which one it is.)

Against the west wall of the house bordering the patio is a trio of indestructible beauties, the 1926 Hybrid musk Moonlight, Clematis Alba luxurians, and Jasmine polyanthum.

Alba luxurians has a way of draping itself over a rose like Gloria Swanson on a staircase. It will upstage everything in this bed.

Another dangerous character inhabits the large pot on the right side of the deck stairway. Ipomea indica, a morning glory from India. This vine could cover the house if a tendril were allowed to escape the pot.

A lace cap viburnum,(Viburnum plicatum) is tucked in the space behind the morning glory. Exquisite flowers, with a white rarely seen in the plant world.


Dichroa febrifuga

The bed on the left side of the path has lace cap and oakleaf hydrangeas with Campanula posharskiana, from the Carpathian mountains where Count Dracul once walked. This bed will get lots of white Scilla next fall.

The sticks across the top of the gate are Yew branches. A neolithic iceman from 6000 BC found frozen in the Alps had yew branches in his pack fo be made into bows. The Druids used Yew branches for Divination sticks and the yew was one of the letters in their sacred alphabet.

Beyond the gate the pots on either side of the path are planted with the Hybrid musk Ballerina, (1937), the floribunda Nearly Wild (1941), and Freyoman, a German shrub rose.

The macropetala clematis Bluebird (1962) grows with the roses, as well as a few hard to get violets: Merlin, Rebecca, Duchesse de Parma, the fragrant flower that Edwardians wore on their lapels, Etain, yellow with a blue shading on the petal's edge, and a single white I obtained in 1987 from the legendary but cranky English Violet collector Richard Cawthorne, who sent me a packet of 500 seeds with a warning: "Due to the promiscuity of bumblebees, I refuse to guarantee the authenticity of any of these violets."

Despite my inability to stick to the subject we've finished the tour. I hope that you've enjoyed it.
Terry Kelly,
Gardener at The Brick Path Bed and Breakfast

Roses

Teas

• Lady Hillingdon
  

Tea- Noissettes

• Mdme. Alfred Carrier 1879 Tea Noisette
• Vita Sackville- West grew this over the cottage on the grounds of Sissinghurst castleMdme.
• Berard 1870 Tea -Noissette
  

Hybrid Musk

• Moonlight
• Daybreak
• Cornelia
• Bloomfield Dainty
• Ballerina
• Freyeoman
  

Climbing Polyantha

• Phyllis Bide UK 1923 (grows entwined with Clematis Betty Corning )
• English Rose
• Jane Austin
• English Violets
• Merlin
• Rebecca
• Cawthorne white
• Etain
  

Clematis

• Comptesse Bouchard
• Gypsy Queen
• Mary Rose C purpurea plena elegans 1550
• Prince Charles 1975
• Alba Luxurians veitch 1900
• Betty Corning 1933
• Macropetela Bluebird 1962
• Alabast
  

For bird enthusiasts, the following species have been identified in the garden at The Brick Path Bed & Breakfast:

• Mourning Dove
• Anna's Hummingbird
• Western Kingbird
• American Crow
• California Thrasher
• Cedar Waxwing
• California Towhee
• White-crowned Sparrow
• House Finch