A magical morning in March at Filoli

I've been lucky to visit many great gardens "at the right time": what, prithee, is the right time, you ask? That time is when everything within the garden appears to be at pitch perfect state of beauty--that and the light is somehow benign and diffused. To top it all off, hardly any one else is there. It's very much like  It is the state described by Andrew Marvell in "The Garden"--possibly my favorite poem ever. Such was the perfect day five and a half years ago when I visited with my partner, Jan, and my son (shown above with the wonderful Japanese Cherry). This garden ought to speak for itself in these pictures...so much so that I don't think there is much I can say until the very end...

 

I hope you enjoyed the stroll! I have often gone back to these images. I've visted Filoli many times--eight or ten at least--almost since its very inception. My sister in law Mary Lou Conant Callas brought me there as a young man a year or two after it opened. I once met the former owners at a Garden Club of America meeting in Hawaii, and had the pleasure of hearing them describe their childhood growing up there.

Much of the perfection of the place is thanks to Lucy Tolmach who was horticultural director at Filoli for as many years as I've been in Denver. She retired in 2012 and I've dreaded to go back, although I'm told it looks good (she claimed she'd trained her successors well)...

The garden's "golden moments" are from when it opens in March until June: it's quieter but still stately in summer and fall--and closes in the winter (I've visited then and it's pretty wonderful even in November or January). Perhaps one day another Lucy will appear who can take it that next step and extend the dazzlement through the calendar year: a tall order you say?

Creating a garden like this with this sort of perfection in the spring is no mean feat. The secret of humanity is that we continue to outdo ourselves (sometimes in ways we shouldn't: guns for instance).. I hope to live to have a magic moment in Filoli in August comparable to what I experienced in March! That is my challenge: let's see if they take it up!