Monday, November 10, 2008

Tomato Flowers from Cornerstone Gardens


Tomato
Lycopersicon lycopersicum

(ly-koh-PER-see-kon) (ly-koh-PER-see-kum)


This going to be a least a two part post of my visit to Cornerstone Gardens in Sonoma, California. My first visit to the garden was in late 2005 and it has come a long way in getting established since then. There were several more galleries and gardens open on my recent visit. Since there is a definite agricultural feel to some of the gardens I thought I would start out with this Tomato flower. I don’t remember knowing which genus Tomato was in. Wikipedia’s Tomato page revealed that it is Lycopersicon. It also had a lot of other information about Tomatoes including that “the heaviest tomato ever was one of 3.51 kg (7 lb 12 oz), of the cultivar 'Delicious', grown by Gordon Graham of Edmond, Oklahoma in 1986.


Cornerstone Gardens is a group of about 20 different small garden galleries. Each garden has a different designer but about the same amount of space. The brochure says “this unique property creates a cultural and creative respite for the community which represents the true connection between art, architecture and nature.” That is true and a good description. This is the first (and I think only) gallery style garden display in the United States. It is designed with the International Garden Festival at Chaumont-sur-Loire, France in mind.



There are a lot of opportunities to nice get nice pictures. Since we had my little nephew with us I didn’t stay as long as I would have by myself. A couple or three hours could easily be spent between the gardens and the stores.


The gardens are right on CA 121 just before you get to Sonoma and are open from 10 am to 4 pm.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure if there is anything happier for me than seeing tomato flowers. Mostly because I know they will turn into beautiful red balls of juicy goodness, but you know, they are pretty! ;) I will be posting tomato flowers soon, as we are overloaded here!

Katy said...

I love the black and white photos.
They are very calming.

Unknown said...

I love the black & white photos. But what is that cactus-looking thing made up of blue-green balls? It's way cool, I just can't quite figure it out...

Digital Flower Pictures said...

I will say it again, misti you are very lucky to have a year round garden.

Hi Kim, That 'tree' was constructed out of what looked like giant sized ping pong balls. Quite unusual.