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I was recently fortunate enough to head out to Napa
to see the gardens, take some cooking classes and of
course, do some wine tasting! I was so pleasantly surprised
by the gardens that I was fortunate enough to see. First,
a fair number of the vineyards take their property surrounding
their tasting rooms and facilities as seriously as they
do their vineyards. Cakebread Cellars, owned by Jack
and Delores Cakebread is a perfect example. Delores
has done a fabulous job of setting up some wonderful
gardens around their vineyard, which not only include
wonderful views of texture and color, but a terrific
vegetable garden that allows their chefs to have fresh
vegetables and herbs for various functions held at the
vineyard.
The gardens we viewed in Napa had a wide range of styles,
some French influence, some English, but a good deal
have a pure American style (or perhaps Californian!).
The gardens visited included one designed by Jonathan
Plant, noted designer of many Napa gardens, which have
an English focus and include his signature blueberry
bush. Incidentally, I was intrigued by this bush because
of its offerings during many seasons, great foliage,
wonderful flowers, and berries.We additionally visited
the home and garden of landscape designer husband and
wife team: Freeland and Sabrina Tanner. Besides their
spectacular garden, tucked away in a nook of the town
of Napa, they have an exciting collection of garden
implements: watering cans, frogs, garden tools, most
that I would give my eye teeth to own! And what luck
to visit Molly Chappellet's garden, which was wonderful
(and incidentally, some of the best wines in Napa!).
For more on garden's in Napa, see Molly's book: "Gardens
of the Wine Country".
If you do decide to visit northern California, there
are so many wonderful gardens.But if you need a little
more than just the gardens, see it the way we did, by
taking a cooking class in Napa during May which includes
visiting these private gardens. We highly recommend
it. http://www.hughcarpenter.com/default.htm
We've included a few pictures to entice you. Click
on them for a better view...
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