Welcome to my blog! I no longer live at Sequoia Gardens and so my blogging here has come to a halt. However, the new owners, the Van Heerden family, have re-opened to the public after several months of renovation. You can visit their site at www.sequoiastay.com for more information. And although I no longer add to this blog, it still has a life of its own and will in due course form the heart of a book I am working on.
When paging through my blog posts, I suggest you click on the ‘Latest Post’ in order to see it full size! The featured posts are a series of often linked posts that help give the bigger picture about the garden, or those posts I consider to be my best. Getting them in order is difficult, so I suggest you flick through them before deciding where to start reading. My blog has always served a dual purpose. It started life as a way for me to share the seasons and joys in my garden, but it is also a portal now for visitors – both day visitors and those staying in the cottages. The tabs up at the top guide you to specific information and even to booking forms. But the site as a whole makes an organic, muddled trip around the garden possible, or a thematic one (looking at wild plants for instance, use the search block top right) or a seasonal one (via the monthly archives). Enjoy! 
JUST A LITTLE BLUE
I was not happy with the accidental make-over my blog received some weeks back, though I did enjoy the large format photographs. After too-ing and fro-ing these last days, moving between dark, hot schemes and minimalistic white ones, i have finally settled on something clean yet slightly unpredictable, with blocks of colour in unexpected places. The problem was that the main contrasting colour, pale blue, asked to be included in my header. 
Now. it goes without saying that expanses of pale blue in garden shots come from the sky. And that a long thin photograph which includes the sky, would include very little else. So what to do? 
The answer, I decided, was to create a collage of sky-y photos linked thematically. And the easiest theme to help me find suitable photos from their titles was the seasons. So I scanned my hard-drive for spring – summer – autumn – winter, looking for blue in the thumbnails. And I’m rather pleased with the photos I chose without too much time taken. 
A bit of cropping to get them of equal size, and the correct final proportions, and I had my header: spring from the big house; summer and autumn two very different versions of the exact same composition looking across the water from The House that Jack Built; and winter looking out from there too, but some 90 degrees to the right. 
And just in case I change it all again, I include the header itself… 
Sequoia Gardens 
you sound much happier.
The unexpected blocks of colour, as if we were walking around the garden, or among spring flowers as we were today. What’s that pale buttery yellow? (Going to work on my IDs later)
Happier? Resignedier rather 🙂 I was certain we had our buyers, lovely people, in early August. But they in turn were offered a disappointing price for their property and withdrew. So we are back to square one. And you?
still between, waiting for our ‘buyers’ to sell theirs. And another viewing tomorrow …
Splendio! premature activation can have undesirable consequences…like you I’ve my doubts about the Kelly theme and may be shedding with the autumn. Meanwhile SG through the seasons is great for first impressions
Thanks Laura 🙂 After a bit more tinkering (and yet more needed to fine-tune the footers and the front page), I must admit to being very satisfied. I have achieved the more interactive feel to the blog I was searching for. And I like the look!
Beautiful series of images, have a great rest of the week.