Napa Valley Furniture

Gardeners at play on the west coast

Located just 35 minutes by road north of the Golden Gate Bridge, on Highway 121 atthe southern gateway to Sonoma and the Napa Valley, the intriguing CornerStone (featured in the book 1001 Gardens to See Before You Die) is an essential first stop for anyone visiting the region, particularly keen gardeners.

Laid out like a mini Chelsea Flower Show and featuring about 25 installations designed by leading US and international landscape architects, CornerStone challenges traditional notions of the garden.

Each designer has been given about 165sq m to play with and left entirely to their own devices. The results are as varied as they are diverting; at turns whimsical, surreal and amusing, sometimes political. There's a flying fence, an enormous blue Adirondack chair and the rusted spine of a giant metal serpent slithering over a grassy knoll. Fields of pink, plastic whirligig (or pinwheel) flowers contrast with a tree trunk daubed in blue ping-pong balls and a garden of red poles.

More traditional spaces are filled with bulbs and borders or large agaves lapped by whispering grasses.

Mexican landscape architect Mario Schjetnan has designed a beautiful vegetable garden as

A Small Tribute to Immigrant Workers. It's set behind a striking red plaster wall inset with statistics that underscore the reality of California's food industry: 82 per cent of agricultural labour in California is Mexican and 409 migrants, mostly Mexicans, died in 2003 trying to enter the US. Half of them perished in the Arizona desert of heat and dehydration.

One of my favourite gardens, Eucalyptus Soliloquy, designed by Oakland-based Walter Hood and Alma DuSolier, is a meditative tribute to the gum tree, featuring gabions filled with bark and leaves, and fences twined from twisted stems.

"California is a land where everyone seems to come from somewhere else," the garden's plaque reads. "This installation celebrates one of the most beautiful of all immigrants -- the eucalyptus tree."

As an Australian I appreciate this chance to pause and consider the gum tree's incredible global journey (it was brought to California to provide wood for railway construction but proved too soft). And to drink in the sharp, resinous perfume of home.

I also love environmental artist Topher Delaney's Garden Play, a space of spare, minimalist charm featuring birch trees and balls of coiled rope set on white gravel against a blue striped wall.

San Francisco Trip – Homes and Napa Valley Vineyard Tours ...

Last week I was in the San Francisco area visiting various tourist sites and checking out the home and housing markets. I also had a chance to meet up with an old friend and get his perspective on the housing market. As the rest of the country, the San Francisco housing market is still very soft.

I also had a chance to visit a few vineyards in the Napa Valley area including Robert Mondavi, Beringer Vineyards, and Sutter Home Winery. I took the tours at Robert Mondavi and Beringer Vineyards and got inspired on trying to make my own wine. I?ve already made my first batch of ?Must? and am in the process of fermenting it. In a week I?ll rack it for the first time and transition it to a carboy for further fermentation and aging. I will rack it again three weeks later and then most likely bottle it in a couple of months.

While touring San Francisco I got to see a number of unique homes in the area and took a slew of pictures. Most interesting to me was some of the ornate fireplaces and interior trim work I observed.

I also had a chance to tour Muir Woods and get an idea and better appreciation of Redwood trees. They were absolutely giant and gorgeous. Some of the trees were well over 1,000 years old.

I also visited the Silicon Valley area and checked out some of my old haunts when I worked for a company located in the area. Not much has changed. Silicon valley is still filled with young high tech company?s looking to get rich quick, and add some value to the world ? in that order I must add. Traffic is still a snarl during much of the day and early evenings.

Silicon Valley traffic aside, the trip was great. I got to see a lot of the area this time without having to visit customers and deal with pushy corporate management. I can?t wait to visit again.

Napa Valley, 4th, Land of Golden Vines

Brands and their companies, consumer products and their manufacturers with addresses and phone numbers

Brands and their companies, consumer products and their manufacturers with addresses and phone numbers

The Napa Valley Book, The Insider's Guide for Visitors and Residents

California