Living

In contrast to what we normally think of San Francisco, there is a quiet little garden that continually draws tourists and locals to enjoy its surprises. The Japanese Tea Garden at Golden Gate Park is only minutes from the crowded sidewalks and clanging trolleys of downtown, yet it offers a moment of solitude and reflection once you enter its gates.

Q. Is there an easy-to-grow edible green that I can plant now and grow year-round? — Beverly Delauer, Cambria

Don and Lee Anna O’Daniel know a thing or two about kitchen remodels — in part because they have undergone their own. After four years of work and wait, the couple has finally opened the newly-expanded showroom for their business, San Luis Kitchen Company.

Getting to the beach at Jade Cove is hard enough — one bad slip on the cliff and it’s game over. But for jade divers like Drew Arnold, it’s just one of many hazards one can encounter while seeking the ornamental stone in Big Sur.

Sigmund Freud and others involved with dream interpretation could have a field day with Philip Carey’s current exhibits at two venues. His work largely consists of sketches and stories about his bizarre dreams.

Some retirees find comfort in the familiar, while others crave a fresh start. When Mike and Marie Preach retired from their careers as educators, their choice fell somewhere in between.

Q. Are Indian walking sticks considered pests in the garden? - Rhonda Kohler, San Luis Obispo

There’s no shortage of advice in the world — as any trip to a bookstore’s self-help section will prove. Yet, not everyone takes advice the same way.

David Einung’s window shots make San Luis Obispo look like a foreign city on arainy day. As if in a dream, images appear transparent; a mishmash of objects and people seem superimposed.

When Philip Carey studied Exhibit Design at Long Beach State College, he never dreamt that he’d become an artist. But since his retirement 2-1/2 years ago, he has produced three volumes of Dream Books, with cartoonlike drawings based on his “numerous, vivid and wacky dreams.”

Q. What should I be doing in the garden in February? Is it time to cut back perennials and shrubs? — Sharon Connors, San Luis Obispo

John and Robin Godfrey moved to San Luis Obispo County in 1997, not for its beaches or wineries, but for its favorable growing conditions.

In 1870, brothers Israel and Thomas Gamlin decided to build a cabin in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains.

January Blues at the Cambria Allied Arts Association’s showroom could reflect the letdown following the holidays, the cold weather, or simply pay homage to such artists as Picasso, Degas and O’Keeffe, who went through their “blue” period.

In 2000, wine enthusiasts Scott and Bobbi Stelzle fulfilled a longstanding dream when they purchased Rancho Las Tablas, a 10-acre barley farm in Templeton. Three years later, they were planting their first syrah and petite syrah vines.

January means different things to different people.

A pod of frolicking dolphins heralded our arrival at New Zealand’s wild and wonderful South Island.

Pastel instructor Patricia Reichert encourages her students to paint subjects that they love, knowing that they’ll then do their best work.

I had never heard of Longwood Gardens just west of Philadelphia before visiting relatives in New Jersey last summer. They knew of my interest in gardens and said, “We have somewhere to take you that you won’t believe!”

Named for the series of mountains visible in the distance, Garden of the Seven Sisters occupies a gently sloping half-acre adjacent to the University of California Cooperative Extension office. The garden is designed and maintained as a living classroom and working laboratory to teach the home gardener sustainable, science-based gardening practices.