Filoli House and Garden

I managed to find some time this morning to drive north on highway 280 to Filoli House and Garden. Filoli, which stands for Fight for a just cause; Love your fellow man; Live a good life, is a large country house built approximately 100 years ago with a traditional Lutyens/Jekyll influenced garden. Throughout the formal and traditionally planted 16 acres there are many columnar yew trees, brightly flowering camellias and rhododendrons, box-bordered roses, hidden archways, lots of red brick and magnificent trees including several Camperdown Elms.


May is a particularly good time to view the garden as many of their blooms are at their best this time of year. There are several well manicured areas, most notably the sunken garden of which the focal point is a rectangular pond. The borders are planted with delightful swathes of colour, including blocks of Aquilegia and Digitalis. Both these plants are known as being rather poisonous but the flowers of the former are apparently edible and were often consumed by native Americans.


I think the garden will look amazing in the autumn as the coppers and bronzes of the foliage appear but I am glad my first experience of the place was in the spring sunshine.

Hope to return some time...