Balboa Park

Balboa Park is an urban cultural park in San Diego, California, United States. It is named after a Spanish explorer who first set eyes on the Pacific Ocean in 1513. Balboa Park is a National Historic Landmark which is managed and maintained by the City of San Diego Parks and Recreation Department.



Balboa Park was founded in 1868. Its beauty owes much to the dedicated horticulturalist Kate Sessions who, in 1892, promised to plant trees throughout its 1200 acres in exchange for renting space for a nursery. In 1915 the park was the site of the city's Panama-Pacific Exposition, a world's fair celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal. Several of the Spanish Colonial-style pavilions built in that year survive along El Prado (the park's main street), and the animals gathered for the exhibition formed the nucleus from which San Diego Zoo has grown. Twenty years later the organizers of the California-Pacific International Exposition added more exhibition spaces around Pan-American Plaza. All these buildings now form a rich concentration of museums and performance venues.



Balboa Park is a cultural complex. Besides open areas and natural vegetation, it contains a variety of cultural attractions such as museums, theaters, gardens, shops, restaurants and San Diego Zoo. The park has museum exhibitions, plays, musicals, concerts, and classes. There are a number of gardens located in the park. These include Alcazar Garden, Botanical Building, Cactus Garden, Casa del Rey Moro Garden, Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden, Japanese Friendship Garden, Marston House Garden, Palm Canyon and Zoro Garden. Every year there are about 14 million visitors going to the park.



Balboa Park is adjacent to many of San Diego's neighborhoods including Downtown San Diego, Bankers Hill, Hillcrest, North Park, South Park, and Golden Hill. It is a beautiful and peaceful place. Stretching from Orange County to the Mexican border, the coastline of San Diego County has 70 miles of lovely sandy beaches, cliffs, coves and seaside resorts. The beach culture is sophisticated, and the sports activity is frenzied. Peace can be found at Batiquitos Lagoon, Torrey Pines State Preserve, and the Chula Vista Nature Center, which are all sanctuaries for coastal wildlife. San Diego is a wonderful place for holidays. Goin2Travel is a worldwide vacation rentals websites where owners and managers can list their vacation rentals and travelers can inquire directly and book the rental with the owner or manager. Search for San Diego vacation rental homes and many other vacation homes at Goin2Travel! Click here for Newport beach rental homes and more!

St. James's Park

The British are famed for their gardens and love of flowers and this is reflected in several of London's parks. Closer to the centre of town, St James's Park boasts some spectacular flower beds, filled with bulbs and bedding plants, which are changed every season.




History of St James's Park
St James's park began life as a boggy field next to a leper hospital for women. The site of the hospital has also come up in the world, as it is now occupied by St. James's Palace. Henry VIII(1509-47), who always had such a canny eye for property, saw the potential of this area when he acquired it in 1532. He knocked down the hospital in order to build a place, and drained the field to create a tiltyard and bowling alley, as well as a nursery for his collection of deer. Succeeding monarchs enjoyed the park and altered it to suit their needs: Elizabeth I (1558 -1603) staged pageants and fetes here, while James I improved the drainage so he could create a formal garden complete with a menagerie that included two crocodiles.



Along with many royal properties, St James's Park suffered during the Interregnum (1649 -60), the period between the end of the English Civil War and the Restoration, during which Charles II was in exile, and Londoners cut down many of the trees and burnt them for fuel.

Charles II rescued the park from neglect after he came to the throne. He acquired a further 36 acres 914.5 hectares) of land and had the grounds landscaped in what was then the highly fashionable, formal French style typified by the designs of Andre Le Notre(1613 -1700). One of Charles's lasting legacies is the park's canal, which was formed by merging some small ponds into one long stretch of waterway, and used to parade around it with his mistresses -- he was even known to swim in it on occasion. Such activities took place in full view of the public, who were admitted into the park for the first time during Charles's reign.



By the time Queen Anne (1702-14) came to the throne, the park had lost its grandeur and been colonized by prostitutes. However, it was gradually reclaimed by polite society and in 1814, the Prince Regent held a spectacular gala here to celebrate the 16th anniversary of the Battle of the Nile and the centenary of the House of Hanover's British rule. A Chinese pagoda was built for the occasion, but tragically it caught fire during the fireworks display, killing one man and injuring five others.



Many renovations and alterations have been carried out to St James's Park since then. However, some things have not changed. The park is home to several pelicans, which were first introduced when a Russian ambassador gave a pair of the birds to Charles II.

Rose Classes

In the wild, roses grow as shrubs of various height. If they grow singly among low-growing plants they are small shrubs in terms of height but have broadly spreading branches so that they take up a large space. If they grow at the edge of a forest or among taller plants the shrubs are taller, sparser, and have longer branches.



Shrub roses look gorgeous in a natural garden and can be planted singly or in small groups. They are perfect ornamentals which help to beautify residential mailboxes as well as commercial mailboxes. The rose shrub grows towards the light. If a rose grows among other trees and shrubs then its branches are very long, sparsely covered with leaves, and bearing only few, if any, blooms. The shoots weave in and out in the undergrowth trying to make their way to the top, to sunlight, where they again produce flowers in profusion. If wild roses, known as species roses, are planted in a site which provides the same conditions as those found in their natural environment then they will retain their original shape and aspect even in the garden. Though we find many species roses in gardens, chiefly grown are the cultivated garden roses.

The most commonly groups of roses grown in gardens are the large-flowered hybrid teas and remontant roses and the multiflowered polyanthas, polyantha hybrids, floribundas, floribunda grandiflora roses, climbers and, less frequently, also shrub roses. In addition to these there are further subgroups such as Garnet's roses, miniature roses and the like. The majority of roses fall into one of the following classes:

1. Hybrid Tea Rose
They bloom continuously from late spring until frost and display large, bright double flowers (usually one per stem) with conical centers. If you live in the North, cut their canes back in the early spring -- 12 to 14 inches; 18 to 24 inches in the South. Elegant-stemmed, they make ideal cut roses.

2. Floribunda
They bloom heavily throughout the growing season, displaying clusters of saucer-shaped flowers. Although hardier and more disease resistant than hybrid teas, they require the same treatment. They make an excellent flowering hedge.

3. Grandiflora
These tall, stately bushes bloom much like floribundas, combining that class's free-flowering, hardy habits with the blossoms of the hybrid tea. They require the same care as the hybrid tea.



4. Old Garden Rose
This broad class includes such southern types as the China, tea, and noisette roses; northern, winter-hardy types such as hybrid perpetuals, bourbons, and gallicas, and any rose introduced before the hybrid tea's first appearance (1864). The southern types require relatively little pruning or spraying. Northern types benefit from spring pruning of no more than one third of each cane and another similar pruning after the first flush of flowers.



5. Climber
This catchall class includes everbloomers and once-blooming roses. Carefully prune everblooming varieties in early spring: remove dead and diseased matter; retain new canes. When blossoms fade, encourage new flower grouth by cutting back the side branches 0.25 inch above the second set of five-leaflet leaves. Prune ramblers and other once-blooming types after flowering; remove dead canes.



When planting climbing roses, the size of the given cultivar must be taken into account. It is a pity to have to cut off healthy canes of prospering roses later on just because you planted them too close to each other. The minimum distance is 120cm, and in some cases even 200-300cm.



A lawn makes the best connecting element between rose beds and other parts of the garden. It not only makes it possible to admire the beauty of the roses at any distance but also provides the best microclimate for them. In addition, the outline of the house and even the mailboxes can be covered with climbing roses. ( For artistic and classy mailboxes to enhance your garden and your house, you may consider Mailboxixchange. Mailboxixchange is a distributor of high quality residential mailboxes and commercial mailboxes. They have over 1500 mailbox and curbside decor products. )