The Amazing Gardens at Cambria Pines Lodge

My very favorite part of our recent vacation to California was our time back at Cambria Pines Lodge in Cambria, Ca. In December of 2002 this lodge was our second stop on our honeymoon, but I due to cold and rainy weather, and my being sick, I hardly had time to visit the gardens then. This time around, I was in the garden before my husband was finished checking us in.

This is the front porch of the main building on the property.

Here we are in front of our modest room. The duplex cabin-style rooms have fireplaces, and even in August's summer heat the night's cooled off into the upper 40's, so we had a fire. To get this shot I used the camera timer and propped it up on a porch chair. Behind the rail of the small porch area we had a giant lavendar bush practically climbing into the window of our room.

The best part of the gardens on the property, for me, was the miniature houses. I liked these so much I actually started my own at home. Cambria nursery, around the corner from the lodge, sells the components they use for these houses. I also noticed, on the nurseries website, they have a class where you can make one these coming up in early October this year.

This one was my favorite!




Another area of the garden had this beautiful Agave. I was captivated, and later brought home a similar one from my aunt's garden.

Aloe? Agave? I'm not that good at the arid climate plants, but no matter what it is, I like it!
These interesting colorful flowers were growing haphazardly around a hedge of arborvitae.


A beautiful living sculpture, don't you think?

My husband's favorite part was the secret garden:

One of the many alluring paths in the secret garden.


This fountain was inside the secret garden.



A perennial heaven, still inside the secret garden.


I don't know what these are, but I'm in love.


We found a nice bench for resting inside the secret garden, although I could barely sit down b/c of all the sights and smells around me. This area did feel relaxing, and secluded, and a bit magical.


After leaving the secret garden I turned a corner and found the rose garden!





This one was massive.

Outside of the rose garden the colorful borders had me mesmorized. I should add, if you eat at the restaurant at the lodge, you can actually sit out in an area of the garden. This mossy rock here was a trickling fountain.

I could not be happier.

Can you believe the color here? Surreal, and beautiful!

Cerinthe:

A nice colorful groundcover? Gazania?

More borders.

Mix of hollyhocks, cosmos, and rose of sharon.

Another spectacular part of the garden was this bedroom scene, I'll let the pictures do the talking:

The mirror is a fountain. Yes, this place was that cool!

After romping about town, wine tasting, sitting on the beach, and shopping (more to come on that, b/c the shopping in this town is fabulous), we went back to the lodge and took a walk with the wine we bought that day. The rooms came with wine glasses, and bottle openers. :)

Sipping wine in the secret garden:

My view from the bench:


How lovely is this?

Back to my favorite again:

I bought my mom some of these chocolate cosmos at the nursery:

One more walk through the rose garden.


This is the front porch of the main building. I loved the mix of bacopa and hardy geranium.

Look at the salvia, nemesia, and more...

On the path back to our room we found this bottle brush tree. I had these by my house when I was a kid, and I hadn't seen one up close in such a long time.

And the sunset from outside our room:

Hope you enjoyed my trip to the Cambria Pines Lodge gardens. More to come on my visit to the town of Cambria, and our trip back through Solvang on our way home.

Happy Gardening!