As I was driving back from a Jackcheese and Motlah East Alhambra cache extravaganza, I was listening to some Beatles music on the radio. At a crucial moment, I caught Paul McCartney signing his “ Come And Get It”, recorded at Abbey Road Studios on July 24, 1969. The song was given to the band Badfinger and featured in the movie, "The Magic Christian," which starred Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr.
I was in front of Arlington Garden at the time, where I had meant to stop for a while. Inspired, I rushed out and set up this cache.
Garden designer Mayita Dinos laid out the garden on a gentle knoll in two segments: Mediterranean and California with outdoor "rooms." This garden opened July 16, 2005 and has grown and evolved in leaps and bounds since then.
When it opened, there were about 12 trees. Since then 300 trees and 3,000 plants have been planted. There's an olive allée, a young orange grove, a lavender garden, California poppies, lavender garden, oak trees, birdhouses, walkways and even an arroyo fashioned to catch the water during the winter.
The garden is on the grounds of the former Durand home, a 50-room, 17,000-square-foot French chateau built in 1905 and razed in the 1960s. The land was purchased by Caltrans as a construction staging area (for the 710 freeway extension I presume) but they finally gave up the ghost. Why the house was razed is a story I would like to hear.
The cache is a small Altoids tin, in a v-shaped crevice between two flat top rocks, under two small stones.