By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Cambria, California, a beautiful little community snuggled in pines and coastal fog, about a four hour drive up the coast from Santa Barbara, feels like horticultural heaven.  Plants thrive in the area's gentle temperatures and moist air, and everything looks beautiful under that soft gray diffused light. 

But gardening here isn't as easy as it seems.  Cambria only gets about 14 inches of rain a year.  Strong winds topple the shallow-rooted local pines with regularity.  And they have a large deer population to contend with.  ("300-lb. gray squirrel equivalents", local garden designer Shana McCormick calls them). But we'll save how Cambria gardeners contend with these things for later posts.  For now, how about a small slide show?

The Butterfly Garden at the Cambria Pines Lodge

A scene from the Redwood Walk at Cambria Pines Lodge.  The pretty silver plant that is lighting up this shady vignette is Calocephallus brownii.

I love the way artists embellish their gardens, and Cambria is full of artists.  This is from the garden of artist Jeanette Wolff, and the crows now permanently residing in her garden are an example of her work.

Possibly the healthiest, happiest tree ferns I've ever seen, thriving under old oaks in the magnificient shade garden of Betty and Harry Pflaumer.

A great place for lunch if you happen to be in Cambria.  The Tea Cozy has "guy" stuff like ploughman's lunch and Cornish pasty as well as tea sandwiches, scones with double Devon cream, and the usual girlie stuff.  And everything was scrumptious.