Succulents and More™

Last weekend I had the opportunity to revisit the garden of landscape designer Mathew McGrath of Farallon Gardens and his wife Mali in the East Bay town of Rodeo . I had been there last in June 2023 . Back then, the garden was 1½ years old. Now, 16 months later, it’s 3 years old. but looking far more mature than its age suggests. That’s what you get when you combine design experience, smart plant selection, and fertile new soil. I took 150+ photos and will split up this post into two installments: the front yard (today) and the backyard (coming in a few days). The company van parked in the driveway sports two of Farallon Gardens’ designs: one symbolizing succulents, the other tropical plants. These are Mat’s primary design focuses. The company’s clientele is mostly in the Bay Area where succulents and tropical plants flourish side by side. In the three years since starting his garden, Mat’s plant preferences have begun to shift a little from succulents towards tropical plants, especi

Greg Starr needs little introduction. He’s an inveterate traveler and plant explorer, a leading expert on agaves, the author of many articles and several books, and a popular speaker on the cactus club lecture circuit. His contributions to botany include the formal description of eight species and one subspecies of Agave [ 1 ], three species of Hesperaloe [ 2 ], and one cactus species [ 3 ]. In addition, he is the owner and operator of Starr Nursery in Tucson, AZ. In 2021, Greg published the revised edition of Cool Plants for Hot Gardens highlighting 150 plants ideally suited for arid climates ( click here to read my review). His new book, Cool Cacti and Succulents for Hot Gardens , is a companion resource. It features 150 water-smart choices for the Southwestern U.S. and California as well as dry regions of Australia and parts of Europe that have a Mediterranean climate. In the introduction, Greg explains how to use the book and briefly touches on things like climate zones, planti

My main focus this past month has been on renovating parts of the backyard. The first step was removing a large Agave chiapensis , as detailed in this post . Then I dismantled the remaining two raised beds in the side yard on the north side. They were originally built for vegetables, but they’d fallen into disuse in recent years because growing vegetables in our climate requires a lot of water and effort – and the payoff often is disappointing. The soil in these raised beds was shockingly sandy. No wonder vegetables didn’t do too well. After I’d taken out the horizontal bed, I evenly distributed the soil from both beds to form a base layer. I had to reuse the soil somehow. The bougainvillea at the left in the next photo, a variegated dwarf cultivar called ‘Bambino Sophia’, is the only plant that has remained. It’s thrived on neglect for a number of years and has earned the right to stay. Then it was time for the delivery truck: Half a cubic yard of crushed rock... ...four cubic yards o