Succulents and More™

You may not recognize the word, but you’ve seen it in things like door mats, twine or brushes. Coir—pronounced COY-er or core , depending on who you ask—is the coarse fiber found between the outer husk of a coconut and the edible “nut” inside. It is sometimes called “coco peat” or “palm peat”, presumably because its color and horticultural usage is similar to sphagnum peat moss. The coconut palm (Cocos nucifera ) has been in cultivation for at least 4,000 years, not just for food but just as importantly for fibers, fuel and building material. Not surprisingly, coir has played an important role wherever coconut palms are grown, mostly as the raw material for rope and twine. Click here to read an interesting article on the history and making of coir. The use of coir for horticultural purposes is relatively new. Traditionally, peat ( sphagnum peat moss ) has been used to aerate and lighten heavy soils and to improve the water retention of sandy soils. In fact, many if not most commerc...

This post is of interest mainly to Sacramento area gardeners. Silverado Silverado Building Materials & Nursery in Rancho Cordova is having a big sale on all kinds of things, including pottery, fountains, ornamental and fruit trees, roses, and succulents. Succulents in 1 gallon and larger containers are 40% off, 4" plants are $2, and 2" plants are $1. This sale runs through 2/5/11. I went this morning and ended up with a bunch of stuff. Some succulents looked pretty sad (that might be the reason for the sale), but others were in decent shape. However, even the sad-looking ones should make a recovery once warmed weather sets in. Succulents are tough. There were just a few agaves and aloes—and the requisite golden barrel cactus—but almost everything else was echeverias, sedums, crassulas and other members of the Crassulaceae family. A nice selection overall, but many plants either had no ID tags (especially the small 2" pots) or the wrong tags. Most people don’t rea...

Today I received a promotional mailing from Google, presumably because this blog is hosted by Google’s Blogger service. I almost threw it in the recycling bin but then I realized that the paper the offer is printed on is not just regular paper. The mailing says: This card was printed on 100% recycled paper embedded with wildflower seeds. Plant it in a sunny spot with a thin layer of soil, add water, and watch it grow—while you watch your business grow with AdWords. Google mailing on wildflower seed paper; the dark specks are the embedded seeds Usually I’m as jaded as they come as far as advertising is concerned, but I must admit that as a gardener I was impressed by this particular twist. A web search—on Google.com, no less!—revealed that wildflower seed paper isn’t all that uncommon. There are quite a few vendors that sell all kinds of paper products embedded with seeds. Quite often the paper is recycled, which makes for a perfect green package. Among the products I saw on...

It’s late January, and some of our bamboos will soon start to produce shoots. Typically, the earliest shooting species in our yard are Fargesia dracocephela ‘Rufa’ and Fargesia robusta , two clumping mountain bamboos from China. These two are no doubt busy developing shoots which will soon rise from the ground like an army of zombies. (Man, where did that muddled metaphor come from?) Yellow Buddha Belly ( Bambusa ventricosa ‘Kimmei’) However, this year the first bamboo to shoot is yellow Buddha Belly ( Bambusa ventricosa ‘Kimmei’), planted in a large pot on our back yard patio. This is especially surprising since it’s a subtropical clumping bamboo that typically shoots in the summer and fall, triggered in its native habitat by the onset of the monsoon season. Maybe it has to do with all the rain we had in late December? Whatever the cause, this early shoot is a vivid reminder that bamboo manages to surprise even people who think they know a thing or two about this remarkable gr...

After a sunny couple of days, we’re back to the damp pea soup that has been the hallmark of this winter. We’ve lived in the Sacramento Valley for a long time now, and I can’t remember a winter that had quite this much fog. (I should add, though, that we live just a few miles from the Yolo Bypass . That’s why our part of town has more fog than North or West Davis.) View from my home office window this morning However, signs of change are starting to appear. The most visible harbingers of early spring are our violets. While in some parts of the country, particularly in the East, violets are common and often considered lawn weeds , they’re a bit of a rarity here in the Sacramento Valley. In fact, we were not able to find violets at any of our local nurseries so I finally bought some from Bluestone Perennials . They have developed nicely in the last couple of years and have not strayed from where I planted them. Sweet violets ( Viola odorata ) blooming in our back yard What ...

  M. Evelyn McCormick Cactus Garden, Del Monte ca. 1893 Oil on canvas Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA

“Brown-bitting” isn’t in your gardening vocabulary? Don’t feel bad, it wasn’t in mine either until I read the book Architectural Plants by Christine Shaw. It literally just means removing all the brown bits of a plant—dead or dying leaves, spent flowers and so forth. It’s something I do regularly, but now I have a handy word to describe it. Almost exactly two years ago we redid the far corner of our back yard, next our the Washington navel orange tree. This area is tricky because in the summer it only gets a few hours of sunshine in the morning, and maybe another hour (if that much) in the afternoon. In the winter the sun is too low to hit this area at all. We decided to plant mostly foliage plants, including several cultivars of lilyturf ( Liriope muscari ), Japanese forest grass ( Hakonechloa macra ) as well as two variegated flowering maples ( Abutilon pictum 'Thompsonii' and Abutilon x ‘Savitzii’). In the right-hand corner (not visible in the photos below) is a blue bam...

On Saturday we continued our winter pruning and shearing in the front yard. After finishing the area outside the fence, my wife and daughters tackled the planting bed inside the fence. While some people just let their perennials be, we prefer a more manicured look—fresh green foliage without last year’s dead bits—for this part of our garden. After all, that’s what we see when we look out the front windows and hang out on the front porch. Front yard on January 23, 2011 Right now, the planting bed does look bare and sad. But in just 4-6 weeks spring growth will start in earnest, and by early summer our front yard will hopefully look like it did last year. Front yard on July 3, 2010 Front yard on July 3, 2010 View from front door on September 18, 2010 I’m definitely ready for spring! How about you?

I’ve been thinking a lot about Southern Arizona lately, probably precipitated by the days of endless fog we had recently. Our weather is much better now but I still wish I could just hop on a plane and do some exploring in and around Tucson. Panorama of Saguaro National Park Photo: Wikipedia In December of 2007 I traveled to Tucson with my mother who for many years had been wanting to see saguaros in their native habitat. While there is much more to the Sonoran Desert than just saguaros, they are its most magnificent inhabitants and one of the best known icons of the American West. Saguaros ( Carnegiea gigantea ) are true giants. The largest known saguaro is 45 ft. tall, with a girth of 10 ft. They are extremely slow-growing; a 10-year old saguaro is often just two inches tall. It can take up to 75 years before a saguaro develops side arms, and it can live up to 150 years or longer. What’s even more amazing: Out of the 40 million seeds a saguaro typically produces over the cou...

I was at IKEA yesterday to buy a book case, and as is usually the case I ended up checking out the succulent selection. Even though most succulents are tough as nails, the constant handling by customers—who aren’t always gentle, I’m sure—and the lack of watering eventually takes its toll. Yesterday, however, IKEA had a new delivery of perfect-looking succulents. They were still on a rolling cart and hadn’t been set out on the shelves yet. I managed to extract a few that caught my eye from the cart. My haul from yesterday. Top: Gasteria x ‘Little Warty’ (left) and Sedum nussbaumerianum (right). Bottom: Sedum morganianum ‘Burrito’ (left) and Echeveria harmsii (right) Succulents at IKEA are $2.99 for a 4-inch pot . That’s a great price and a savings of at least 25% over what box stores charge for 4-inch plants. Their selection varies constantly and you never know what you’re going to find. That’s the fun part. Echeveria harmsii (left) and Sedum nussbaumerianum (right) Th...

I’m always looking for inspiration on how to better display my succulents. Here are some of the more intriguing container ideas I’ve come across on the web, ranging from the fairly mainstream to the mildly unusual and the outright wacky. Yucca rostrata , one of my favorite succulents, in a contemporary V-shaped container. ¡Me gusta mucho! Anybody know a local source for the container in Northern California? I have three small Yucca rostrata that need a stylish home. Source: The Seattle Times   Handmade in the Bay Area from at least 50% recycled steel, enameled in various colors. I find this über cool. Other designs on their web site . Source: Bilt Products   I’m a sucker for steel containers. If I had a local source for something like that, I’d buy one! Source: Earth Designs   Old filing cabinet. Actually makes a clean looking modern container and is much cheaper than a purpose-built metal planter. Not sure about the color though. Source: Bald...