Succulents and More™

Last Saturday was the Garden Conservancy's first Open Day  of 2017 in the San Francisco Bay Area. Four gardens were open for touring in the East Bay (Berkeley and Oakland). I had visited two of them last year, including ceramic artist  Marcia Donahue's personal oasis , so I skipped them because my time was limited (and I already had planned a stopover at Annie's Annuals  for the drive home to Davis). Of the two gardens I did visit on Saturday was one in Berkeley listed in the Open Days Directory under the intriguing moniker Pseudonatural Freakshow .  Here is how it was described: My garden began as an effort to develop my yard as habitat for birds and other winged life, shaped by the natural spaces I love to visit. Though originally stocked with many plants that provide food and nesting material for birds, it is being filled in more and more with the strange and fantastic plants that catch my eye. I’ve tried to make a garden that feels like Nature is—if not ac...

Usually I don't wait until late April to get my springtime fix at Annie's Annuals , located in Richmond just about an hour from my house. But 2017 has been an unusual gardening year. Because of the impressive amount of rainfall following a historic drought, and a relatively cool spring with no unseasonable hot spells, it feels like late March or early April to me. With the planting window still wide open, I decided to stop at Annie's last Saturday to see what interesting plants I could find to fill various holes in the garden. But before I starting shopping, I spent quite a while admiring the demonstration beds. They are simply bursting with color right now. There was so much to see and photograph! And while most of the plants aren't labeled, the wonderful employees are always there to help. (People working at nurseries are almost always nice, but the folks at Annie's are in a different league altogether.) Looking at my photos below you might be under the impres...

On my trip to Palm Springs  in early March, Mariscal wasn't the only succulent nursery we visited. In fact, our second nursery destination was even bigger! I'd first become aware of Sunland Cactus Nursery through a blurb in  Sunset Magazine . Wouldn't you want to go after reading this? For most of the journey to this Desert Hot Springs nursery, you’ll be cursing the people (that would be us) who told you about it. You drive down desolate Dillon Road, whose undulations make you feel you’re riding a roller coaster, and begin to worry that you’re nowhere but in the middle of meth country. Then, at last, you spot it—a field of blue-green spiky orbs growing in 24-inch wooden tree boxes—and give thanks to the heavens. The short article went on talk about riding in a golf cart through "rows of containerized palms, agave, and euphorbia, all of them seemingly waiting to be moved from the nursery to your front yard." Brilliant piece of writing, Sunset! It's the ...

I live and garden in Davis, about 15 miles west of Sacramento and 75 miles east of San Francisco. We have a Mediterranean climate typical of California's  Central Valley (Csa in the Köppen climate classification system ), characterized by dry hot summers and mild rainy winters. I have figured out what to plant in the areas the get sun all or most of the day--California and Southwestern natives thrive here, as do many Mediterranean, South African and Australian plants and, of course, cactus and succulents. Gardening in the sun is the easy part. What's not easy is gardening in the shade. Specifically, dry shade. Our backyard is dominated by four 30+ ft. bay trees that cast deep shade. Even areas away from the bay trees receive varying degrees of shade, be it from other trees and shrubs or simply from the 6-foot fence that encloses the backyard on three sides. Add to that the fact that from May to November we go 5 or 6 months without any significant rainfall (and we try to...

Stopping by Mariscal Cactus & Succulents in Desert Hot Springs seems to have become a bit of a tradition whenever I'm in the Palm Springs area. This was my third visit; I had previously stopped in February 2011 and in  January 2015 . My Portland friends, with whom I was staying in Palm Springs, are fans, too, so our Saturday (March 4) began with an outing to Mariscal. The nursery is located outside the town of Desert Hot Springs on a road that seems to go on forever. Not far away, there's a field of wind turbines that seems to be bigger every time I visit (wind power is big business here). In early March, there was still snow on the mountains, which added a picture-postcard beauty.

Even in an average year with regular winter rainfall, our Mediterranean climate has five or six months with no precipitation. Our summers are long, hot, and dry. Even with irrigation it can be difficult to keep your garden look attractive in the dog days of summer. What it takes are plants that thrive under these conditions. There are plenty of resources out there that help you find these kinds of plants, but the information is scattered all over the place.  That's why I was  excited when Timber Press sent me this book to review: Pretty Tough Plants: 135 Resilient, Water-Smart Choices for a Beautiful Garden  sounds like the perfect kind of book for our climate--heck, for any climate where water is scarce and environmental conditions can be daunting.

In the garden blogging community, the 15th of every month is Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, a meme created by May Dreams Gardens . I read many Bloom Day posts each month, and I vow to be better about contributing, but my resolve usually goes nowhere. But this month it's different. Maybe because our garden is so vibrant right now, fueled by months of extraordinarily plentiful rain. Even waterwise plants love the extra H 2 O! Here's a selection of what's (almost) blooming at Succulents and More in mid April 2017: Calliandra × ‘Sierra Starr’, a hybrid between Calliandra eriophylla (pink fairy duster) and Calliandra californica (Baja fairy duster)

Writing this from my comfortable chair in my comfortable home that protects me from the vagaries of the weather outside, it's hard for me to fully understand what the intrepid folks that settled the American West truly went through. Most simply wanted a new place to live and raise a family, but a few went far beyond that. They built something extraordinary that would exist long after they were gone. This is exactly what an adventurer by the name of Cabot Yerxa  (1883-1965) did. He arrived in the Coachella Valley  in 1913 at age 30 years after having lived in Alaska, Cuba and Europe (he even studied art in Paris). He began to homestead 160 acres in the middle of the desert north of Palm Springs and soon discovered two aquifers, one a natural hot spring and the other a cold aquifer that still provides fresh water to the City of Desert Hot Springs. In 1941, at age 57, he began construction of what would become known as Cabot's Old Indian Pueblo Museum: The Hopi-inspired struc...

Sunnylands Center and Garden  in Rancho Mirage, less than a half hour from downtown Palm Springs, is one of my favorite public gardens in California. While botanical gardens are typically focused on showcasing the diversity of plants from specific geographic regions, the public gardens at Sunnylands are like a giant living canvas. In fact, landscape architect James Burnett was very much inspired by Impressionist paintings. It's all about light, forever shifting and changing; and about color, vibrant and alive. Patio of the café at the Sunnylands Center

It's been a long and tedious work week, but thank God, it's Friday! There's riotous color everywhere, but I was chained to my desk all week and wasn't able enjoy it. These photos are the best I could manage. Even though there's plenty of work left to do in our garden, it's rewarding to see little vignettes where everything has come together in a way that makes me happy. What more could I ask? Euphorbia tirucalli 'Sticks on Fire' and Grevillea 'Superb' in the front yard

At the end of March, the Butchart Gardens , arguably North America's most popular public garden, should be a sea of flowering bulbs. Not so this year. "There has never been a year where we have so eagerly anticipated the arrival of spring in our garden," Rick Los, Director of Horticulture at the Butchart Gardens, writes in the Spring 2017 Garden Notebook : With all the talk of global warming we were expecting and planning for another early spring, but in a humbling change of events, Mother Nature decided to cool our region off significantly during the past few months. That being what it was, the garden itself did not suffer any unexpected physical damage. However, in comparison to last year, our floral calendar is almost a full month behind. Reading this was no surprise. That's pretty much the case across the Greater Victoria area and across the entire Pacific Northwest. I debated whether I even bother to go to the Butchart Gardens but then curiosity won out. I w...

I've been into photography since I was a teenager. My preferred subject matter may have changed over the years, but I never stopped taking pictures. In recent years most of my photography has been focused on gardens and plants--both my own and those of others. This blog has allowed me to share my discoveries, and I've been thrilled by the many positive comments readers have left. I'm often asked for advice on how to take photographs, which I'm glad to give.  Every now and then somebody says I should write a how-to book. My response typically is that I don't have time (true enough), but in reality I would have no clue how to approach such a book. The "what" is the easy part compared to the "how!" Fortunately, I don't have to worry about that anymore. Why? Timber Press has just published the kind of book that gardeners and garden lovers have been clamoring for.  The Garden Photography Workshop: Expert Tips and Techniques for Capturing the E...