Succulents and More™

At the end of December 2019 I drove to Tucson, Arizona and back. Here are the posts from this trip: Highlights from my 2019 after-Christmas Arizona trip Plant haul from my December 2019 Arizona trip Tohono Chul Park: one of Tucson's must-see destinations for succulent lovers Visiting Jeff Moore's Arid Adaptations Nursery in Tucson, Arizona Potted perfection at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Cactus Garden at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Colorful plastic animals at the Desert Botanical Garden Agave Garden at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

Christmas Day at my mother-in-law's place in Mount Shasta, about an hour south of the Oregon border. The mighty mountain the town is named after has been playing peek-a-boo: Mount Shasta (14,179 ft, 4,322 m) Mount Shasta (14,179 ft, 4,322 m) When Mount Shasta is hidden in the clouds, motorists passing through on Interstate 5 often mistake Black Butte for Mount Shasta: Black Butte (6,334 ft, 1,931 m) However, at 6,334 ft, Black Butte is less than half the height of 14,179 ft Mount Shasta. Rising up right next to the freeway, it's still an imposing sight. Black Butte (6,334 ft, 1,931 m) The town of Mount Shasta is in a picturesque alpine setting. However, less than 10 miles to the north, the geography changes dramatically as the conifer forest gives way to the high desert, which stretches east into Nevada and beyond.  As much as I like the mountains, the desert is where my heart is. This desert, any desert. “I succumbed to the desert as s...

2019 has been a very busy year workwise. Long hours chained to my desk have meant little time for staying current on my favorite blogs, let alone scratching anything but the merest surface of the bottomless sea of information available online. Fortunately, work slows down between Christmas and New Year's, allowing me to catch up on my reading. And since I love sharing, here are some particularly fascinating tidbits I've come across. Greenovia dodrantalis © rare_succulent on Instagram Unusual succulents are one of the 5 hot houseplant trends for 2020 According to Yahoo Lifestyle , “unusual succulents” are #2 of the “5 Houseplant Trends That Will Be Hot in 2020.” As examples, they give “jumping dolphins” and “rose buds.” If you're like me and have no idea what these made-up names refer to, “jumping dolphins” are Senecio peregrinus and “rose buds” are Greenovia dodrantalis . Greenovias, or mountain roses, are aeonium relatives from the Canary Islands. Looking at...

This year, I've published 106 posts containing some 2,600 photos. That number surprised even me! Granted, many of them are utilitarian—merely meant to illustrate something that happened or something I was working on. But more than half of them are actually nice, especially the ones from trips or garden visits. It's a shame their shelf life is so limited and the odds that they're viewed more than once are close to zero. With that in mind, I've picked 60+ of my favorite succulent-themed images that appeared in 2019 posts, essentially giving them a second chance to be seen. I've sequenced the images so there's a logical flow, either based on subject matter or location, or on color or texture. I hope you'll enjoy looking at them as much as I did taking them. Joshua trees ( Yucca brevifolia ) east of Yucca, AZ

Only two weeks to go to Christmas. That means two weeks and a day until I set out on my 7th annual post-Christmas trip south. Like 6 out of these 7 times, it will be to Arizona. What can I say? I love the desert, especially the Sonoran, and I need my yearly fix! Looking back at my previous excursions, I realized that I never blogged about a December 2016 outing to the Waterman Mountains  with agave guru Greg Starr , author of Agaves: Living Sculptures for Landscapes and Containers , and desert rat Ron Parker , author of Chasing Centuries: The Search for Ancient Agave Cultivars Across the Desert Southwest . It was one of the most memorable experiences I ever had in the Sonoran Desert, and the photos I took are too good not to share. Located about 25 miles northwest of Tucson, the Waterman Mountains are part of  Ironwood Forest National Monument . This is a remote area inhabited by few, if any, souls. The roads we took after getting off Interstate 10 got progressively ...

The wonderful thing about mail order is that it doesn't matter where you are. This is true not only for the buyer but also for the seller. Case in point: Mountain Crest Gardens , one of the bigger players in the online succulent business, is located in the small town of Fort Jones in a remote corner of northwestern California. Real estate is much cheaper there than in urban areas, allowing them to offer their plants at very competitive prices. Coincidentally, Fort Jones is less than an hour's drive from my mother-in-law's house, and this summer she and I checked out Mountain Crest Gardens in person.  Click here  to read my post about our visit. On online rating sites like Trustpilot , Shopper Approved , and Yelp , Mountain Crest Gardens has overwhelmingly positive reviews. Plant friends of mine who've ordered from them have been very pleased, not only with the quality of the plants but also with the packaging. If you think that latter is a trivial matter, you must n...

This is a continuation of my previous post , which was about the renovated bed next to the front door. The photos were taken on Black Friday, the last sunny day before a series of rainstorms that will stretch into the 2nd half of next week. I love the light at this time of year—warm and gentle because of the lower angle of the sun. The front garden is full of plants that positively glow when lit from the back or the side. This sight, from the walkway that connects the driveway with the front door, makes me feel good about what is otherwise an eclectic hodgepodge of plants: