Succulents and More™

«   Back to  January—March  |  April—June  |   July —September Continuing the year in review... ⬐ OCTOBER I finally had the opportunity to visit the garden of my  Sacramento-area plant friend Theresa . I was blown away by the size of her property (2 acres), the Southwest architecture of her house, and the many creative touches in her garden. New Mexico or Sacramento? Open door in the front garden, just because

«   Back to January—March  | April—June Continuing the year in review... ⬐ JULY Back to the Ruth Bancroft Garden   for a change of scenery. It's an easy 60-minute drive, and the therapeutic value is priceless. Leucadendron 'Ebony' next to a large Agave ovatifolia Erythrina × bidwillii and Agave montana

«   Back to January—March Continuing the year in review... ⬐ APRIL In April we were sheltering in place. Many people were transitioning to working at home, but since I've been working at home for years, my work routine wasn't affected. In the midst of all the confusion, the garden became even more of a a sanctuary. Vriesea fosteriana 'Red Chestnut' Side yard

Hindsight is 2020. A bad pun, I know, but I've been wanting to say it all year. And now that I've indulged myself, I won't say it again. I want to take this opportunity to review what 2020 had in store for me as far as gardening and plants were concerned. Garden visits and opportunities to hang out with fellow plant nerds were few and far between, but as far as our plants were concerned, 2020 was just another year with a long dry summer and a dry fall.  Originally, I'd planned to do one consolidated year-in-review post, but to my surprise I had more ground to cover than I'd expected. To keep the number of photos manageable, I'm going to cover one quarter per post, for a total of four installments. ⬐ JANUARY January was the beginning of aloe season. Ours were just starting ... Our aloes getting ready to flower but the aloes in John Miller's Oakland garden were in full bloom when I visited him at the end of the month:

We spent Christmas with my mother-in-law in Mount Shasta, in the mountains of northern California near the Oregon border. The days before Christmas were sunny and dry, but on Christmas morning it started to snow. The timing couldn't have been more perfect!  While I did venture outside to take the photos for this post, this is the view from my mother-in-law's large living room window: Western redcedars ( Thuja plicatilis ) with falling snow

In our climate, fall is a great time for planting. Since our winters are mild, the soil never freezes and roots can continue to grow over the winter, albeit slowly.  Because of COVID-19, we've had far fewer in-person plant sales this fall, but I still managed to accumulate a stash of plants begging to be put in the ground. Here's a photographic record of what I've done in recent weeks. RIGHT: Aloe ferox × capitata The aloe on the right in the photo above and below is a new acquisition from Rancho Soledad Nursery . It's a hybrid between Aloe ferox and Aloe capitata . The flowers aren't open yet but I think the color will be a creamy yellow. The plant itself already has the beginnings of a trunk (inherited from the Aloe ferox parent). RIGHT:  Aloe ferox × capitata

In September, I had the opportunity to visit Rancho Soledad Nursery in North San Diego County. Founded by legendary plantsman Jerry Hunter in 1954, Rancho Soledad has been a pioneering force in the California nursery industry for over half a century. Rancho Soledad was one of the first nurseries in the world to establish its own in-house tissue culture lab to produce landscape-worthy plants on a large scale. Popular agave hybrids like 'Blue Glow' and 'Blue Flame' are just two of their many introductions. Rancho Soledad Nursery is located outside the small town of Rancho Santa Fe , about 10 miles inland from the coast. The sprawling nursery is at the end of Aliso Canyon Road in a rural area increasingly dominated by multi-million-dollar houses on large lots. For a cool $20 million you can buy this 16½ acre ranch three miles away! I bet San Diego County looked very different when Jerry Hunter bought the property in 1960. I got a personal tour of the nursery grounds by ...

Finally, after months of waiting, we have what I would call rain. Not a gully washer, but more than the feeble drizzle we had a few weeks ago. It's a steady light rain that washes off the dust left by a long summer and soaks into the ground instead of running into the gutter. We need many more days of this to make a difference, but at least it's a start. Another benefit of rain: plants begin to glisten and take on super saturated hues. Here's what I saw during a quick wander: Aloe  'Christmas Carol', its loud colors popping even more

The year is almost over, and it's high time for another × Mangave roundup. Previously, I attempted to list all mangave varieties in cultivation. This year, I'm going to focus only on the ones currently growing in our garden. In this post , I proclaimed 2018 to be the “Year of the Mangave.” Since then, the love children between two closely related succulent genera,  Agave and Manfreda , have become even more popular and are now on the verge of entering the mainstream. My original post  gives a comprehensive overview of the novel genus × Mangave . In a nutshell, mangaves have evolved from naturally occurring hybrids (such as 'Macho Mocha' and 'Rio Verde') to man-made novelties (the ever popular 'Bloodspot') to commercially viable ornamentals (the successful “Mad About Mangave” introductions by  Walters Gardens ). × Mangave  'Mission to Mars' (lower right) getting along very well will all kinds of plants in our front garden This development was ...

I rarely take photos of the backyard because I'm perennially dissatisfied with it. Granted, there are areas I like, but as a whole, it's never come together the way the front yard has. The reason is simple: dry shade. There's a lot of it because of the way the lot is oriented; our next-door neighbor's house; and four mature California bay trees ( Umbellularia californica ) with a canopy so dense, it sucks up all the light. How I've tried to deal with dry shade, that's a topic for a separate post. For now, suffice it to say that I haven't been very successful. Still, here's a collection of photos I took earlier today just to prove to myself that there are things worth showing. This is our lone contestant in the fall color contest, a Chinese pistache ( Pistacia chinensis ). The Chinese pistache is indeed related to the pistachio ( Pistacia vera ) as well as the turpentine tree ( Pistacia terebinthus ).

 There are a lot of things you can give a gardener for the holidays—from the humorous to the practical—but what's better than inspiration in the form of a book? I'm a big fan of books, the old-fashioned printed kind, and I love giving and receiving them. Fortunately for all us, there seems to be no shortage of books relating to gardens, gardening, and plants. Just a take a look at Amazon's landing page for Gardening & Landscape Design !  For better or for worse, there are so many books out there, it can be downright difficult to choose. I'll have a separate post soon with some recommendations, but let's jump right to the top of my list. If you buy only one gardening-related book this year, make it Fearless Gardening by Loree Bohl. Fearless Gardening  won't officially come out until January 5, 2021so you can't give it as physical gift for the holidays. But you could make up a gift certificate for your favorite gardening friends and relatives. That way th...

With any luck, we'll never see another year like 2020 in our lifetimes, but even amidst all the chaos and uncertainty there's a lot to be thankful for. On that note, HAPPY THANKSGIVING to y'all. Enjoy the day with your loved ones, whether in person or virtually, and, above all, stay healthy.

I find it hard to accept the fact that it's almost Thanksgiving. What a strange year it's been. Sometimes it seems like we've been stuck in 2020 for an eternity, and yet at other times, it feels like time has flown by even faster than usual.  We had a little rain last week (emphasis on little ), and while it wasn't enough to soak the soil, it did wash away the worst of the surface grime. A good opportunity to take a look at some of my favorites in the front garden! Entrance to the front garden. I still can't believe these ponytail palms ( Beaucarnea recurvata ) are taller than the garage roof now!

With a couple of exceptions, most of my recent posts have focused on other gardens. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, especially considering how special my most recent visits have been (ample proof: Casper's and Daryl's garden , Justin's and Max's garden ,  Kay's garden , Piece of Eden , and Hidden Agave Ranch ).  But after a long summer lull, things are picking up in our own garden. Some developments are me springing into action, others are just nature doing its thing. In the latter category, many aloes are responding to the noticeably cooler nights by taking on reddish and purplish hues. Here are some photos taken over the weekend: Aloe 'Yemeni Gold' (far left, still green), Aloe excelsa  (tomato soup red), Yucca 'Bright Star' (its usual color and obviously not an aloe), and Aloe marlothii  (lavender gray)

As I said in part 1 of this post , Casper and Daryl's hillside garden in Oakland would be impressive enough if it only consisted of the lower portion. But there was a lot more to come.  As I was climbing the stairs, I had no clear idea what I would see. Frankly, that's my favorite way of experiencing a garden I'm visiting for the first time: with no expectations and no preconceived ideas. The less I know ahead of time, the more exciting it becomes; there's always time to find out more later on. On that note, let's start a few steps up from where part 1 left off: As you know, I'm not biggest fan of  Agave americana , but this specimen is magnificent. It might be the variety  expansa , the largest of the species.

 All of us occasionally hear talk of very special gardens almost too good to be true.  “Have you been to so-and-so's garden? It's really something!” “You haven't seen so-and-so's garden? You must go!” “I can't believe you haven't visited so-and-so's garden. It's unreal!” A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit one of these gardens thanks to my friend Mat McGrath . He introduced me to Casper Curto who created the garden with his partner Daryl Ducharme. As it turns out, Casper and Daryl live just a few miles from my friends Justin and Max, and they all know each other (we went over to Justin's and Max's garden afterwards). Proof that it's a small world and that there's quite a network of gardeners and plant enthusiasts in the Bay Area. Justin, Max, and Casper in front of Casper and Daryl's Oakland house Casper and Daryl live in a hilly part of Oakland, and their property slopes up from the house. I had assumed that their lot wa...

This post is both of a source of sadness and excitement for me. Why? Because we're losing another clumping bamboo, leaving just two. That's a considerable decrease since the early days of this blog when it was called “Bamboo and More.” I still love bamboo, but since our garden is so small, every square foot matters—and bamboo takes up a significant chunk of real estate. Since Monday was curbside yard waste pickup here in Davis, I decided to use the weekend to remove the clump of Asian lemon bamboo ( Bambusa eutuldoides 'Viridivittata') in the front yard: It's been a huge presence in this spot for many years:

In  part 1  of my visit to Justin's and Max's Oakland garden I showed the plantings in front of the house. This post is about the back garden.  While the front garden is more of a square, the back garden is a long rectangle along the side of the house, maybe a bit over 1,000 sq.ft. in size. But don't let that description fool you. What this area lacks in size it more than makes up for in visual impact.  As I mentioned before, Max is a horticulturist with a deep plant knowledge—an access to wealth of plant sources. Justin, an Episcopalian priest, may not be a plant professional, but he, too, knows a ton about plants. Both of them are drawn to plants that are anything but ordinary. This post is living proof. Iochroma  'Royal Blue' from Annie's Annuals. Iochromas are shrubs or small trees native to South America where they grow in relatively moist forest conditions. That explains why I've failed miserably trying to grow them in our garden in Davis.

Last weekend, I finally had the opportunity to visit the garden of my friends Justin and Max in Oakland. I'd long followed the garden's evolution—and its plant and animal inhabitants—on Max's and Justin's  Instagram pages. Seeing their garden in person was a bit like déjà vu, but there were still plenty of surprises. The biggest was how mature the plantings were, considering the garden is only 3 years old. There is no automatic irrigation system so everything is hand-watered; Max says even that isn't as regular as it could or should be. The mild Oakland climate definitely helps speed things along! Max is a professional horticulturist working for a large landscape construction company, and his and Justin's garden masterfully combines their personal favorites. As I was driving down their street, I knew immediately which property was theirs since no other house had a garden like theirs. (Their next-door neighbor gave them permission to plant up their front yard so...

When I visited Piece of Eden a few weeks ago, garden blogger Hoover Boo took me to see her friend Kay who lives a few streets away--a repeat of what we'd done in December 2017 . Kay and her husband bought their ¾ acre hillside property in the 1970s. Things have changed tremendously since then, but this hidden corner of Orange County is still peaceful and quiet, probably because most properties are large (½ acres or more). Kay loves plants, and it shows.  As I walked through her garden, I recognized some plants from my previous visit, but others were new. Kay's garden, like all gardens tended with enthusiasm and passion, is ever-changing.  As you'll see, the Goldilocks climate of Orange County where it virtually never freezes allows Kay to grow plants outside that would croak in a Davis winter, even in the milder ones we've enjoyed in recent years courtesy of climate change. Mexican bird of paradise ( Caesalpinia pulcherrima ) in all its glory

Piece of Eden  is one of the gardening blogs I've followed the longest. It's been so inspiring to see how blogger Hoover Boo's Southern California garden has evolved over the years. While her climate is noticeably milder than mine (especially in the winter), I've been able to successfully grow many of the same plants featured in her garden—although with ½ acre at her disposal, her canvas is decidedly grander. On my recent trip to Southern California, I had the opportunity to revisit this spectacular garden, COVID-19 precautions and all. This visit was far more socially distanced than my previous visits ( December 2017  | July 2019 ), with no hugs, but it was rewarding nonetheless. How could it not be when this is what greets you as you get out the car: Agave desmettiana  'Joe Hoak' But let's start with what Hoover Boo calls the front slope:

On Saturday, I finally got around to a project I'd been postponing for quite a while: trimming the Yucca queretaroensis  in the smaller of the two succulent mounds in the front garden. Look how little it was when I got it from Greg Starr in December 2013! Fast-forward almost seven years: That cute little plant has grown into a strapping adolescent! Unfortunately, it's leaves are rigid and end in sharp points—perfect for poking an eye out when working near them. To reduce the risk of injury at least somewhat, I cut off a good ⅓ of the bottom leaves. I was shocked by the difference this made:

In my first post  about Hidden Agave Ranch, I showed you the spectacular grounds and many of the agaves Jeremy has growing in the ground. This post focuses on the greenhouse, which is home both to Jeremy's personal collection and to the agaves he grows for sale. Here's the entrance to the greenhouse. The hill on the left is dedicated to plants from Baja California. And a wide-angle view of the inside:

On my recent trip to Southern California, I finally had the opportunity to visit a place at the very top of my plant-related bucket list: Hidden Agave Ranch in North San Diego County. This is where agave guru Jeremy Spath lives with his family, and it's where he performs his plant breeding magic.  Jeremy may look like the quintessential surfer—and surfing is one of his passions—but his focus is on plants, above all agaves. He travels to study them in habitat, he cultivates and propagates them at home, and he creates completely novel hybrids, some of which are for sale on his website Hidden Agave . Soon he'll be able to add “author” to his résumé as he's working on a new agave book with Jeff Moore of Solana Succulents . Horticulture wasn't Jeremy's original career, but after he'd been bitten by the plant bug, he jumped into it with both feet. His first stint was at San Diego Botanic Garden where he accumulated extensive plant knowledge. This was followed by tim...

In my recent post about my friend Theresa's garden—remember her incredible Southwest-inspired home?—I mentioned that she and her son, a serious succulent collector in his own right, have several greenhouses. The smallest of them can be seen reflected in the pool: Theresa's smallest greenhouse reflected in the pool This is Theresa's greenhouse. It may be the smallest of the three, but it's chock full of wonderful plants, mostly cacti:

I unexpectedly found myself with some free time on Thursday morning so I decided to make a quick trip to Annie's Annuals in Richmond, about an hour's drive provided traffic cooperates (it did). It was a surprisingly cool morning in Davis and even cooler in Richmond. In fact, the sky was so gray that I thought it was going to rain (it didn't). As an added plus, the even light did make for good photography. Here are some pictures of the public plantings along the entrance and along the sidewalk: This view, as seen from Market Street, changes frequently

With very few occasions to visit other gardens this year, I jump at every opportunity I get. And I really struck gold a couple of weeks ago when I finally got to see the property of a friend in the greater Sacramento area. I was there in the early evening so the photos in this post have a warm cast. I knew her place was large—about two acres, which is somewhere between gigantic and enormous by local standards—so I expected to be wowed. But I was not prepared for this level of wow: Had I fallen asleep behind the wheel and woken up a few days later in New Mexico? No, I was still in Sacramento County. This was “just” one of those exceptional places that are tucked away in quiet neighborhoods far from my regular routes.

We all need a bit of magic in our lives right now. Here's my contribution for today. Take a cactus with seemingly gray spines: Spray it with water: Wow!

Agave 'Mad Cow', a hybrid between Agave bovicornuta and Agave colorata , began to flower in the driveway bed earlier this year: Agave  'Mad Cow' on May 31, 2020 I waited for seeds, but there were none (being a hybrid, it may be sterile). Hoping for some offsets, I left the dying rosette in place until last weekend when I decided it was time to remove the carcass. Would there be some pups underneath the mess of desiccated leaves?

My previous post  was about Roger's Garden, an upscale destination nursery in Corona del Mar, a wealthy coastal community south of Los Angeles. Roger's Gardens has been around for decades. It has a large loyal clientele, and I bet many of their customers are into decor as much as plants (or even more so). I enjoy visiting Roger's Gardens once or twice a year, however often I happen to be in the area, but it's not really my kind of nursery. You know what is? Solana Succulents, a small nursery in the coastal town of Solana Beach in northern San Diego county. I've blogged about Solana Succulents before, but their eclectic inventory changes constantly so there's always something new to explore. There are many nooks and crannies in the nursery, as you'll see below. Poking around is not only fun but also completely unpredictable, seeing how you never know what you might find. A large  Aloidendron barberae  and several massive cactoid euphorbias, including  Euphor...

I just got back from a quick trip to Southern California to drop daughter #2 off at college (again). Traffic through the Los Angeles area was busier than at the end of March when we picked her up—and shelter-in-place ordinances had just gone into effect—but not as bad a pre-COVID days. I did manage to carve out time for a few plant-related outings. The first one was to  Roger's Gardens  in Corona del Mar (essentially Newport Beach). Roger's Gardens has a storied history . From the beginning, it's been more than just a business selling plants. Today, its motto is “Discover, Experience, Connect,“ and its inventory is as heavy on home decor as it is on plants. A well-loved restaurant  focusing on locally sourced foods and seasonal boutiques round out the offerings that make Roger's Gardens a destination for shoppers from Orange and neighboring counties. Newport Beach  is one of the wealthiest communities in California (their striking  Civic Center  is a succul...

I pay a lot of attention when I visit other gardens. Interesting details jump out at me seemingly on their own. The same cannot always be said for our own garden. Maybe it's because I see the plants on a constant basis so I take their special characteristics for granted? But taking the time to smell the roses look closer can reveal amazing things. This post is a great example. Take a look at the loooooong spines on these two cacti! Whether you're a fan of spiky plants or not, you've got to admit that these are impressive! Some of the spines on this Ferocactus rectispinus are a full 6 inches long! That's more than 15 cm for all the metric folks out there.

Last Saturday the air quality index in Northern California was firmly in the unhealthy-bordering-on-hazardous range. Not as bad as in Southern California, Oregon and Washington, but still bad enough.  Not that I let myself be stopped by that. Sick of being cooped up inside, I made the 1-hour drive to Martinez to pick up some plants from plantsman extraordinaire Troy McGregor, former nursery manager at the Ruth Bancroft Garden and now in business for himself creating low-water landscapes. Troy is one of the chief enablers of my plant hoarding; may the universe bless him for that. I've blogged about Troy's garden before ( October 2018  ⏐ September 2018  ⏐  April 2018 ), but it's constantly evolving so there's always something new to see. Troy used the downtime resulting from COVID-19 restrictions earlier in the year very well—all too often, landscape designers have no time for their own space. The biggest change is the addition of a chicken coop in the backyard. But i...

The smoke from wildfire  continues to hang heavy in the air, leading to unhealthy (or worse) hazard air quality index (AQI) readings. As bad as our air seems, it pales in comparison to the off-the-charts AQI values in Oregon. Portland has been in the high 400s (on a scale from 0 to 500), and some areas have reported readings in the 700s —apparently something never thought possible by the creators of the AQI scale. My heart goes out to everybody affected. I took the following photo yesterday on Interstate 80 between Vacaville and Fairfield . This area was burning not even a month ago as part of the 350,000 acre LNU Lightning Complex fires . The hills you see in the distance are black now instead of brown. I applied a stack of effects to this photo so you can clearly see the smoke in the air

At the UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley (UCBG), the hill that is home to the Southern Africa Collection  looks down (literally) at the New World Desert. This is what you see: If this were my garden, I'd be ecstatic! With so many agaves, there's always something in bloom. Here's an octopus agave ( Agave vilmoriniana ) whose flower stalk is covered with bulbils—miniature plants which, in time, will detach and fall to the ground where they will hopefully find a bit of soil to root in. But that's in nature; I'm sure that at the UCBG the inflorescence will be harvested.

The University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley (UCBG)  is open daily from 12 to 5 pm, but visitors need to make a reservation. Fortunately, that's easy to do online , and same-day reservations are usually available. The upside of the reservation system is that fewer people visit at any given time, making it much easier to find parking at the Garden's parking lot. In late July, I blogged about the Mexico and Central America Collection and the Australasia Collection . This post is about the Southern Africa Collection; the next one will be about the New World Desert. The Southern Africa Collection features everything from spring-blooming bulbs (now dormant), to proteas, ericas and restios, to cycads. What I'm most interested in, of course, are the succulents, especially aloes.  While late winter/early spring is the best time to see aloes in bloom, there were a few even now. But aloes are beautiful year-round; the flowers are just a temporary bonus. The beauty...

This post continues where part 1 left off. It covers the area marked #2 in the satellite photo shown in part 1. The side yard on the south side of Mariel and Ian's property gets full afternoon sun. To take advantage of this, Mariel created a couple of mounds planted with a wide variety of succulents: Take a look at the slabs of stone framing this bed:

Visits to private gardens have been few and far between this year, but on Saturday I had the opportunity to visit the garden of Mariel Dennis, the President of the Sacramento Cactus and Succulent Society  (SCSS). I'd last seen Mariel's garden in June 2017 , and I was eager to find out what had changed. In a nutshell: Mariel has greatly increased her collection of potted succulents. I don't think I've ever seen a private garden with as many potted specimens. I was joking that one might think they've walked into an upscale garden shop where rare plants were sold in matching pots.  Mariel is a serious collector, but she has a sense of humor and a taste for the whimsical: I had so much fun exploring Mariel's garden and collection that I took 200+ photos. Even with rigorous editing, that leaves too many images for one post, so I'll have two: one about the area marked #1 in the satellite image below, and the other about the area marked #2:

Gardening is fun, at least most of the time. But many things are out of our control, and we simply have to accept the fact that s*#t happens. Especially in the year 2020 which seems doggedly determined to wobble from bad to worse.  As if COVID-19 weren't enough, we just went through the most oppressive heat wave in years. And now California is burning: 300+ wildfires caused by lightning strikes combined with extreme dryness. Davis is not in any danger, but a pall of smoke has been hanging in the air for almost a week, leading to apocalyptic-looking skies and very unhealthy air. Early evening sky from our front yard

It turns out it's not only Englishmen and mad dogs who go out in the midday sun. I did, too, on Sunday when it was 102°F out. It started out as a joke with my wife and daughter, but then it became a dare, and I simply couldn't back down. That's how I found myself on the UC Davis campus at 12:30pm with the sun beating down on me. I only lasted for 45 minutes, but I managed to check on a few things, including the Arboretum Teaching Nursery where the plant sales are held: usually three in the spring and three in the fall. In a normal year, that is. In 2020, all plant sales have been canceled—just another nail in the coffin of this terrible year. In the meantime, the 50,000+ sale plants in the nursery are being cared for by a skeleton crew. They'll be extra large next year when (knock on wood!) the plant sales will resume. Me longingly peeking through the chain-link fence into the nursery:

The flower stalk of the  Agave parrasana  along the sidewalk is now close to 7 ft. tall. Impressive for sure, but that's not the focus of this post. Instead, look at the aloe to the left of the agave: That's the real news. At some point in the last few days, gravity finally won out and caused the top-heavy Aloe ferox  to topple over. Even though its leaves had become fairly desiccated in recent weeks, it was still a big guy.  For comparison, here's a photo from mid-March 2020 when this Aloe ferox  was in bloom and the leaves were fat and juicy: