UC Davis Arboretum in the midday sun

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 water-wise landscaping outside the Teaching Nursery is thriving in the heat

A beautiful specimen of Agave colorata in a newly planted bed along the sidewalk across the road from the Teaching Nursery

Just down the road from the Teaching Nursery is the Ruth Risdon Storer Garden. It showcases perennials and shrubs which are particularly well suited to Central Valley gardens. This spot gets full sun almost all day so it's an ideal living laboratory for stress-testing plants.

Flowering Nolina nelsonii

Naked ladies (Amaryllis belladonna) are now in bloom in many spots

Agave weberi

Agave ovatifolia

Agave ovatifolia

Prickly pear (Opuntia ficus-indica)

Cenizo or Texas ranger (Leucophyllum frutescens)

Cenizo or Texas ranger (Leucophyllum frutescens)

Cenizo or Texas ranger (Leucophyllum frutescens)

Coral bean (Erythrina × bidwillii)

Coral bean (Erythrina × bidwillii)

The blue grass Leymus condensatus 'Canyon Prince', the tan-colored inflorescences are from Stipa gigantea starting to flower

The Peter J. Shields Oak Grove featuring 80+ oak taxa is adjacent to the Ruth Risdon Storer Garden

Adjoining the Ruth Risdon Storer Garden is the Carolee Shields White Flower Garden. I wanted to check on the giant sea squills (Drimia maritima) growing there, and they didn't disappoint:

Giant sea squill (Drimia maritima)

Giant sea squill (Drimia maritima)

White-flowering hibiscus, no clue which cultivar

White-flowering Amaryllis belladonna

Crepe myrtles (Lagerstroemia) do exceedingly well in our summer heat

The 140 tiles in the Nature's Gallery mural show “diverse drought-tolerant plants or insects found in the Arboretum’s Ruth Risdon Storer Garden.” The tiles were made by UC Davis students, staff and faculty as well as members of the community.

There are three agaves:

My final stop was the small Ernest M. Gifford Cycad Garden at Storer Hall. In addition to the cycads from the personal collection of the late Professor Gifford, the beds in front of Storer Hall feature other interesting plants, including aloes such as this Aloidendron dichotomum:

And bananas which are doing surprisingly well, battered leaves aside:

Some of the cycads:

Huge clump of sago palms (Cycas revoluta)

New flush on one of the sago palms in the clump above

Dioon sp.

Encephalartos sp.

Encephalartos ferox

By the time I got back to the car, I needed a super-sized cold drink and a nap!

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