December 2021 visit to the Ruth Bancroft Garden (part 2 of 3)

This is part 2 of my December 2021 tour of the Ruth Bancroft Garden. Click here for part 1 and here for part 3.

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The big metal shade structure you see in the photo below is located smack in the center of the garden. In the summer, it provides protection for plants that don't like to bake in the sun all day. In the winter, it is wrapped in plastic and becomes a shelter against the cold and excessive rain. 

Part 3 of this tour will focus on the plants inside the structure. In this installment, I want to show you some noteworthy succulents growing on the mounds outside (on the right in the photo above).

Mangave ‘Snow Leopard’, multiple echeverias, and three Dyckia choristaminea

Dyckia choristaminea and unidentified echeveria

Boophone disticha, a South African bulb with a distinctive fan of leaves, surrounded by echeverias. In a few years, these echeverias will have formed dense colonies.

Spiral aloe (Aloe polyphylla) planted on a slope and at an angle to prevent accumulation of moisture that might lead to rot. It’s a tricky aloe species to keep alive in a hot-summer climate because it is susceptible to pathogens active in warm moist soil. I'm curious to see how this specimen will fare.

I can’t quite explain why, but I love this tapestry of green and blue leaves

Gasteria acinacifolia, one of the largest gasterias and also one of the most sun-tolerant

Aloe cryptopoda

Aloe cryptopoda with very unusual flowers. Typically, they’re straight, not curving like this.

Encephalartos horridus, a cycad from South Africa, surrounded by aloes, euphorbias, and mesembs

Cactus land

Another Boophone disticha, with Euphorbia stellispina on the right

Euphorbia stellispina, well named (“stellispina” means star-shaped spine)

Mammillaria geminispina forming clumps that beg to be touched (probably best not to, though)

Crested Mammillaria sp.

Ferocactus latispinus with its distinctive purple flowers

These Opuntia lucotricha pads may be dead, but they're still striking

Agave wocomahi, a cousin of Agave bovicornuta

Yucca linearifolia surrounded by cacti

Opuntia humifusa, flopped over as it's wont to do in the winter months. Commonly known as devil’s tongue or the eastern prickly pear, it has a very wide distribution, ranging from the Florida Keys all the way up to southern Ontario.

This exceptional beauty is a hybrid between Agave colorata and Agave isthmensis made by Brian Kemble

Agave colorata × Agave isthmensis

Ruth Bancroft preferred these simple frames to protect tender plants (in this case Astrophytum cacti) in the winter, both against the cold and against excessive moisture

I couldn't figure out what this was so I asked Brian Kemble for an ID. It turns out that it's a Mangave he created by pollinating Agave parrasana with pollen from a Manfreda hybrid of his called Manfreda 'Dit Dah'. Another seedling from this Mangave grex was given the cultivar name Mangave 'Blue Fountain.'    

Agave shrevei, grown from seed by Brian Kemble, and Yucca gloriosa ‘Bright Star’

Agave ‘Moon Glow’ and a staked cactus

Juvenile Agave ‘Mr. Ripple’ replacing the mature specimen that flowered a few years ago in this spot

Agave ‘Blue Glow’ with one bulbil at the top of the flower stalk...

...and lots of offsets emerging from the center of the rosette

Ever expanding clump of Agave ‘Cornelius’

Aloe striata clump

Several of these Agave striata are flowering; close up of inflorescence on the right

Sempervivum arachnoideum forming a dense carpet in front of Cleistocactus straussii

Sempervivum arachnoideum

(Right) Opuntia tomentosa, a prickly pear of tree-like proportions

Spectacular specimen of a Queensland bottle tree (Brachychiton rupestris) 

Queensland bottle tree (Brachychiton rupestris) underplanted with cacti including Parodia magnifica

White-flowering Aloe ferox pushing an inflorescence

Mangave ‘Mission to Mars’, impressive in its near-mature size. Notice two others on the top right. The aloe to the right is Aloe schoelleri (Eritrea). Top left is Sonchus palmensis, a dandelion relative from the Canary Islands.

Mangave ‘Lavender Lady’ and Curio talinoides var. mandraliscae (the current name of what used to be known as Senecio mandraliscae)

The pond was completely redone a couple of years ago

It's surrounded by a large variety of soft-leaved succulents

A sea of aeoniums in the area adjacent to Ruth’s Folly, the wooden structure that was the original entrance to the garden and is now being renovated

Aloe schelpei (Ethiopia)

Aloe schelpei (Ethiopia)

Another beautiful aeonium, all plumped up after the recent rains, surrounded by smaller soft-leaved succulents and grasses

Tradescantia pallida ‘Purple Heart’ and Oscularia deltoides

The garden's central shade structure underwent a complete renovation in 2020 (see this post). In the final installment of this series, I'll take you inside the shade structure. It's home to some pretty special treasures!

RELATED POSTS:

• December 2021 visit to the Ruth Bancroft Garden (part 1)
• December 2021 visit to the Ruth Bancroft Garden (part 2)
• December 2021 visit to the Ruth Bancroft Garden (part 3)
• All my posts about the Ruth Bancroft Garden

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