Succulents and More™

The first nursery I stopped at on my recent trip to San Diego  was Waterwise Botanicals . Located in Bonsall, a small town in northern San Diego County, Waterwise Botanicals is a 20-acre production nursery with extensive growing grounds right next to Interstate 15. Their focus is on succulents, but they also sell roses, shrubs, and drought-tolerant companion plants.  While much of their business is wholesale, they're open to retail customers. In fact, pre-Covid, Waterwise put on a variety of events, including Saturday workshops and annual Super Succulent Celebrations. I attended the 2018 Super Succulent Celebration  and shared dozens of photos in a 2-part post ( part 1 | part 2 ). Now, four years later, Waterwise looked pretty much the same, down to the seemingly endless succulent plantings on the hill behind the pond: Euphorbia tirucalli 'Sticks on Fire' is a challenge to grown in Northern California because it starts to get damaged just below freezing. Not a problem in

One of the first things I do when I get back from a trip is to check on the garden. Has anything changed? Have new flowers opened up? Has there been any damage? Etc. etc. Me being me, anticipation is always tinged with a dose of worry. My recent trip to San Diego  was less than a week, but thanks to warm and sunny weather, many aloes in our garden are near their peak bloom. That may not last long, seeing how we're in the throes of a brief but nasty arctic cold snap. As I described in this post , I slipped Styrofoam cups over emerging aloe flowers to protect them against the worst. That's the best I can do on short notice. I don't have enough frost blankets to cover every flowering aloe. But back to what the aloes (and other plants) looked like on my return from San Diego: Aloe  'Moonglow' clump #1, with Agave gentryi  'Jaws' and Yucca linearifolia  to the right Further on down the line,  Aloe  'Moonglow' clump #2 (with clump #3 peeking out near the m