Succulents and More™

This summer, West Coast meteorologists were giddy expounding about heat domes, but there hasn’t been much for them to get worked about up since. That has changed this week in a massive way. A bomb cyclone is bearing down on the West Coast, arriving in our area as an atmospheric river with heavy rain. Ordinarily, the first real storm of the season is a welcome event, but this one has been wreaking all kinds of havoc already in the Pacific Northwest and far Northern California. My mother-in-law lives in Mount Shasta, an hour south of the Oregon border, and she’s had so much heavy snow already that a tree fell over in her front yard and the roof of her carport collapsed right onto her car. Here, the storm has been fairly gentle so far. The Sacramento Valley has received less than 2" of rain through Friday morning, but today is supposed to be particularly windy and wet. Maybe things will be different tomorrow, but this is what it looks like this morning. Through the car window The l

As I was redoing yet another thing in the front yard, I thought it would be interesting to see how the garden has evolved over time. One of the reasons why I started this blog was to be able to make such comparisons, so it was simply a matter of digging out photos from years past. I thought I had a pretty good idea of how certain areas looked before, but looking at these photos, I realized how my mental image didn’t always line up with reality. Something else surprised me: In some cases, I like the “before” photos better, mostly because of plants I remember with special fondness. Because of that realization, I may just bring some old favorites back. ➤  West-facing sidewalk bed in front of the house 2017 This view is dominated by the bamboos on the left ( Bambusa oldhamii and Bambusa chungii ‘Barbellata’) and the palo verde on the right. This might have been the last year we had ornamental grasses in front of the house – or anywhere. 2024 One of the two bamboos ( Bambusa oldhamii ) an