Succulents and More™

Living on a corner lot fronted by a sidewalk on two sides, we’re used to finding random pieces of trash in our planting strip. Usually it’s things like beer bottles or fast-food wrappers. I even picked up some fried-chicken bones once (there’s a KFC not too far from our house). But what I found the other day takes the cake – literally: From a distance, it looked like, well, this: 💩. But when I got closer, I realized what it was: a half-eaten chocolate 🍩. Frosted with shredded coconut, no less. Does that make it a German chocolate cake donut? Maybe the person eating the donut didn’t like it or they were getting full. What do you do when that happens? You toss it into your neighbor’s garden bed, of course! Their aim was excellent, because the donut landed right between two leaves of our Agave parryi . At first, I was angry, but then I couldn’t help but laugh. After all, this was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. I dare say I will never see another donut wedged into an agave of ours. P.S...

On Sunday, I went on a field trip with the California Horticultural Society  (Cal Hort) to the wilds east of Hollister  to find calochortus in habitat. Here's a map showing our itinerary: Our intrepid leader was Kipp McMichael, a calochortus expert who has grown many California species in his Berkeley garden. Kipp was the featured speaker at the March meeting of Cal Hort and gave an enthusiastic presentation of the calochortus of California ( you can watch his talk here ).  For this field trip, there was a limit of five cars; I signed up early enough and was lucky to go. We met at a park in Hollister and set off from there. I saw parts of Northern/Central California I had never been to, ranging from grasslands full of plant life to sere landscapes that looked like they were on the Moon. We had lunch at a picnic area in the Griswold Hills  and shared the space with a group of gun enthusiasts who were shooting at targets. They were very considerate, offering us ea...

In my previous post , you saw the spectacular blooms of Echinopsis  'Flying Saucer' and  Echinopsis  'First Light', two of the most beautiful echinopsis hybrids around. But we have many other echinopsis planted out all over the front yard. This post will focus on the ones that bloomed recently. Another ten or so are in bud, but not close to flowering yet. This post is not only a showcase for pretty flowers, it's also a reference for myself to go back to in future years. If you're only here for the pictures, simply skip the other stuff. These hybrids flowered in our garden in May: Echinopsis ‘Apricot Glow’ Echinopsis ‘Daydream’ Echinopsis ‘Flattycake’ Echinopsis ‘For Norma’ Echinopsis ‘Intensive’ Echinopsis ‘June Noon’ Echinopsis ‘Salmon Queen’ Echinopsis ‘Sex on the Beach’ Echinopsis ‘Shades of Bourne’ Echinopsis ‘Sleeping Beauty’ Echinopsis ‘Super Apricot’ Echinopsis ‘Tondelayo’ Echinopsis ‘Wessner 368’ Some are larger, like 'June Noon' and ...