Succulents and More™

The massive sycamore ( Platanus × hispanica ) in our neighbor’s front yard provides valuable shade for her house, but in the fall, it becomes the bane of my existence. It produces a seemingly endless stream of leaves – large leaves that curl up and are difficult to dislodge with a leaf blower. Our neighbor’s sycamore at the very beginning of its leaf drop Because of our prevailing winds (typically from the north), a lot of the sycamore leaves get blown our way. The most immediate destination is the driveway bed my friend Kyle helped me redo last December ( see here ). This bed is full of hechtias, agaves, and aloes – spiky, toothy, and/or prickly plants that trap the leaves and make manual removal painful. In an effort to make my life a little easier, I decided to try something new: bird netting, like you would use in an orchard to prevent birds from eating the fruit. And it seems to be doing the trick. Here’s a photo of the leaves piling up on our neighbor’s side instead of being blo

Of all the shrubs in the garden, my favorite is Acacia aphylla . This oddball from Western Australia lacks traditional leaves (hence the common name “leafless rock wattle”). Instead, its zigzaggy blue-green stems perform photosynthesis. These stems, which give the plant its striking sculptural appearance, are adapted to reduce water loss in the dry, arid conditions where it naturally grows – not so different from here. From a distance, Acacia aphylla looks like a bluish cloud hovering over the sidewalk bed. In late winter, mid- to late-February, it’s covered with bright yellow ball-shaped flowers. This is what it looked like this year: The red-flowering shrub behind it is Grevillea ‘Scarlet Sprite’, thought to be a hybrid of Grevillea rosmarinifolia and another unknown grevillea: I like the two together, but both were getting too large for this spot – or any spot in our small garden. This is what Acacia aphylla looked like yesterday morning: With curbside yard-waste pickup coming up