Succulents and More™

I didn’t expect to have an update so soon on the newly gained space on the street side of the relocated fence section ( details here ). However, with 5+ days of rain in the forecast, I decided to get busy before everything gets too soggy. This is where I started on Thursday morning, two days after the fence project was completed: The first step was to get more rocks. I picked the same rocks I used for the new succulent mounds in the backyard ( see here ). The rock yard where I got them calls them “Red Rustic Boulders.” Fortunately, they still had plenty available. I got 600 pounds, which looked like a lot in the trunk of my van, but not so much when spread out: For the plants, I went “shopping” in my own nursery. Being a hoarder has its advantages, one of them being a neverending supply of plants that need to go in the ground. I chose all aloes for the new space. Most of them were from my recent trip to Santa Barbara ( here ) and from last year’s trips ( here and here ), others I got ...

In a small garden like ours, every square foot counts. I constantly look for ways to maximize the space available for planting, and I jump at every chance to squeeze out a few more square feet. Just such an opportunity presented itself when it came time to fix some broken fence sections in the front yard. Take a look: In the photo below, the 6 ft. section outlined in yellow was leaning precariously. This was the only remaining section from when the house was built; the rest of the fence had been replaced about 15 years ago. The 4 ft. section outlined in orange was still good, but it had come loose from the 6 ft. fence next to it. Inside the fence, an L-shaped raised bed occupied the corner where the 4 ft. fence meets the 6 ft. fence which encloses the backyard: Originally, we used this raised bed for tropicals like elephant ears, bananas, and gingers ( see this post ). However, when we switched to more water-wise plants, it became difficult to keep the tropicals happy. In 2013, I plant...

When I visited San Marcos Growers last year , manager Randy Baldwin told me about a mass planting of Aloe ‘Birds and Bees’ at an office park in nearby Goleta. Of course I had to see for myself. As it turned out, it was even more spectacular than I had expected (see post here ). Aloe ‘Birds and Bees’ was introduced by San Marcos Growers in 2013 from seed Brian Kemble collected at the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek. According to the San Marcos Growers website , the seed parent was Aloe arborescens and the pollen parent is thought to be Aloe thraskii . SMG selected and evaluated five seedlings from the original seeds that germinated. This one was chosen for its bicolored flowers and named ‘Birds and Bees’ because it was the result of open pollination rather than intentional hybridization. If left to its own devices, ‘Birds and Bees’ forms a shrubby clump similar to its Aloe arborescens parent. That’s great for some situations, like creating a privacy screen, but many suburban gar...