Succulents and More™

If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you’ve seen photos of my friend Kyle’s garden in Sacramento. (If not, click here to check out my previous posts.) Kyle is the most active gardener I know, continuously tweaking and refining. I get to see his garden quite frequently, and yet, every time I visit, I notice things that hadn’t been there before. No garden is ever finished, not really, and that’s doubly true for Kyle. He has boundless energy, and it flows right into his garden. I caught up with Kyle last week and took a bunch of new photos. I was going to squeeze them into one post, but there are so many it makes more sense to spread them out over two posts. This post is about the front yard. But before we dive in, take a look at this picture I took in December 2022: December 2022 Keep this photo in mind as you look at the pictures that follow. March 20, 2026 Kyle has gradually increased the elevation along the perimeter of the front yard by raising the soil level and adding tons (lit...

I was on the Central Coast last weekend (see map at the bottom of this post), and my first stop was to see Steve Super. I’d visited him in February 2024 when his retail area was in downtown Los Osos; he’s since moved to a greenhouse complex outside of town. More on that later. First a bit about Steve and his business. Steve cultivates and breeds a wide variety of rare and unusual plants that are well adapted to California’s Mediterranean climate. This includes aloes, agaves, and other succulents as well as bromeliads and even some perennials. He’s a one-man operation, and he focuses on plant quality and botanical rarity over mass production. In recent years, Steve has gained recognition for his aloe and dyckia hybrids, which have become sought after for their distinct patterns and colors. He’s also been developing his own mangaves, which are more compact than the ones already on the market and hence better suited for container culture. Steve doesn’t have a conventional retail storefr...