Succulents and More™

Even though I blog frequently, I have so many plants (surprise, surprise) that there are always some that fall through the cracks. This post is trying to remedy that. Here are 14 things I haven’t shown you before, or at least not in a long time. ❶ After many failures I have finally become the lithops whisperer. How? Simple: by ignoring them most of the year. Seriously, I don’t pay any attention to them (i.e. I don’t give them any water) until they start to flower. When they do, I water them until the flowers start to fade. Then I ignore them again for the next 10½ months. As I said: simple. Lithops lesliei var. venteri Lithops salicola ‘Malachite’ ❷ I’ve grown plenty of mangaves over the years. Fortunately, there are always new ones in the pipeline. Mangave ‘American Masterpiece’, coming soon from Walters Gardens Mangave ‘Permanent Wave’, widely available now ❸ In an attempt to add some color for my open garden last weekend I bought this ornamental pepper. It looked perfectly plump...

I had an open garden yesterday for the Sacramento Cactus and Succulent Society (SCSS) and my volunteer group at the UC Davis Arboretum Teaching Nursery . I’d put in a lot of effort to make things look nice — tidying up, weeding, filling in holes with new plants, adding top dressing, even getting more rocks. I won’t lie, it was a good amount of work, but in the end, it was worth it. My previous open gardens had all been in the morning, but this time I decided to do it from 1 to 5pm because the afternoon light is so beautiful at this time of year. The weather couldn’t have been better: bright and sunny, with a high of 81°F at 4pm. I couldn’t have wished for a more perfect day. The turnout was great. I didn’t keep track of how many people came, but there was a steady stream of visitors. My friends Michele and Kyle, who know my garden well, were on hand to help answer questions. Several people mentioned how seeing my garden had given them ideas for their own. Hearing that made me happy. I...