Succulents and More™

This is what the eastern terminus of the L-shaped sidewalk bed in the front looked like just a few days ago: Aloe ‘Moonglow’ at the far right was getting ready to burst into the biggest display of flowers it’s ever had. I did my best to count the individual racemes (flower heads) in the photo below and got to almost 50. The vigor of this hybrid is off the charts. It produces far more flowers than any other aloe I have. The flowers last a long time, too, making for a spectacular bloom season. Imagine my surprise when I found this: Aloe ‘Moonglow’ horizontal instead of vertical. The cause is immediately apparent: Between the leaves engorged from the December rains and the crazy number of flowers, the aloe was simply too heavy for its trunk. Something had to give. Fortunately, this isn’t the end, just a temporary setback. Here’s what I did. First I made a clean cut: Then I dug up the remaining trunk and at least some of the roots: Normally I would simply leave the plant exposed to the a...

One of my gardening goals for 2026 is to critically assess every plant in the garden, especially in the coveted sidewalk bed in the front, and be ruthless: Any plant that doesn’t do it for me anymore gets pulled and replaced with something more compelling. I know, that sounds a bit silly, but it’s what I need to do to keep things exciting. As with any new year’s resolution, there’s no guarantee that it will last, but I’m determined to at least give it a try. And I’m happy to report that I’ve completed the first removal of the year. My target was the blob in the middle: Nolina texana It’s Texas beargrass or sacahuiste ( Nolina texana ). As Wikipedia puts it so poetically, Nolina texana “is a plant in the asparagus family that resembles a large clump of grass.” That’s what it looks like although it isn’t a grass at all but rather a relative of agaves, yuccas, and dasylirions. My Nolina texana was just a little thing when I brought it home in my suitcase from the 2018 Garden Bloggers F...

My friend Michele is one of the most enthusiastic plant peeps I know. She lives in a small planned unit development complex here in Davis where the homeowners’ association manages common areas, including the front yards. As I mentioned in this post from June 2022 , Michele was given permission to create her own water-wise landscaping. Michele in front of a mystery aloe she received from a friend, possibly a hybrid between Aloe maculata and Aloe barbadensis (aka the “real” aloe vera) In my original post, the divider between the parking spaces (see below) was all mangaves. They’re gone now, either because they bloomed out or got too big. The current iteration of the divider is all aloes: Aloe ‘Safari Rose’ Aloe ‘Tingtinkie’ The area next to the parking lot is a mixture of succulents, perennials, and shrubs. Most are still small; they’ll be fantastic in a year or two. Last year, Michele converted the strip outside her backyard fence into a mound. It’s now home to a variety of cool pla...