On the eve of upheaval

The title of this post sounds dramatic. It’s because something major is about to happen: We’re going to have new siding installed, starting next week. What’s the big deal, you may think. Well, just like having your house painted, the project requires that you move everything, and I mean everything, away from the house. Plants, of course, but also rocks and soil. If you’re like me and you have garden beds that butt up right against the house, that does mean upheaval.

The project will kick off this coming Monday. I’ve been stressing out about it — who wouldn’t! — but every time I do, I take a deep breath and look to the garden to bring my blood pressure down. Most people who visit come in the morning or early afternoon, but the front yard really is at its best in the early evening. Take a look:

View from the front porch

Where do your eyes go?

Mine go here: Calliandra ‘Sierra Starr’, a hybrid between the Baja fairy duster (Calliandra californica) and the California native fairy duster (Calliandra eriophylla). It’s taken a few years to get to this size, but now that it is, it’s been rewarding us with flowers for 9+ months out of the year.

This silver torch cactus (Cleistocactus strausii) has been in a relatively small pot for longer than I can remember. It’s filled every cubic inch of space and really needs to be moved to a larger pot, or planted in the ground. I’ll make a decision on that after the siding project is done.

This beautiful variegated plant is a pineapple relative, Bromelia serra ‘Qué será’. It was a small thing when I bought it, and it’s performed beyond my wildest expectations. Heat, drought, winter cold — nothing seems to faze it.

Cacti are at their most photogenic when they’re backlit. This is Lophocereus schottii ‘Wooly Rhino’, a particularly hair form of the senita cactus.

Dudleyas are probably the most iconic of all California succulents, but many people find them difficult to grow. I won’t say I’m an expert, but I’ve gathered enough data points to know which species are likely to handle our hot and dry summers and which won’t. This is Dudleya candida, both the green and the white form. It’s a Baja California species that’s performed well for me. In general, dudleyas from Baja do better here than species native to coastal Central and Northern California, like D. lanceolata and D. farinosa.

Speaking of dudleyas, this is my favorite out of the 30+ dudleyas I have. It’s an unnamed D. brittonii hybrid created by dudleya wizard Stephen McCabe. It gets full afternoon sun and yet it looks perfect pretty much year round.

This summer has been really unusual, far milder than usual. Now that I’ve said it, I’ve probably cursed us all. But seriously, temps in the high 80s or low 90s, that’s my sweet spot. We’ve even had some clouds — not a common sight in the summer — and hence some beautiful sunsets.

OK, now that we’ve enjoyed some pretty sights and let ourselves be distracted from the inevitable, let’s get back to reality. Preparing for our siding project, we had to create a 2 ft. path between the wall and the raised planted bed you see below:

Before

Before

This involved moving quite a bit of rocks and soil. A big thank you to Kyle who helped me get it done in no time.

After

Before

After

The rocks, soil, and plants we dug up are parked next to the bamboo, at the top right in the photo above.

In the backyard, we have two strips next to the house that have always been problematic. They’re narrow, shallow (maybe 2 ft. of soil), and unirrigated. Here’s the one on the north side of the house:

A 55-gallon rain barrel was on top of the pavers you see in front of the Salvia chamaedryoides

Looking the other way

A similar strip is on the south side of the house. I’ve tried many things over the years, ranging from geraniums to aloes and aeoniums, but nothing ever worked to my satisfaction. After a lot of back and forth, I’ve decided that both strips will be home to columnar cacti: totem poles on one side (monstrose form of Lophocereus schottii), and Mexican fence posts (Lophocereus marginatus) on the other. I’ve been propagating cuttings of both so I’ll have enough material to get started once the new siding is in place.

This is the east-facing side of the house. My plans for this area include a variegated Aloidendron ‘Hercules’ and — well, who knows what else. Some rocks for sure.

For now, random plants are in random places, waiting for the project to be finished so they can go back to where they came from:

The project will kick off on Monday morning. Our contractor gave us a timeline of two weeks. I do expect some unforeseen delays, but I hope that our plants will be back in place by the end of August. Of course I’ll keep you updated.

© Gerhard Bock, 2025. All rights reserved. To receive all new posts by email, please subscribe here.