Succulents and More™

Our last few days in Victoria, British Columbia were dominated by visits to three local gardens: the Butchart Gardens (everybody seems to have visited it at some point in their lives); the much smaller and more intimate Abkhazi Garden ("The Garden that Love Built"); and Finnerty Gardens  on the campus of the University of Victoria. I took enough photos for dedicated posts, but for now here's the teaser version. Locals I've talked to say that this winter was the harshest in recent memory. There was snow (!), something Victoria residents aren't used to. The University of Victoria closed down for half a day in January--only the third time that's ever happened. And the cold weather lingered much longer than it usually does. As a result, plants are weeks behind where they usually are. Butchart Gardens (located 20 km north of Victoria) says they're four weeks behind; a lady I talked to earlier today said that Victoria proper, where it's warmer than at Bu...

In Vignettes from Victoria 1  I mentioned that spring is very late this year. The Butchart Gardens blog  says that the "floral calendar is almost a full month behind." But there is good news, too: "[B]ecause of this we are anticipating one of the most dynamic spring seasons ever." Maybe this will be true for the entire Pacific Northwest. A bit of payback for my long-suffering friends in Portland and points north. Meanwhile, I keep discovering pockets of color all over Victoria. Originally a hospital, the venerable St Joseph Apartment Building on Humboldt St has several cherry trees that are in full bloom now. What a spectacular sight!

It's spring break this week and we're in Victoria, British Columbia to visit daughter #1, who is a student at the University of Victoria. I'm taking plenty of photos, like I always do, and I will share them throughout the week. Even though Victoria has one of the mildest climates in the Pacific Northwest, it, too, had a much harsher winter than usual. There are signs of spring, but people are saying that everything is three weeks behind. The difference between now now and our visit last year in the second week of April is quite dramatic. You'll see what I mean when you look at the photos below. And yet, Victoria is beautiful even when it's gray and rainy. Plum tree leafing out every so slowly on the campus of the University of Victoria

This is a listing of all posts about my March 2017 trip to Victoria, British Columbia: Vignettes from Victoria I Vignettes from Victoria II Vignettes from Victoria III Butchart Gardens on the cusp of spring Abkhazi Garden (coming soon) Government House (coming soon)

My friend Marta, whose beautiful succulent and rare fruit tree garden I photographed in December, emailed me late last week to let me know her aloes were flowering. Needing a break from the torture of doing our taxes, I headed over in the early afternoon on Sunday to see what's going on. I was prepared for blooming aloes but I didn't know I'd be finding this: An honest-to-goodness explosion of sparaxis all over Marta's front yard!

My friend Luisa, who blogs at Crow and Raven , is one of those people you click with right away. Talk to her for an hour, and it feels like you've known her all your life. She's as easy-going and generous a soul as you're ever going to meet. And if you're lucky, you get to visit her garden at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains .  But Luisa's garden doesn't consist of stuff growing in the ground. No, virtually every plant she owns is in a pot. And all her pots are in her small backyard, arranged on a retaining wall, on tables, or on the ground. I don't know how many individual containers Luisa has, but there are many. MANY .  Lest you think this results in clutter, rest in peace. It's actually quite the opposite. It's like walking into a store selling rare books. You don't know what you're going to find, but you know that it'll be an exciting journey of discovery. The photos I took during my recent visit  are proof of wh...

In part 1 of this post , I showed you the demonstration garden (including koi pond) and the propagation greenhouse of Poot's Cactus Nursery in Ripon, California. This post focuses on the sale area. While smaller than the propagation areas, the sale area is jam-packed with goodies. There's an outside area with tables for smaller plants as well as a selection of larger specimens that just sit on the ground. And there's a retail greenhouse with more cold-sensitive and rare specimens, all waiting to be discovered and explored. I was happy to see that Poot's provides shopping carts and wagons for those of us who take plant shopping seriously. This is Mariel, SCSS vice president and program chair, who organized this field trip and took advantage of this opportunity to buy the raffle plants for the next meeting (Monday, March 27, 7:00 pm; for more info, click here ).

I joined the Sacramento Cactus & Succulent Society almost seven years ago, and the first field trip I went on was to Poot's Cactus Nursery in Ripon, a small town in the Central Valley about an hour south of Sacramento. Now, six and a half years later, we did the same field trip. Even though I do get around, I hadn't been back to Poot's since November 2011, and I couldn't wait to see what had changed. The short answer: Nothing and everything. The demonstration garden in the front is still there, but the plants have grown tremendously. The propagation greenhouse is still full of wonders, but it seemed like there were even more plants. And the sale area is still well-stocked but the selection is even better and the prices seemed particularly attractive. I took so many photos that I decided to split this post into two parts. This part covers the demonstration garden and the propagation greenhouse. Part 2 covers the sale area. Entrance to the nursery right of...

Last week, one my favorite blogs, Piece of Eden , talked about Amaryllis vs. Hippeastrum  and showed a beautiful photo of  Hippeastrum papilio , the butterfly amaryllis. I left a comment saying that I planted a few bulbs years ago, and while the clump had gotten bigger, there had never been flowers. The next morning I happened to look at the mass of strappy leaves from my  Hippeastrum papilio , and this is what I found: You can imagine how surprised I was! This raised bed is tucked away off to the side of the front porch. It's been neglected for a while and I don't routinely look there for exciting plant discoveries.

Erik the Red  was a Norwegian Viking who established the first Norse settlement in Greenland in 982 and fathered Leif Erikson , reputed to be the first European to have discovered North America. Erik was nicknamed "the Red" because of his hair and beard. But as impressive they might have been, I'm sure they paled in comparison to this Erik the Red: This is Aloe 'Erik the Red' in full flower. It has shown impressive growth ever since I planted it in March 2014  from a #5 can. In the winter of 2014/15 it had one flower stalk, last year two, and this year three.  

I would never have known about the Jurupa Mountains Discovery Center  (JMDC) on edge of Riverside if it hadn't been for my friend Luisa. She lives 45 minutes from there and loves the place. It turns out the many locals don't know about the JMDC either although they're familiar with the giant mammoth figure on the hillside off the 60 freeway.  The mammoth may be the JMDC's calling card but it's not the only giant sculpture. There are dinosaurs aplenty. I don't know the exact story of how they came to be, but not surprisingly, they're very popular with kids. And the JMDC has a range of programs and activies that appeal to this core group, including school programs (in 2014, 9000 school children visited the JMDC on field trips). A small but excellent Earth Science Museum features fossils, Native American artifacts, minerals and dinosaur eggs, many collected in the Inland Empire . As whimsical as the dinosaurs are, the main attraction for me wer...

Last week I made a whirlwind trip to Southern California to visit with friends from Portland who were renting a condo in Palm Springs. It truly was a crazy trip: drive down Thursday, drive back Sunday. But I love road trips, and I love the desert, so how could I say no? Especially when I had the opportunity to combine it with a brief visit with another friend, Luisa of Crow and Raven . I saw wonderful gardens and plants, I took lots of photos, and I will have quite a few dedicated posts. For now, I want to tease you with a few collages. My first stop was at Jurupa Mountains Discovery Center in Riverside. I met up with Luisa in the afternoon, and we enjoyed photographing the succulents (the aloes were in full bloom!) and shopping in the nursery.

Here is a listing of all posts about my trip to Palm Springs (March 2 to March 5, 2017): Overview  Whirlwind trip to the Southern California desert--Palm Springs and beyond 3/2/17:  Aloe wonderland at Jurupa Mountains Discovery Center in Southern California 3/3/17: My friend Luisa's Inland Empire succulent container garden , San Bernadino County 3/3/17: Sunnylands bedazzles with mass plantings of succulents , Rancho Mirage 3/4/17: Cabot's Desert Pueblo , Desert Hot Springs 3/4/17:  Mariscal Cactus & Succulents , Desert Hot Springs 3/4/17:  Sunlands Cactus Nursery , Indio Hills 3/5/17:  Los Angeles Country Arboretum & Botanic Garden , Arcadia Still to come: 3/4/17: Thousand Palms Oasis, Thousand Palms 3/4/17: Private streetside garden, Palm Springs

Like many of you, I've been a big fan of Plant Delights Nursery in Raleigh, North Carolina for a number of years. Even if you've never ordered from them, you're probably familiar with their catalog—easily the most unique and entertaining plant catalog in the country. Owner Tony Avent is one of the world's leading plantmen, a true renaissance guy. To get an idea of what he's done and where he's been, check these  plant expedition logs . Among many other plant categories, he's considered an expert in agaves. Plant Delights has introduced many agave cultivars over the years, including 'Silver Surfer', 'Arizona Star' and 'Frostbite'. The 2017 catalog is particularly rich in new Agave and × Mangave  cultivars. Take a look here . The entire range of agaves and mangaves currently available is  here . I placed an order when the 2017 catalog came out a few months ago, and today my plants arrived. For a plant lover, few things are as excit...