Succulents and More™

Work has kept me busy in recent weeks and now it's too hot outside to do much gardening. The forecast for the weekend is even more dismal: 110° on Friday, 111° on Saturday, and 105° on Sunday. Even on Monday (Labor Day) it's still supposed to be 103°. I doubt I'll get much yard work done! So instead of going outside to take photos of the garden, let me show you another awesome place I visited on my Arizona trip last December. On my way to Cavalliere Park  in north Scottsdale, I drove right by 3,169 ft Pinnacle Peak. Rising almost 600 ft. from the desert floor, it's impossible to miss! Pinnacle Peak shrouded in mist After I was done at Cavalliere Park I decided to stop at Pinnacle Peak Park  (managed by the City of Scottsdale) even though the sky was getting ever gloomier. I was expecting to have the park to myself, considering the weather and the fact that it was New Year's Eve. Not so. The parking lot was more than half full, and the trail up the mountai...

The Scottsdale Xeriscape Demonstration Garden  wasn't the only remarkable public space I visited in Scottsdale, AZ last December. Located in north Scottsdale,  George "Doc" Cavalliere Park  is a 34-acre gem seamlessly integrated into the rugged desert terrain. Corten steel and gabions are liberally used to create architectural features that are both sustainable and attractive. While a public project like this encompasses a much larger scale and has a significantly higher budget than a residential landscape, it can be a valuable source of inspiration. Completed in February 2012 with a budget of $4.3 million, Cavalliere Park was a national pilot project for the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES)  program and the first SITES-certified project in Arizona .

The barrel cactus in this post is particularly special to me. Not because it's rare (it isn't), but because it's been with us for quite a while and because it has good memories attached to it. This summer it's giving us more flowers than ever before. What more could I ask! Ferocactus herrerae , with Agave vilmoriniana 'Stained Glass' behind it

Scottsdale, AZ is Phoenix's wealthy neighbor to the east. The city is known for its upscale resorts and golf courses; the New York Times called it "a desert version of Miami's South Beach." As a result, the City of Scottsdale has more resources at its disposal than other cities of comparable size. Case in point: the Scottsdale Xeriscape Demonstration Garden . This may be the most surprising public garden I've ever visited. I say surprising because instead of cookie-cutter hardscaping and the run-of-the-mill greenery you typically find in a public park, the City of Scottsdale created an outdoor lab showcasing water-saving landscaping techniques for Arizona homeowners as well as plants that are adapted to the harsh desert climate (the garden has over 7,000 plants from 200 species). The 5.5 acre Scottsdale Xeriscape Demonstration Garden is part of Chaparral Park and seamlessly incorporates the adjacent Chaparral Water Treatment Plant in its layout. In fact, the ...

On August 23, 2017, Timber Press will release the completely revised second edition of Designing with Succulents by Debra Lee Baldwin . The first edition sold over 180,000 copies and has become a classic. The second edition is even bigger and better. In addition to delighting fans of the first edition, it will appeal to a whole new audience interested in incorporating succulents into their own landscaping. Click here to read my review of the new edition. Debra Lee Balwin holding her "new baby" (photo © Debra Lee Baldwin; used with permission) As I was reading Designing with Succulents  I started to compile a list of random questions that popped into my head. Being the good sport that she is, Debra Lee Baldwin graciously agreed to answer them. Read on to find out more about the second edition of Designing with Succulents , new succulent trends, and what Debra's favorite succulents are.

Ten years ago, Timber Press  published a book that ended up having a major influence on my own garden style and plant obsessions: Designing with Succulents  by Debra Lee Baldwin. At the time, few homeowners outside of desert climates knew much about succulents, let alone used them for residential landscaping (myself included), and only hard-core aficionados collected them. All that was about to change. Whether Designing with Succulents triggered this transformation or whether it was simply published at the right time, I cannot say. But it became the manifesto of a movement that, facilitated by the rise of social media like Facebook and later Pinterest and Instagram, would propel succulents into the mainstream—and Debra Lee Baldwin onto the national stage. The January 2010 publication of Debra’s next book, Succulent Container Gardens , cemented her reputation as the “Queen of Succulents,” and today she is a much sought-after speaker and a succulent maven with a massive world...

Fellow garden blogger Alan Lorence of Saint Louis, Missouri not only writes a blog I've been following longer than almost any other, It's Not Working, It's Gardening! , he's also a woodworking wizard. A couple of years ago he started selling a variety of outdoor furniture products through his company Nimble Mill . I have two of his Whorn stools/tables, which I reviewed here . To be honest, even though I got them for use on the backyard patio, they've never left the house because they look great indoors. Now Alan is selling four different cube sculptures through his Etsy shop  (as well as a few new ones that aren't on Etsy yet). They're made of cedar cubes joined by galvanized steel rods. I was particularly taken with the Solo Cubes Tower  and decided to order one. It arrived as a kit consisting of just a few easy-to-assemble pieces. Alan provided detailed instructions but I didn't really need them. Even I, mechanically challenged as I am, was able t...

On day 3 of our recent visit to Iceland we did the classic Golden Circle. This 200+ mile loop connects Reykjavík to three of Iceland's biggest attractions:  Þingvellir National Park , the geysirs at Haukadalur , and the impressive waterfalls at Gullfoss . Everybody says you must do the Golden Circle. Usually when I hear that, I want to do the opposite. But after looking at photos, I couldn't help but agree. The scenery really is stunning, and I didn't want to miss it. Driving the Golden Circle As you can see from my photos below, some spots were virtually deserted while others were a madhouse. But that seems to be the way it is in Iceland in July. Our landlord said to come back in September; the weather is still nice but there are far fewer tourists. And in the winter, when the northern lights are at their best, there's hardly anybody. Of course there's no daylight either—the opposite of what we experienced. Our first stop was on the shores of Lake Þingva...

After drooling over the front yard of Julia's house in Walnut Creek, CA, it was time to check out the backyard. While not as succulent-centric—it's much shadier—it has the same level of sophistication. The hardscaping around the pool may be not be for everyone, but it reflects the homeowner's easy-going elegance.

The third garden I visited as part of the   Ruth Bancroft Garden 's tour of four private gardens was in Walnut Creek. I had blogged about it before , in November 2015, but this time I got to meet the homeowner, Julia, and see the backyard as well. A Google Maps Street View image from May 2014 shows foundation plantings (boxwood?), lawn, and raised beds with flowering pink roses. I suspect this is the way the front yard had been for a long time. In contrast, this is what it looks like now:

The second place I visited on the Ruth Bancroft Garden 's recent tour of four private gardens was on a corner lot in Concord. A Google Maps Street View image from August 2014 shows mounds of soil and possibly gravel on what was once lawn--the beginning of the front yard conversion. Now, three years later, the plantings looks remarkably well established. What stood out for me about this garden was how effortlessly it incorporates cactus--chollas, prickly pears and columnar cactus--into the overall scheme. Agaves and aloes are a common sight in dry gardens in Northern California, as are golden barrel cactus, but the more lethal members of the cactus family--especially chollas--definitely aren't. Kudos to homeowner Galen for including them!

Day 2 of our four-day stopover in Iceland started out sunny. I woked up early—in late July it starts to get light at 3 a.m. after just three hours of dusk-level darkness—and I was excited because we were going to drive southeast from  Reykjavík  to Vík, the southernmost town in Iceland. This relatively short stretch of less than 150 miles is home to many of Iceland's most beautiful scenic attractions. When we started to make plans for our visit to Iceland, I was trying to accommodate a drive around the entire island. I quickly realized, though, that even though Iceland looks small on a world map, it's actually quite large. With a land area of more than 100,000 km² (40,000 sq mi), it's bigger than Korea, Portugal, Austria, Ireland and 150 other countries in the world. In U.S. terms, it's about the size of Virgina, Kentucky or Ohio. In light of that, we decided to focus on the southwestern corner of Iceland. After leaving Reykjavík at 9 a.m., the sun stayed with us fo...