Succulents and More™

I just finished a 3-part series about the Ruth Bancroft Garden (RBG) in Walnut Creek so it may seem redundant to post even more photos. On the other hand, can there ever be too much of a good thing? I ’ ll let you be the judge of that.  The photos in this post were taken a couple of Saturdays ago on a somewhat unexpected second December visit. With some exceptions, they show different vignettes and plants than my other recent RBG posts. Massive  Agave salmiana  ‘Variegata’ standing guard at the entrance to the garden on Bancroft Road. The tall columnar cactus next to the Visitor Center is  Echinopsis terscheckii (aka  Trichocereus terscheckii ), sometimes called the Argentine saguaro because of its similar appearance. Agave salmiana  ‘Variegata’, looking southeast, away from the garden entrance I wonder how many people driving by (don’t) notice this agave flower stalk? The plantings around the new Visitor and Education Center fall in the “friendly” category: soft-leaved, and without

Every now and then, I scan Etsy  for all things agave—live plants, garden ornaments, art, etc.—just to see what's being offered. I literally just look; I can count the number of purchases on two hands. But a few weeks ago, I found something I had to have: a linocut print of a flowering agave by Chicago-area printmaker Alejandra Brightbill : I love everything about this print. The fact that it was only $26 made it even sweeter. Beautiful and affordable! Initially, I was going to mat the print and put it in a contemporary metal frame, but then I had a stroke of brilliance. Years ago, my mother-in-law, an inveterate yard sale explorer, had given me an 8×10 inch frame “made from the ribs of a sahuaro:” It came from a place called The Cactus Shop in Florence, Arizona, owned at the time by an F. E. White: Based on the spelling of “sahuaro,” I assumed this frame was quite old. The only reference to F. E. White I found was in a July 13, 1918 (!) blurb in the Arizona Copper Camp weekly : I