A few good things to brighten the mood

In recent weeks, I’ve written about some pretty unpleasant stuff: frost damage , our palo verde getting blown over , thieves stealing two rare agaves , and losing another tree because of excessive rain and high winds. I was going to post another damage assessment today but then I realized that I—and probably you—weren’t quite ready for that yet. So I decided to do a complete 180 and focus on the good things happening in the garden right now. Yes, there are quite a few. Let’s dive right in! Veltheimia capensis and ×Mangave ‘Red Wing’ The sand lilies ( Veltheimia capensis ) are in full bloom now. This South African bulb prefers full sun; mine is in the warmest spot I have. It goes completely dormant in the summer and comes back every fall. I started out with just one bulb (and one flower), now there are seven. They don’t multiply super quickly, but they do multiply. There’s a second species in the genus Veltheimia , the forest lily ( V. bracteata ). It’s actually much more common in c