Kyle's garden, a major source of inspiration

A few weeks ago, Kyle and I visited Max and Justin in Oakland. As you can see in this post, their garden is a lush oasis in an otherwise ungardened neighborhood. (Actually, it would be a standout in any neighborhood.) A couple of Saturdays ago, Max and Justin came to Davis to check out the UC Davis Arboretum plant sale and see my garden. Once we were done here, we made the 25-minute drive to Sacramento to drop in on Kyle. Visiting each other’s gardens, hanging out, and talking plants, that’s what it’s all about.

I see Kyle’s garden on a regular basis, but I don’t take photos each time I’m there. But since he was doing some cleanup anyway (leaf drop season!), I thought this would be a good time for an update. After all, my last post was back in April.

This post is very picture-heavy, so you may want to pace yourself. In fact, there are so many photos that Google Blogger, the platform I’m using, was balking at the number of images I tried to upload at the same time. Kyle’s garden is my favorite garden to visit and a major source of inspiration, and I hope my photos show you why.

This is what Kyle’s front yard looks like now:

Compare that to November 2022 (my second visit):

February 2023

Three and a half years later, November 2025:

Looking at this vignette, I realize I do not have enough rocks in my garden

I love how this Agave titanota ‘Lion’s Mane’ is planted vertically. To the right, Plectranthus neochilus ‘Mike’s Fuzzy Wuzzy’, a favorite groundcover of Kyle’s and mine.

Succulents, rocks — and grasses! This is Muhlenbergia reverchonii ‘Undaunted’.

Moraea polystachya, a member of the iris family from South Africa. These are offsets from John Miller’s garden. Agave titanota in the background.

Hechtia argentea planted vertically in a crack between the rocks — a different kind of crevice garden

Mangave ‘Falling Waters’

So many small details. Everything is done beautifully.

A perfectly grown Agave attenuata in the Sacramento Valley? That’s a big accomplishment.

View towards the neighbor’s driveway. Kyle is planning big changes in this area.

Mangave ‘Navajo Princess’ getting ready to flower. It’ll be the end of this rosette, but there will be offsets underneath.

Like the front garden, Kyle’s back garden has changed dramatically over time, maybe even more so. Kyle is a very active gardener, and he is constantly making edits — tweaking, tuning, refining. That is one reason why his garden looks the way it does. Another is his innate sense of design. Kyle instinctively knows what looks good together.

Many gardens are 100% plants. Not so here. Plants are a focal point, of course, but they’re not the only one. Kyle has an ever-growing collection of found items like driftwood, shells, seed cones, and the like, displayed in upcycled containers like this old plow disc:

Or mounted on the fence:

And there are rocks everywhere. Kyle is a geologist by profession and has been a rockhound all his life, collecting rocks wherever he goes. There are rocks picked up by the roadside, petrified wood, and rare minerals. Sometimes they’re background players, sometimes they’re the stars. In almost all the photos below, there are rocks somewhere.

With virtually all of the horizontal space in the garden occupied, Kyle has started to go vertical, installing planters of every description on the fence and on trellises:

Hollowed out lava rocks serving as planters

Every mound is delineated by a solid border of rocks, creating contained planting spaces and leaving well-defined paths for navigating the garden

Kyle’s garden is succulent-heavy — he has a large collection of aloes, in addition to agaves, euphorbias, gasterias, terrestrial bromeliads, and of course cacti. But in protected spots up against the house you’ll also find all kinds of tropical foliage plants. Some are hardy enough to spend winters outside, others go inside the house or the office shed. This juxtaposition of hard and soft adds an extra layer of visual interest.

Everything from aloes, agaves, mangaves, euphorbias, and cacti to iresine, ficus, alocasias, and scheffleras

A desert rose on top of a rusty spring — it’s things like this that make Kyle’s garden so unique

More vertical plantings, in this case hechtias

Office shed in the back

Another seating area

Molybdenum ore and yellow horned poppy (Glaucium flavum)

Agave pelona with Plectranthus neochilus ‘Mike’s Fuzzy Wuzzy’

More crevice plantings

×Mangave ‘Dreadlocks’

Variegated Aloidendron ‘Hercules’

The covered patio is home to a large collection of potted plants:

And there’s seating for humans, too:

Who wouldn’t want to hang out here, with so many cool things to look at! I’ve spent quite a bit of time here.

Aloe erinacea, a highly collectible small aloe from arid Namibia

Agave desmetiana ‘Ivory Star’, one of the prettiest variegated agaves and one of the most user-friendly

Regular wood and petrified wood

Beautiful assemblage of potted cacti. The table is pretty unique, too!

Mostly tropical foliage plants in this shady corner of the backyard

Canna and brugmansia

Looking towards the patio from the north side of the backyard

Who knew lettuce could be this photogenic?

Back on the patio:

Seasonal color from potted chrysanthemums

Chrysanthemum ‘Splash Energy’ flanked by Agave schidigera ‘Royal Flush’ and gymnocalyciums (=potted cacti)

Looking towards the office shed in the northeast corner of the backyard

Looking back towards the patio

Succulent bed outside the office shed

Pachypodium lamerei ×3 and Cereus forbesii f. spiralis

Agave horrida

So many awesome plants...

...packed into a small space

One final look at the backyard

For kicks, I asked Google Gemini about Kyle’s garden. Here’s what it spat out:

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Kyle Johnson’s garden in Sacramento is a dynamic, evolving space that has been transformed into a lush, botanical oasis from a typical front and backyard over the past few years, starting around 2018 when he and his wife purchased their home. It is known for being a "fusion garden" and a "horticultural wonderland" that expertly combines different elements.

🪴 Garden Highlights and Design

• Plant Focus: The garden is a mix of plants, but is particularly prominent for its succulents and cacti, which are often combined with perennials, annuals, and edibles. Kyle is an avid succulent and cacti collector and is known for constantly tweaking and refining his plant material, testing their heat and hardiness limits in the Sacramento climate. He is described as a "Cramscaper," maximizing the number of plants in the space.

• Role of Rocks: A distinctive feature is the prominent and brilliant use of rocks, which is influenced by Kyle’s profession as a geologist. Rocks are integral to the design, used to create raised mounds for improved drainage and to create unique pockets for succulents. He has more rocks in his garden than many others.

• Design Elements: The garden showcases expertise in garden design, including plant layering, mound and bed building, and creative staging. The backyard features a series of mounds bordered by rocks. The design is described as having the "eye of an artist and the mind of a designer," with carefully thought-out combinations of sizes, colors, and textures.

• Backyard Features: The backyard includes a covered patio off the living room, which acts as an extension of their living space. A notable feature is a shed that Kyle designed and built for his wife, sometimes referred to as a "she-shed." He also grows some vegetables and herbs in raised beds.

• Unique Touches: Artistic touches include metal artwork made by Kyle featuring core samples or slices of rock, reflecting his geology background, and a 1946 Ford pickup permanently parked in the side yard, which holds some of his cactus collection or acts as a cozy greenhouse for seedlings.

🧑‍🌾 Involvement and Tours

Kyle Johnson is an active member of the Sacramento Cactus and Succulent Society (SCSS) and a self-taught plantsman who learns by trial and error.

His garden has been featured on open garden tours, including the Tahoe Park Garden Tour and tours for SCSS members and attendees of his presentations. He has given talks on dynamic gardening, focusing on topics like creating a perennial garden with succulents and cactus, and landscaping with big-box store succulents.

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All of this is true, of course, because it’s mostly based on previous posts I wrote ☺. Some people worry about AI replacing us, but if it weren’t for humans providing the source material, AI wouldn’t have much to say.

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