This is a continuation of my previous post featuring random pictures from around Santa Barbara. To see other posts from my recent trip, click here.
Aloes
As I mentioned earlier, Agave attenuata, the foxtail agave, was the most common landscape succulent we saw in Santa Barbara. But there were plenty of aloes as well. The ones that were in flower were immediately noticeable. We spotted many Aloe arborescens, but for some reason neither Kyle nor I took a single photo (they’re pretty boring).
I did take photos of
Aloe ‘Jacob’s Ladder’, lots of them. Last year, Randy Baldwin of San Marcos Growers told me about a mass planting of ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ in a local business park. I featured it in
this January 2025 post, together with a spectacular display of
Aloe ‘Birds and Bees’ in another commercial landscape nearby.
I wanted Kyle to see both of these plantings so we stopped there after we left San Marcos Growers on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, the ‘Birds and Bees’ were past their prime, but ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ was in full bloom, as you can see below.
Aloe ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ has been growing in the
Huntington Desert Garden for many years and was made available to the public in 2003 through the Huntington’s
International Succulent Introductions program. It forms clumps to 3 ft. in height, with each rosette eventually growing to a width of 2 ft. The parentage of this aloe isn’t known, but the experts at the Huntington think it’s a hybrid of
Aloe dawei.
According to Randy Baldwin, the planting of ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ at the Santa Barbara business park started with 37 five gallons purchased from San Marcos Growers in December 2021, followed by another 33 five gallons in the spring of 2022, for a total of 70. Assuming that each original ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ has produced three offsets since then (a conservative guess), there should now be close to 300 plants. No wonder the overall effect is so striking. Unfortunately, with San Marcos Growers gone, finding ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ for purchase will be a bit of a treasure hunt. (Good news: Dry Oasis Plants in Half Moon Bay has
‘Jacob’s Ladder’ in three gallons.)
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| Aloe ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ at a Santa Barbara office park |
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| I want to live in a town where commercial landscaping looks like this! |
Not long after leaving the ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ business park, Kyle and I came upon a mass planting of a low-growing aloe with yellow flowers along a busy road. Of course we had to stop. We weren’t entirely sure what this aloe was, but it looked very much like
Aloe maculata, after
Aloe vera probably the most common aloe in cultivation. (Later in the evening, I checked the San Marcos Growers website, and Kyle and I now think it’s
this form of Aloe maculata.)
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| Yellow-flowering form of Aloe maculata |
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| The flowers are quite distinct |
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| The color is a vibrant yellow |
Beyond these mass plantings, we saw other aloes in the front yards of houses in our residential neighborhood.
Residential landscaping
As you look at the photos below, bear in mind that they were taken on just four or five small residential streets in the beachside neighborhood where we stayed. The quality of residential landscaping was so much higher than what I see here in Davis and Sacramento. It’s got to be the climate — which is pretty much perfect.
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| Massive variegated Euphorbia ammak |
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| I admire minimalist designs like this, knowing full well that I would never have the discipline to replicate it in my own garden |
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| Dymondia margaretae and cobbles: This could be featured in any number of publications on contemporary landscape design. |
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| Equally magazine-worthy: Agave ovatifolia surrounded by a sea of Senecio serpens |
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| Agaves and grasses |
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| A beautiful house with low-water landscaping |
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| Wider view |
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| Several houses in our neighborhood had dramatic lighting at night |
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| Simple, but effective landscaping in a neighborhood shopping center |
Margaritas
A margarita at the end of a jam-packed day of plant hunting is a well-earned treat. At least that’s my philosophy. Several people had recommended
Taquería La Única for dinner, and we loved the food so much, we went there two evenings in a row. Quite possibly the best fish tacos I’ve ever had, prepared perfectly and presented beautifully. And the margaritas, wow. I’ve had many margaritas in my day, but these were something else. They were decorated with skewers of fresh fruit (watermelon, mango, pineapple, strawberry) and sweet treats and even came with a rubber duckie. This wasn’t a special order either, just their regular house margarita.
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| A rim of Tajín instead of salt |
Sunsets
When you’re in one of the most picturesque places on the California coast, watching the sunset from the beach is a no-brainer. And there’s no shortage of beautiful beaches in Santa Barbara.
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| Arroyo Burro Beach (aka Hendry’s Beach) |
Arroyo Burro Beach, called Hendry’s Beach by locals, is easy to get to and clearly very popular (we had to park on a residential street a little ways away because the parking lot was full). It’s also the most dog-friendly beach in town, as evidenced by a dog wash station in the parking lot. The sunset was every bit as spectacular as we had hoped for.
The second sunset we saw was from
One Thousand Steps Beach, a 10-minute walk from our vacation rental. The beach is named for the long and precipitous concrete stairway built in the 1920s that leads down a cliff. While the name suggests a massive climb, there are “only” 157 steps.
One Thousand Steps Beach is particularly dramatic because it’s quite narrow and the bluff rises steeply to the mansions on top. The most surprising thing: The beach smelled like a freshly paved road! The smell of tar took me aback at first, but it’s an entirely natural phenomenon. It’s caused by natural seeps in the sea floor that leak roughly 6,500 to 7,000 gallons of crude oil every single day. The oil rises to the surface, coagulates, and is carried by currents and winds to shore. Warmer water and air temperatures make the smell more pungent. Sometimes tar balls are washed onto the beach, and stepping on them is said to be quite unpleasant. Fortunately, we didn’t encounter any and were able to enjoy the sunset unencumbered.
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Agave fields
This two-part post
started with agaves, so it’s only appropriate that it ends with agaves.
If you’ve ever driven down the Central Valley on I-5, you know what a mind-numbingly dull experience that is. But something exciting is happening
near Coalinga in Fresno County: agaves are being planted for agave spirits. Acres upon acres. In fact, agaves are becoming an ever more important crop, not just in Fresno County, but also in Santa Barbara County and in Yolo County where I live.
Here’s a good article if you want to learn more.
The next time you find yourself driving down the Central Valley, keep your eyes open for agave fields. They appear like a mirage, out of nowhere, and disappear almost as quickly. But what a sight, however briefly!
© Gerhard Bock, 2026. All rights reserved. To receive all new posts by email, please subscribe here.
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