If you’re like me, you have a hard time believing it’s April already. April!
I haven’t started any major projects this year, but it’s still worth taking a quick look at the garden before spring is over for good. The California poppies are already fading and going to seed, so summer isn’t that far off.
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| View through the ponytail palms towards the house; the front door is to the right |
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| Bed next to the front door |
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| The front door is on the right. New solar spotlights from Costco, uplighting the ponytail palms and the Aloe vaombe at night. |
Most of the aloes are done blooming for the year, but there’s never a shortage of other flowers. Several of my hechtias have started to bloom — a bit early, it seems.
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| Hechtia argentea produces almost comically tall inflorescences. The flowers themselves are white, tiny, and insignificant. |
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| Hechtia lanata, on the other hand, has a pretty showy inflorescence: short and fluffy |
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| This Hechtia lanata has been in the ground for 5+ years, but this is the first time it’s flowered |
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| Deuterocohnia brevifolia is blooming, too. The flowers are easy to miss because they’re almost the same color as the leaves and they don’t stick out very far. |
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| Geum ‘Scarlet Tempest’ has been a stellar performer for 5+ years. It flowers profusely, and for a long time. |
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| I’ve never had much luck with staghorn ferns, but when I saw this one (Platycerium bifurcatum ‘Netherlands’) at a local Ace Hardware for $17.99, I decided to try again. So far so good, although it’s only been three weeks. |
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View from the front porch
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Along the sidewalk:
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| Jerusalem sage (Phlomis fruticosa) is covered with yellow flowers at this time of year. It’s a vigorous grower and needs to be reined in occasionally, otherwise it would take over this corner of the sidewalk bed. |
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| A bit hard to see, but Mangave ‘Foxy Lady’ is flowering. Not just the main rosette, but several of the pups, too. I fear the whole clump will die, as mangaves are wont to do after they bloom. |
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| Flowering for several months now, Grevillea ‘Scarlet Sprite’ |
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| Mangave ‘Permanent Wave’ (top), with Ruschia lineolata ‘Nana’ on the left and sundrops (Oenothera serrulata ‘Southern Belle’ ) on the right. The sundrops will be in flower from now until fall. |
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| As I mentioned earlier, most aloes are done blooming, but Aloe ‘Yemeni Gold’, a hybrid from Aloes in Wonderland, is ramping up |
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| Speaking of ramping up: Echinopsis ‘Flying Saucer’ is getting ready for its first wave of flowers (this is what it looked like last year on April 3) |
Rounding the corner of the sidewalk bed:
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| As I mentioned earlier, the California poppies are on their way out. I’ll rip them out before they become too straggly. |
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| Mangave ‘Bloodspot’ × titanota, a Nick Deinhart hybrid, is looking so good that I fear it will bloom (and then die) in the near future |
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| A few ‘White Linen’ poppies have reverted to orange. Usually, I remove them, but this year I was too lazy. |
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| Aloe marlothii, which took 11 years to flower, is done now |
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| Moving on down the sidewalk bed |
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| Yucca rostrata on the left. It bloomed last year for the first time, and it looks like it’s getting ready to split into two heads. |
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| Agave parryi and dogweed (Thymophylla pentachaeta) |
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| Alyogyne ‘Ruth Bancroft’ has started its spectacular flowering season (more info on this Australian shrub here) |
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| Alyogyne ‘Ruth Bancroft’ and Eucalyptus macrocarpa |
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| Eucalyptus macrocarpa and Aloe ‘Erik the Red’ (done flowering) |
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| Far end of the sidewalk bed |
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| One lone aloe still blooming, Aloe striata × betsileensis, a Nick Deinhart hybrid |
Moving into the backyard:
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| This is Stella’s domain |
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| The only winter loss was Euphorbia lactea ‘Dragon Bones’. It rotted. I replaced it with a good-sized cutting from a monstrose apple cactus (Cereus repandus). It’s definitely hardier than the euphorbia. |
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| This puya has been a mystery. Now it’s blooming, with truly odd but weirdly wonderful bluish flowers. |
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| I was finally able to ID it as Puya spathacea |
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| Another cool flower on the left. It is... |
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| ...Aechmea recurvata ‘Aztec Gold’. The flower will last for 6+ months. After that, the flowering rosette will die, but there’s a good-size pup already to take the place of the mother plant. |
A few photos of the succulent mounds in the backyard:
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| Fan aloe (Kumara plicatilis) is flowering now, one inflorescence per head |
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| Closer photo of Kumara plicatilis |
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| Bed #1. The agave is A. ‘Baccarat’. |
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| Variegated cow’s horn agave (Agave bovicornuta ‘Holstein’) |
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| Bed #2 |
It took a few years, but the ‘Slim’ bottlebrush next to the vegetable stock tank is finally living up to its potential: narrow and tall, and very floriferous. In the nursery business, it’s still sold under its old botanical name, Callistemon viminalis ‘Slim’, although all callistemons except for four were moved to the genus Melaleuca in 2009 based on DNA evidence.
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| Melaleuca viminalis ‘Slim’ |
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| Melaleuca viminalis ‘Slim’ from the other side of the fence |
The next big event in the garden will be the first wave of cactus flowers. In a couple of weeks or so.
© Gerhard Bock, 2026. All rights reserved. To receive all new posts by email, please subscribe here.
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