Succulents and More™

In my previous post , I showed you the grounds at Dairy Creek Meadows, the 30-acre rural spread owned by long-time gardeners Craig Quirk and Larry Neill outside of Portland, Oregon. This post is about the greenhouse and the crevice garden that surrounds it, both masterpieces in their own right. I think you’ll be blown away. Let’s start with the greenhouse. It sits in the middle of a naturalistic perennial meadow designed in collaboration with Laura Crockett of Garden Diva Designs and inspired by the work of Piet Oudolf . The area is fully fenced to keep out the local deer population. When I visited, in early April, most of the meadow perennials were still dormant; take a look at this photo from Craig’s Instagram to see what it looks like in summer. The greenhouse is actually two interconnected structures from Hartley Botanic , a British manufacturer known for its classic designs and superior build quality. Craig told us that the glasshouses were delivered on two flat-bed trucks. And...

I have an update on the greenhouse rat situation ( see this post from two weeks ago). It's short and sweet. The notification from my Wi-Fi- enabled  electronic rat trap says it all: An app for a rat trap is a bit silly, but everything seems to come with an app these days I won't post a photo of the dead rat, but since it died of electric shock, it wasn't bloody or anything. In fact, it looked just like a living rat, except that it wasn't. I'll leave the traps (two electronic traps, one old-fashioned snap trap) in the greenhouse a little while longer, just in case. © Gerhard Bock, 2026. All rights reserved.  To receive all new posts by email, please subscribe here .

This past weekend was the 2026 Show & Sale of the Sacramento Cactus & Succulent Society (SCSS). To celebrate, my friend and frequent partner-in-crime Kyle Johnson invited the vendors and SCSS board members to an evening get-together in his garden. I didn’t keep track of how many people showed up, but it was a few dozen at least. Most of the locals had seen Kyle’s garden before, but the out-of-town vendors hadn’t. In addition to the general ooh and aahs, I overheard some comments that reflected a deeper connection to what Kyle has created. I’m sure that, as fellow gardeners, you know how validating it is to hear from people who get what you’re trying to do. The photos in this post were taken between 4:30pm and 7:30pm. During those three hours, the light was getting warmer and softer until, boom, it was dark. But Kyle has lights throughout the garden so nobody was stumbling around in the dark. I didn’t quite capture the magic I felt as I was walking around after dark, but I hop...