Succulents and More™

After a long, hot, destructive, and depressing summer, all I want is to put the misery behind me and move forward. I’ve pulled out all the aloes and agaves that rotted as a result of the heat domes we had in July and August ( some mentioned here , but there have been others as well) and I’ve done some replanting, as you’ll see later in this post. In addition, I’ve removed a few other plants that simply didn’t do it for me anymore. One of them is Agave ‘Ripple Express’, a variegated form of ‘Mr Ripple’ . I had high hopes for ‘Ripple Express’, but I was never quite satisfied with how it looked. Two years ago, maybe even a year ago, I would have simply accepted it for what it was and moved on. Not so now. When a plant doesn’t play its part, it gets replaced. Agave ‘Mr Ripple’ Agave ‘Mr Ripple’ You can guess what happened: I took advantage of our first curbside yard waste pickup of the season I replaced ‘Ripple Express’ with a Jeremy Spath hybrid, Agave bovicornuta × parrasana . It’s jus...

The state of the backyard has been bothering me for a long time. Many of the plants are old and look tired. Some are in the wrong place. And others are permanently on the brink of death, either because of bad soil or a lack of water. Plus, four bay trees which are now over 30 ft. tall create deep shade while sucking up all the available moisture in the soil; finding plants that survive there, let alone thrive, is almost impossible. After years of lethargy and inertia, work on making much-needed improvements has begun. I’ll have a detailed update very soon. This post is about removing a fairly big agave that was in the way. It was nice enough, but simply too large for its spot: The agave in question is an Agave chiapensis which I bought at the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden circa 2010. To my amazement, I found the original tag tucked into the soil underneath the plant: I originally bought it because of the stated size: 18" tall by 30" wide. But as is so often the case, reality...

This summer, I removed two agaves , Agave bovicornuta and Agave shrevei var. matapensis × Agave guadalajarana . They had flowered and were dying. Bittersweet, but the ultimate fate of most agave species. It’s one thing taking out an agave that has come to the end of its life span. It’s something else entirely when an agave (a large one to boot) croaks seemingly from one day to the next. A few weeks ago, I noticed something was amiss with Agave gentryi ‘Jaws’ in the sidewalk strip: The leaves had begun to fold in on themselves in a rather extreme way: And black liquid was coming out of the center: Black stuff oozing out of any plant is never a good sign. Even worse, I was able to rock the entire agave back and forth with just one hand. Friends who stopped by during my open garden for the Sacramento Cactus and Succulent Society confirmed what I already knew: It was a goner. Removing ‘Jaws’ was easy: I was able to pull the entire rosette to the curb with nothing but my two hands. There...

The peak of the cactus bloom ( here and here ) is behind us, but there’s rarely a week without at least a few cactus flowers. The two below, Echinopsis  ‘June Noon’ and Echinopsis  ‘Salmon Queen’, are repeat bloomers. For ‘June Noon’, it’s the fifth wave this year. The flowers are smaller this time, probably because of our summer heat (we’re heading into another mini heat wave above the century mark). Echinopsis  ‘June Noon’ Echinopsis  ‘June Noon’ Echinopsis  ‘Salmon Queen’ ⤵   Aechmea fasciata  is blooming – always a personal highlight. It lives outside all year, suspended in a hanging basket from our Japanese maple. What started out with one plant has grown into a clump of four. Last August, the two on the left flowered ( see here ); this year, it’s the two on the right. Aechmea fasciata  flowers Aechmea fasciata  flower ⤵  Over the years, I’ve killed more desert roses (aka adeniums) than I care to remember. According to expert ...