Succulents and More™

The third garden I visited a few Sundays ago with the California Horticultural Society (CalHort) is located in Green Valley outside of Fairfield, about 35 minutes west of here. Climatically speaking, Green Valley is in between San Francisco Bay with its mild winters and summers and the Sacramento Valley with its somewhat colder winters and blazing-hot summers. It's not quite Goldilocks country, but almost (and certainly closer than we are) The garden we toured belongs to Carol and Barrie Coate. Now retired, Barrie has been a leading figure in California horticultural circles for decades: as a consulting arborist, director of the Saratoga Horticultural Research Foundation (now part of UC Davis), arboricultural consultant to the Getty Center, and author of numerous articles and books. Barrie and his wife Carol moved to Green Valley in 2014. They inherited a number of mature trees and shrubs but have added everything else you see in the photos below. The soil in their area can ...

The other day I mentioned that a neighbor thought the pots lining the flagstone walkway to the front door looked really nice. While I appreciate her compliment, I think our front yard is beginning to resemble a cottage nursery. I’ve been buying too many plants since fall, and in the winter everything went into a holding pattern. I put pots wherever there was room, often stuffing them into nooks and crannies on the front porch or under the eaves. As warmer weather returned, I began to spread them out along the walkway so the plants could get much-needed sunshine. But I’m beginning to be bothered by how haphazard it all looks, meaning it’s time to do something about it. I may have crossed the line from gardener—somebody who buys plants based on actual need—to hoarder—somebody who likes to amass plants for no reason other than to have them. Actually, I prefer to call myself a “plant collector.” That sounds a tad more sophisticated than “hoarder.” Let me share some photos with you so ...

On a whim, I attended a bonsai show in Sacramento last month ( click here to read my post). The exotic-looking miniature trees really struck a chord in me, and I started to read up on bonsai. I’m still at the very beginning of what might end up being a life-long journey and I feel I need to learn a lot more before I even attempt to work on a living plant. However, when we were at my in-laws for Thanksgiving, I couldn’t help but notice the thousands (literally!) of saplings growing everywhere on their 2½ acre property. There is white pine ( Pinus monticola ) and Ponderosa pine ( Pinus ponderosa ), but above all there is Western redcedar ( Thuja plicata ). As its Latin name already indicates, Western redcedar isn’t a true cedar (like Lebanon, Atlas, or Deodar) but rather an arborvitae. That’s why “redcedar” is spelled as one word rather than as two, as would be the case if it were a true cedar. A few of the many mature Western redcedars on my in-laws’ property While Western red...

Yesterday I went to my first bonsai show ever. The Capitol City Bonsai Association (Sacramento) had their 12th anniversary show this past weekend, and it was a great opportunity to see prime examples of bonsai. My understanding of bonsai is quite rudimentary but I’ve been saying for a couple of years now that bonsai seems like the perfect hobby for me when I retire. But since that won’t happen for another 15 years or so, there’s no point in waiting that long to find out more about it. I attended a hands-on demonstration on Sunday but it was about rock planting (see below) and not about creating bonsai specimens. The philosophy is quite similar in many ways to the philosophy behind Japanese gardens. From what I was able to glean, the goal of bonsai is to create a idealized miniature version of nature where everything about the plant is perfectly proportional to its size. In other words, you don’t want a small tree with leaves that are much too big for the trunk and branches. How that ...