Succulents and More™

Except for a brief heatwave, the weather has been surprisingly mild this June. Still, we’ve reached the time of year when putting new plants in the ground isn’t the best idea. This means that my favorite things to do in the garden (like planting) are on hold until the fall. As I’ve said many times before, summer is my least favorite season, but skipping it isn’t an option, so instead of actively doing stuff, I spend more time observing. With no real projects on the horizon, I’ll probably have more This and that type posts than usual. I actually like them because I can talk about things that wouldn’t necessarily warrant a dedicated post. So, in no particular order.... ALIEN This new arm coming out on this San Pedro cactus reminds me a lot of the chestburster scene in the movie Alien : San Pedro cactus Five days later TRY TRY AGAIN Lewisias are succulents native to dry rocky slopes in subalpine regions of the Western U.S. They’re one of the few succulent genera native to California, an...

It’s almost mid-June. Don’t get me started on how quickly time is flying by! After a weird winter and a long and mild spring, summer is here with a vengeance. Temperatures above the century mark are forecast for the next few days. I did some advance watering to help the garden handle the unaccustomed heat. To make matters worse, it’s pretty windy, too. Think convection oven. Fortunately, this heatwave looks to be fairly short. Back into the low 90s next week. Remember the rat(s) that nibbled on my Astrophytum cacti a while ago? I caught one in early May and foolishly let myself be lulled into complacency. Of course that wasn’t the end of it: Another Astrophytum asterias nibbled on in the greenhouse Oddly enough, the cacti that were chewed on were all astrophytums. Nothing else. I have no idea what it is about astrophytums in particular, but clearly rats and mice prefer them over anything else in my greenhouse. With two electric rat zapper traps going, it was only a matter of time u...