Succulents and More™

I have plenty more posts from Santa Barbara in the pipeline, but I want to take a quick break to show you some recent developments in our own garden. Remember my big Aloe ‘Moonglow’ falling over about three weeks ago? I made a clean cut to the trunk and replanted it a bit closer to the fence. Here it is today, not missing a beat: Replanted Aloe ‘Moonglow’ this close to flowering That was ‘Moonglow’ #1. This is what greeted me when I got back from Santa Barbara last week: Aloe ‘Moonglow’ #2 face-planted on the sidewalk Aloe ‘Moonglow’ #2 had fallen over, too! That pesky thing called gravity at work again! Amazing how in just a day or two in this horizontal position the flower heads had already started to change orientation! I made a clean cut and reset the ‘Moonglow’ a bit closer to the fence, just like the other one. Aloe ‘Moonglow’ #2 after resetting As of today, the flower heads are still in the wrong orientation, but I imagine they’ll right themselves in due course. Aloe ‘M...

While most of the posts on Succulents and More are about succulents, some fall into the “more” category. This is one of them. My love affair with the Proteaceae family (informally referred to as “proteas”) goes back a long time. Over the years. I’ve grown the most common members in my garden: Protea , Leucadendron , and Leucospermum from South Africa as well as Banksia , Grevillea , and Hakea from Australia. As beautiful as they are, they do have some special requirements you need to know in order to be successful with them. Above all, they’re intolerant of too much phosphorus in the soil so general-purpose fertilizers can harm or even kill them. (They still need phosphorus, just not at the levels usually present here in California.) In Australia and South Africa, protea fertilizer is widely available. Not so here. Until recently, nobody in the U.S. manufactured fertilizer specially formulated for proteas. My friend Troy McGregor, Australian-born plantsman extraordinaire and owner o...

Of all the shrubs in the garden, my favorite is Acacia aphylla . This oddball from Western Australia lacks traditional leaves (hence the common name “leafless rock wattle”). Instead, its zigzaggy blue-green stems perform photosynthesis. These stems, which give the plant its striking sculptural appearance, are adapted to reduce water loss in the dry, arid conditions where it naturally grows – not so different from here. From a distance, Acacia aphylla looks like a bluish cloud hovering over the sidewalk bed. In late winter, mid- to late-February, it’s covered with bright yellow ball-shaped flowers. This is what it looked like this year: The red-flowering shrub behind it is Grevillea ‘Scarlet Sprite’, thought to be a hybrid of Grevillea rosmarinifolia and another unknown grevillea: I like the two together, but both were getting too large for this spot – or any spot in our small garden. This is what Acacia aphylla looked like yesterday morning: With curbside yard-waste pickup coming up ...

If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you have heard me mention Troy McGregor. I first met Troy when he was the manager of the nursery at the Ruth Bancroft Garden, a good 10 years ago . He was instrumental in growing what used to be a small plant sale area into a specialty nursery known all over Northern California for its excellent selection of succulents and water-wise plants, including a large variety of shrubs from Australia and South Africa. Since then, he’s established Gondwana Flora , a landscape design and build company specializing in climate-appropriate front yard transformations. Waltzing Matilija Nursery began in 2018 as an extension of Gondwana Flora. “I was unable to find many of the plants I love to landscape (and garden) with,” Troy said when I spoke with him last year, “so I started to grow my own. One thing leads to another and now here we are.” Troy with Protea ‘Arctic Ice’ In 2021, Troy moved Waltzing Matilija to its current location, a ½ acre l...

Driving two hours one way to visit a botanical garden may seem weird to some, but I wear my weirdness with pride. Plus, I love driving, listening to an audiobook, or just letting my mind go where it wants to. In other words, I enjoy getting there as much as being there. My destination this time was the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) Arboretum. I was surprised to realize that I hadn't been there since May 2019 , so almost two years. The COVID-19 pandemic has altered my perception of time to the point where I can't trust myself to accurately gauge when I did this or that. My focus on this trip was the Australian Garden. Right now, it's a riot of color from countless trees, shrubs, and perennials in vibrant bloom against a backdrop of evergreen foliage. Walking around and taking photos was a glorious experience.  This post is image-heavy and it'll take you a while to go through, but I promise it's worth your time. I'll keep my comments to a minimum. Gre...