Succulents and More™

Even though I blog frequently, I have so many plants (surprise, surprise) that there are always some that fall through the cracks. This post is trying to remedy that. Here are 14 things I haven’t shown you before, or at least not in a long time. ❶ After many failures I have finally become the lithops whisperer. How? Simple: by ignoring them most of the year. Seriously, I don’t pay any attention to them (i.e. I don’t give them any water) until they start to flower. When they do, I water them until the flowers start to fade. Then I ignore them again for the next 10½ months. As I said: simple. Lithops lesliei var. venteri Lithops salicola ‘Malachite’ ❷ I’ve grown plenty of mangaves over the years. Fortunately, there are always new ones in the pipeline. Mangave ‘American Masterpiece’, coming soon from Walters Gardens Mangave ‘Permanent Wave’, widely available now ❸ In an attempt to add some color for my open garden last weekend I bought this ornamental pepper. It looked perfectly plump...

In spite of daytime highs in the high 80s and low 90s, fall is definitely here. Summer-growing succulents have slowed way down in preparation for winter, and compared to spring and summer, there’s very little in bloom in the succulent realm. But there’s always something , as you’ll see below. Coryphantha retusa Coryphantha retusa is a small cactus from Mexico with dense golden spines. I got two of them in last year’s fall plant sale at the Huntington, and this one flowered in early October: Coryphantha retusa Ferocactus herrerae Ferocactus herrerae is closely related to Ferocactus wislizeni , the common Arizona fishhook barrel, but as the body of the cactus ages, it takes on a pronounced twist. Mine flowers quite profusely from summer into fall. The flower you see below is last one of the year, and quite possibly the most perfect: Ferocactus herrerae flower; the yellow “pineapples” above it are immature fruits from earlier flowers Ferocactus herrerae Ariocarpus fissuratus var. hint...