Succulents and More™

Our siding project was completed 10 days ago. In spite of the hot weather, I was itching to get going to put everything back together — or maybe do a few things differently. Here’s the first renovated area I want to show you. I’ll have separate posts about the others. This it what this narrow strip looked like before the new siding: As you can see in the next photo, this area isn’t large, but it has high visibility (the second area with a yellow outline will be featured in my next post): My original idea was to plant a row of columnar cacti in the strip on the north side of the house, between the two air conditioners (on the right in the photo below). But seeing how this side yard is mostly utilitarian (greenhouse, plant racks, clothesline), I decided to set up another rack on the south side of the first AC unit and create a smaller cactus bed around the corner (bottom left in the photo below). The first step was to create a “raised” bed using Corten edging. I put “raised” in quotes be...

I didn’t expect to have an update so soon on the newly gained space on the street side of the relocated fence section ( details here ). However, with 5+ days of rain in the forecast, I decided to get busy before everything gets too soggy. This is where I started on Thursday morning, two days after the fence project was completed: The first step was to get more rocks. I picked the same rocks I used for the new succulent mounds in the backyard ( see here ). The rock yard where I got them calls them “Red Rustic Boulders.” Fortunately, they still had plenty available. I got 600 pounds, which looked like a lot in the trunk of my van, but not so much when spread out: For the plants, I went “shopping” in my own nursery. Being a hoarder has its advantages, one of them being a neverending supply of plants that need to go in the ground. I chose all aloes for the new space. Most of them were from my recent trip to Santa Barbara ( here ) and from last year’s trips ( here and here ), others I got ...

In a small garden like ours, every square foot counts. I constantly look for ways to maximize the space available for planting, and I jump at every chance to squeeze out a few more square feet. Just such an opportunity presented itself when it came time to fix some broken fence sections in the front yard. Take a look: In the photo below, the 6 ft. section outlined in yellow was leaning precariously. This was the only remaining section from when the house was built; the rest of the fence had been replaced about 15 years ago. The 4 ft. section outlined in orange was still good, but it had come loose from the 6 ft. fence next to it. Inside the fence, an L-shaped raised bed occupied the corner where the 4 ft. fence meets the 6 ft. fence which encloses the backyard: Originally, we used this raised bed for tropicals like elephant ears, bananas, and gingers ( see this post ). However, when we switched to more water-wise plants, it became difficult to keep the tropicals happy. In 2013, I plant...