Succulents and More™

Many of you know Debra Lee Baldwin . She has written three books on designing with succulents and is widely credited with inspiring global interest in their use in gardens and landscapes. Because of her expertise and influence in the field, she is often referred to as the “Queen of Succulents”. In fact, her YouTube handle is @QueenofSucculents . I first met Debra in 2011 at the first Succulent Extravaganza put on by Succulent Gardens, back when the nursery was still run by the legendary Robin Stockwell . (For those of you who might be wondering what Robin is doing in his retirement, he now makes high-end surfboards.) I hadn’t seen Debra in quite a few years, and I was happy to run into her at the 2025 CSSA Convention in San Diego. She told me she was filming a new video in which succulent growers and enthusiasts were all asked the same question: “What would your recommendation be for the perfect collectible succulent for beginners?” She asked me if I wanted to participate, and of c...

When I took photos of our front yard for my last post, Photo tour of our front garden (March 2, 2025) , I realized that a video would be far more effective at capturing the big picture: the layout of the garden, and the plants in their overall context. Here’s the result, 7 minutes and 31 seconds in glorious high definition: Be sure to watch the video on YouTube and select the highest resolution your bandwidth allows. I recommend at least 1080p; 1440p or 2160p would be even better for the best video quality. Before or after watching the video, check out my post Photo tour of our front garden (March 2, 2025) . It contains photos of plants I wasn’t able to focus on in the video, otherwise it would have been twice as long. And finally a few notes: This was my first time using a gimbal . The result is good – smoother panning than I would be able to do hand-holding my phone – but there’s still a bit of unevenness here and there. Also, excuse the wind noise. I just bought a lapel microphone...

When I was in Santa Barbara recently, Tony Krock of Krock Nursery gave me a demonstration of how he cores and cuts agaves for propagation. Both methods may seem radical at first glance, but they’re highly effective in promoting the formation of pups. For professional growers like Tony, this is the fastest way to propagate rare plants for the collector’s market. In fact, it’s the only way for solitary agaves that normally don’t offset at all. I filmed Tony’s demonstration and posted the video on YouTube: The video is 13+ minutes long; I highly recommend you watch it in its entirety if you’re interested in finding out how Tony does it. If you don’t have 13+ minutes to watch the video right now, here are the main steps: Coring For smaller agaves with a fairly narrow center, coring is a better technique than trying to cut the plant in half. Coring is quick and easy: Step 1: Reach all the way down into the center of the plant and snap off the cone of leaves with your hand. Step 2: Usin...

Last Saturday I had an open garden for members for the Sacramento Cactus and Succulent Society . It was well attended – the weather was perfect for an outdoor event – and I even met some people who had joined the club only recently. Since the garden was nice and tidy, I decided to document it in this post. There are lots of photos so let’s get started. This is what you see as you walk from the driveway into the front garden These three ponytail palms ( Beaucarnea recurvata ) were tiny when I planted them. In hindsight, I wish I’d separated them (they were all the same pot) and planted only one. Still, it provides an element of surprise as you step into the garden. Bed next to the front door, anchored by Aloe vaombe Smaller agaves and cacti (and even a xeric fern, Astrolepis cochisensis ) in the front This trio of containers planted with echeverias is new. I’m not totally sold yet, but I’ll let the echeverias get bigger before I decide whether to keep this arrangement. I’m even experim...