Succulents and More™

This past Saturday I toured three gardens in Marin County , just north of the Golden Gate Bridge , as part of the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days Program . Each garden was unique and warrants its own post. I took plenty of photos and though I tried to edit ruthlessly, I still have plenty of visuals left to show you. I’m going to start in reverse order, with the garden I visited last. Dubbed “Under the Sea, High in Hills,” this garden is located outside of Kentfield in a rural area consisting of upscale country properties.

Today I went on a tour of three gardens in Marin County as part of the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days Program . My expectations were very high since Marin County has some of the most spectacular real estate in Northern California and I knew that garden design was an integral part of the properties on the tour. Not only was I not disappointed, I was blown away by two of the three gardens I visited. The first was the jungle paradise I’ve always dreamed of. The second was the most spectacular combination of architecture and garden design I’d ever seen. The third was over-designed for my taste but there were still individual aspects I liked. Here is a taste of what I saw: Worth’s Paradise panorama Worth’s paradise tree ferns Mediterranean Marin panorama Mediterranean Marin patio Under the Sea, High in the Hills Under the Sea, High in the Hills Here are detailed posts about the gardens I visited: Under the Sea, High in the Hills Mediterranean Marin Worth’s Paradise

Just the other day I mentioned that cannas are the official harbingers of summer for me. Hot on their heels are echinaceas. ‘Tiki Torch’ (left), ‘Hot Papaya’ (right) My love affair with echinaceas began about four years ago when I saw a photo of a new cultivar named ‘Tiki Torch’ in Sunset Magazine. I knew I had to have it, and I spent what at the time was an outrageous sum of $14.95 to mail-order a small plant. It didn’t make it through its first winter, but the next spring I hit the jack pot when Dave’s Garden ran an echinacea coop. I ended up buying a dozen 1½ inch plugs from Terra Nova Nurseries , including several ‘Tiki Torch’, and while they were very small initially, they flowered in their first year and many have come back every year since then. ‘Tiki Torch’

Like so many tropical plants, cannas love the heat. They take their sweet time during the cooler weather of spring, but as the thermometer starts to climb in May and June, they kick into high gear.   I’ve been keeping a close eye on this clump of cannas in the front yard and I swear their leaves have doubled in size in just a matter of weeks. On Sunday I spotted the first emerging flower stalks, and now one is blooming and the other will be in a few days.   Who cares what the calendar says, to me there is no clearer sign that summer is here! P.S. I grew this canna from seed. The official name is Canna × generalis ‘Spritzii’.

I’m fond of many plants. Yes, there are the eponymous bamboos and succulents. But there are so many others. One plant group I’ve taken a particular liking to lately are the cycads. These exotic plants that hark back to the age of the dinosaurs lend a tropical look to any garden. Its most popular member, the sago palm ( Cycas revoluta ), is a staple of contemporary California landscaping. Like all cycads, it’s slow-growing, but it still grows faster and is hardier than many others. Here is our sago palm. It’s over 10 years old now and it’s beginning to fill the large terracotta pot that has been its home almost since the beginning. Cycas revoluta next to our front porch. (The succulent table is partially empty because we just got new gutters and I had to make room for the installers.) Cycas revoluta

When we built the large mounded succulent bed by the front door, we fully intended to top-dress it with rocks. It certainly would have been easy to do in the spring of 2009: Front yard succulent bed in April 2009 However, thanks to inertia and indecision, we never got around it. In the meantime, the succulents we planted matured and the need for mulch decreased somewhat. Still, there were uncovered patches here where the soil dried out very quickly. Same bed in May 2012

I know I’m becoming a bit repetitive, but this is the season for cactus blooms. It’s short enough, so please bear with me as I obsessively photograph these ephemeral flowers. Many other plants have beautiful inflorescences, but seeing such delicate blooms on rugged, anti-social plants often armed with vicious-looking spines leaves a particularly indelible impression.                                                                                                         ...

While I buy most of my plants at smaller independent nurseries—and I wish I lived closer to a place like Cactus Jungle to fill my succulent cravings—I’m not immune to the lures of the big box stores. Last Saturday I went to a local Lowe’s to buy some tools, and as is my wont, I walked through the garden center. I didn’t see anything I had to have on the shelves with the 2- and 3-inch succulents, but tucked away in a perennials aisle I found a surprisingly nice selection of larger succulents. Clearly, water-wise plants are hot this year, or at least they’re being marketed that way. Pint-sized succulents

I’ve lived in Davis since 1997 and have driven by the Davis Community Garden hundreds of times. I’ve been wanting to stop for as long as I can remember because I’ve spotted lots of interesting plants from the car. A few years ago there was a 10 ft. angel’s trumpet ( Brugmansia sp.) covered with giant yellow flowers; last year I saw several towers of jewels ( Echium wildpretii ); and last fall I spotted a prickly pear ( Opuntia ficus-indica ) laden with fruit. In spite of seeing these tantalizing glimpses from the car, I never stopped. Until today. This morning I went to our local Ace Hardware store, and as I was approaching the community garden, I saw a small group of people standing around what looked to be a blooming cactus. It was hard to get a good look, but I decided to quickly finish my errand, dash home to get my camera, and then drive back. I had been right. It was a blooming cactus. Even from 10 feet away I could tell that the flower was huge.