Succulents and More™

A couple of weeks ago, I bought an Agave attenuata ‘Blue Fantastic’ at the UC Davis Arboretum Teaching Nursery for the newly revamped front door bed: Agave attenuata ‘Blue Fantastic’ at UC Davis Arboretum Teaching Nursery Before heading home, I made a brief stop at Trader Joe’s, no more than 20 minutes. While I was in the store, the agave was sitting in the car, with the windows slightly cracked. Imagine my frustration and annoyance when, just a few hours later, I discovered that several leaves were starting to show large brown spots: The next day, after I planted it in the ground Here’s a closer look: And a week later: 20 minutes in a closed car on a reasonably warm morning, that’s all it took. Fortunately, the damage is cosmetic, but still, it’ll take my agave until next summer to shed the blistered leaves. If you’ve ever transported agaves in a closed car on a warm day, you might have experienced this yourself. Some species seem to be more prone to this, especially those with thin...

I don’t know if “planterscape” is a word. But it is now, because that’s what I created in the small rectangle between the kitchen and bedroom sliders. It’s the area on the left in the photo below. The other strip, on the right, is featured in this post . This rectangular area is 4×6 ft. For many years, it was home to a Japanese maple that came with the house. It did OK for a long time, but last fall I cut it down because it had declined so much that it had more dead branches than anything else. I’m sure I have a photo of the entire tree somewhere, but this is the best I can do for now — better days in April 2011 This is what the spot looked like just before our siding project kicked off: And right after: Originally, I had wanted to create a raised bed much like the rock-lined mounds elsewhere in the backyard or the new cactus bed I showed you in my last post . After doing some brainstorming with my friend Kyle , however, I decided to try his idea and create a clustered assemblage of p...

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...

Last week, I tagged along with the Contra Costa Succulent Garden Club to visit Edna’s succulent nursery in San Pablo . I’d heard whispers about Edna’s garden for many years, and I was happy I finally had the opportunity to go. As it turns out, I didn’t have to wait for a special invitation: Edna welcomes visitors any day of the week. Edna Roberts To get to Edna’s place you take the same freeway exit as to go to Curious Flora (the former Annie’s Annuals) — except Curious Flora is west of the I-80 and Edna’s is to the east. The entrance to Edna’s nursery is at the bottom of a steep driveway. There’s a great view across North Richmond towards the Chevron Refinery on San Pablo Bay. I didn’t have a clear idea of what to expect, but I definitely didn’t expect this : Edna’s nursery is much bigger than I’d thought! When I think of a backyard nursery, I picture a few tables with a modest selection of plants. The sheer volume of plants at Edna’s was a big surprise — as was the beautiful pr...