Succulents and More™

I haven’t known my friend Kyle all that long, but I’ve already blogged twice about his garden in Sacramento: “ A geologist’s garden: succulents and rocks ” (July 2022) and “ Collecting rocks and succulents: Kyle’s garden in Sacramento ” (December 2022). Three months on, it’s time for another update. As you’ll see, Kyle hasn’t been sitting still. In fact, he’s gotten more done than most people would in a year. And what he’s accomplished is seriously inspiring. In late November 2022, his front yard looked like this: Kyle’s front yard on November 25, 2022 Now it looks like this: Kyle’s front yard on February 18, 2023 Kyle removed the existing plants and built up the area with extra soil and lava fines. He then added rocks sourced from the Gold Country , primarily slate, to add visual interest and to create pockets for smaller plants. The result is spectacular. Take a closer look at the vignettes below. Each one is a standout in its own way. Small cacti and others succulents that might oth...

One of the greatest things about writing a blog is meeting like-minded people. And it’s even better when they live fairly close by. That’s exactly what happened this past Wednesday when my friend Justin and I visited Kyle Johnson in Sacramento. Kyle had visited Justin’s garden a few months ago so they already knew each other—proof that plant nerds like us often are just a few degrees of separation apart. The first thing that caught my eye as Justin and I pulled up to Kyle’s house was this beauty in the side yard, a 1946 Ford pickup! It turns out that this was Kyle’s first car. Now it holds some of Kyle’s cactus collection. I couldn’t help but smile. Kyle is a geologist by profession and many of the rocks he’s collected over the years have found their way into his garden. As somebody who regularly brings rocks home from road trips, I was excited to see minerals I’d never encountered before. Here’s a spectacular example: Chalcopyrite and molybdenite from a open-pit copper mine south of ...