Succulents and More™

Evening get-together in Kyle's magical garden

2026-05-04T17:52:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was the 2026 Show & Sale of the Sacramento Cactus & Succulent Society (SCSS). To celebrate, my friend and frequent partner-in-crime Kyle Johnson invited the vendors and SCSS board members to an evening get-together in his garden. I didn’t keep track of how many people showed up, but it was a few dozen at least. Most of the locals had seen Kyle’s garden before, but the out-of-town vendors hadn’t. In addition to the general ooh and aahs, I overheard some comments that reflected a deeper connection to what Kyle has created. I’m sure that, as fellow gardeners, you know how validating it is to hear from people who get what you’re trying to do.

The photos in this post were taken between 4:30pm and 7:30pm. During those three hours, the light was getting warmer and softer until, boom, it was dark. But Kyle has lights throughout the garden so nobody was stumbling around in the dark.

I didn’t quite capture the magic I felt as I was walking around after dark, but I hope you’ll at least get an idea of how special Kyle’s garden is. I’ve said this before, but I’m so happy that Kyle’s and my path have crossed. He continues to be a major inspiration, and I look forward to seeing what his garden — and mine — will look like in one year, two, five, ten.

Let’s start in the front.

Like me, Kyle is a strong believer in more is more. And like me, he overplants, knowing full well that plants will need to be moved as they get bigger. It’s all part of the plan.

Just one close-up: Clarkia amoena and Dudleya brittonii

A great place to sit in the front yard. At the bottom left is one of two small wildflower meadows Kyle has created. Most of the plants flowering there right now are California annuals. A year from now, this area will be totally different, but for now, it’s wonderful to see the abundance of foliage and color.

Moving to the backyard:

Reflections in the vintage Mexican mirror near the entrance to the backyard

I love this perspective

Just one small vignette of what there is to see on the fence. The rock art is Kyle’s.

View towards the patio

This is about as lush as a garden can get in our climate

Agave guiengola ‘Platinum’ outside the slider to the living room

The patio is a wonderful place...

...to sit...

...and look out at the garden

Ladyfinger cactus (Echinocereus pentalophus) blooming right on schedule. I will forever associate these cheerful flowers with the annual SCSS Show & Sale, which is always on the first weekend of May.

Kyle and his wife have two dogs, Rusty and Max. Rusty is my special buddy.

Who says chimeneas are for fires?

Mangave perfection

Potted cactus collection

Wider view...

...towards Kyle’s office shed

Annuals like California and Shirley poppies, hollyhocks, and more growing wild in the pathways

The light is getting warmer...

...and softer

Kyle’s backyard isn’t large, but there is so much to explore

An hour later

Magical light

I will definitely plant hollyhocks next year

A little while later

Kyle had set up the bar in his office shed, so it was a popular place

Kyle found these two plant stands while walking the dogs

They were actually bed posts

Finally, a few photos I took after the lights had come on:

Kyle’s nursery area

I had hoped to take more photos, but my camera battery died midway. I just have to come back and continue where I left off. What a hardship that will be!

Dairy Creek Meadows: an extraordinary private garden in the making

2026-04-29T12:10:00.000-07:00

Twelve years ago, in 2014, I had the opportunity to visit a garden in Portland, Oregon that was so remarkable that it stuck with me all this time. It even had a name: Floramagoria, a portmanteau combining flora and phantasmagoria (according to Merriam-Webster, “an exhibition of optical effects and illusions,” “a constantly shifting complex succession of things seen or imagined,” or “a bizarre or fantastic combination, collection, or assemblage”).

Floramagoria was the private space of Craig Quirk and Larry Neill. It was a classic example of a mullet garden — business in the front, party in the back. The front, the public-facing side, featured fairly muted conservative plantings in line with the neighborhood’s architectural character. But once you passed through the gate into the backyard, boy howdy: What an explosion of exotic plants, bold colors, and eclectic art!

To see for yourself, check out my blog post from 2015, Loree’s post from 2019, and especially this detailed (and beautifully illustrated) article that appeared in the Fall 2015 issue of Portland Monthly.

In 2023, Craig Quirk and Larry Neill left Floramagoria behind and moved to a 30-acre piece of land about 45 minutes outside of Portland where they have created a very different kind of garden. Floramagoria was a high-octane rave on a small suburban lot; their new garden, Dairy Creak Meadows, is a shift toward a more expansive, naturalistic style heavily influenced by the New Perennial movement and the work of Piet Oudolf.

When I was planning my recent trip to Portland, Loree asked me which gardens I’d like to see. “Dairy Creek Meadow” was the first thing that came out my mouth. I’d been following Craig and Larry’s progress on Craig’s Instagram and had read Loree’s posts (February 2026, July 2024, November 2023) so I had an inkling of what an extraordinary garden the two of them were making.

Aerial view posted by Craig Quirk on his Instagram account on 7/25/2025.

When I got off the plane in Portland, it felt like late winter rather than the early spring we’d been enjoying in Davis. As a result, I had to moderate my expectations of how gardens would look. Indeed, Dairy Creak Meadows was very much in what I would consider winter mode. That’s why you won’t see a lot of lush perennials in my photos below — so many plants were still dormant. But look at the aerial image above from last July when the garden was at its peak: vivid proof that Craig and Larry have created something truly special.

The heart of the garden is a fenced area designed in collaboration with Laura Crockett of Garden Diva Designs, which protects a diverse array of plantings from the local deer population. Laura has been working with Craig and Larry for a number of years; she was also instrumental in bringing Floramagoria to life.

In the middle of the fenced area are two interconnected greenhouses from Hartley Botanic which are surrounded by a massive crevice garden built by renowned rock garden experts Kenton Seth and Chris Dixon. I’ll feature them in a separate post. Today I’ll show you everything but the greenhouses and crevice garden.

Plantings in front of the house

A lot of driftwood and rocks

I love the little communities of moss and ferns

Saxifraga umbrosa? Saxifrages don’t grow in our climate, so they’re as exotic to me as orchids.

Trillium sp.

View towards the greenhouse (see upcoming post)

Crevice garden in a pot — a nod to the large-scale crevice garden around the greenhouse

And another one, this one mostly sempervivums. I love (LOVE!) this and am thinking of how I can recreate it. Finding thin slabs of rocks is the biggest obstacle.

Inside the fenced area, looking toward the greenhouse. Lots of plants (mostly conifers) waiting to go in the ground.

Another major feature of the fenced area is a bog garden featuring mostly carnivorous plants (and eclectic artwork):

Many of the carnivorous plants in the bog garden...

...are sarracenias...

...pitcher plants native to the U.S.

Monster by James DeRosso

Black flamingos and more artwork by Marcia Donahue

One of the planters moved from Floramagoria

Dinosaur egg planter with horsetail rushes

I don’t know what these metal cylinders are, but they would make great planters

Wider view of one of the bog gardens contained in Corten rounds

Sarracenia with hose bib, a peek at how the bog gardens are watered

Moving outside the fenced area now...

How many people have their own creek?

The side of the house facing the creek. The slope being worked on will become a massive rock garden. Apparently, each wooden post represents a basalt column.

Moss-covered trees and ferns...

...my eyes are not used to that

Mala beads by Berkeley ceramic artist Marcia Donahue. Marcia was in Portland, too, and I got to hang out with her a bit.

Bridge across...

...the creek

Pond on the other side of the creek

Imagine having a pond!

With a sheltered place to sit!

Even the stepping stones to the covered deck...

...are works of art

And finally a teaser of part 2, a look at the greenhouse and crevice garden:

Greenhouse

Imagine sitting here in the middle of winter when it’s cold outside — there’s radiant floor heating

Check back in a couple of days for the second part of this post.

Flying Saucer comes crashing down

2026-04-26T00:30:00.000-07:00

Just a few days ago, I showed you photos of Echinopsis ‘Flying Saucer’ in full bloom. Between two stems, there were 18 flowers. You can see most of them in this photo:

Echinopsis ‘Flying Saucer’ in all its glory

After the peak, the flowers were fading fast, but everything was OK otherwise:

Flowers fading fast

You know where this is going, right? In a year of unpleasant surprises, here’s another one — and it’s one that hurts:

What I found a couple of days after

The tallest stem had snapped off towards the bottom, presumably because of the weight of the flowers.

Not all is lost though. I made a clean cut and will re-root the top part. In warm weather, new roots should form within 4-6 weeks. With any luck, the re-rooted stem will flower normally next year.

I’ll also leave the bottom part in the ground in hopes it will either branch or produce new offsets — more little ‘Flying Saucers’ to plant elsewhere in the garden or give away.

And finally....

A quick update on the greenhouse rat situation: Nothing new to report. I have three traps in the greenhouse now, two electric Rat Zappers and one old-fashioned snap trap with peanut butter as bait. And I still haven’t caught the culprit. I accidentally stepped on the snap trap the other day and it pinched the tip of my shoe, but that’s about the only excitement on that front.

Weird, wonderful (and painful) plants at the UC Davis Botanical Conservatory

2026-04-23T19:16:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago, the Sacramento Cactus and Succulent Society (SCSS) went on a field trip to the UC Davis Botanical Conservatory. I’ve been there many times before, but it’s been a while since my last visit and there were quite a few things I hadn’t seen before. That’s probably why I took so many photos — although I seem to take a lot of photos no matter what.

According to their website, “The UC Davis Botanical Conservatory is home to a diverse collection of over 4,000 plant species from around the world, providing a unique space for education, research, and conservation. Our greenhouse showcases rare and unusual plants from tropical rainforests, arid deserts, and carnivorous habitats, offering visitors a hands-on experience with plant adaptations and biodiversity.”

The Botanical Conservatory does a lot of outreach to UC Davis students (check out their webisodes here), but I continue to be surprised by how many regular Davis residents don’t even know it exists — and that includes gardeners.

Consider this post my humble effort to spread the word: The Botanical Conservatory is a very special destination for anybody even remotely interested in plants. Yes, they do have cacti and other succulents in their collections, but those are just a tiny part. There’s so much to see, including oddities you’re not going to find in many other botanical collections in the U.S. Read on to see what I mean.

Our first stop was the staff greenhouse. It’s primarily used for propagation, but it’s also home to their giant water lilies (Victoria amazonica). This Amazonian native is considered one of the most difficult plants to grow outside of its native habitat, but Ryan Booke, a third-year plant sciences major and student employee at the Botanical Conservatory, has managed to successfully cultivate it. This April 2026 article in The California Aggie, UC Davis’s student-run newspaper, has a lot more details if you’re interested.

At the Botanical Conservatory, Victoria amazonica grows in two above-ground swimming pools. The setup looks a bit cobbled together, but it doesn’t matter, because it works. Ryan has definitely figured out all the variables (especially water temperature and pH). What you see in the photo below is one plant. The leaves feel very leathery, and they can carry a surprising amount of weight — you might have seen photos or videos of babies sitting on a leaf (like this one).

The spines look far more fierce than they really are. They’re meant to protect the leaves against herbivorous fish and insects.

For UC Davis students, Victoria amazonica is a great destination for a first date. What makes it even better is that off in the corner, not far from the water lily pool, is a plant that is even more rare. In fact, the Botanical Conservatory is the only place in the U.S. that displays it publicly.

Venomous. Do not open. Keep away. What could be more exciting!

Gympie-gympie sounds like a cute name — the first thing I thought of was a cute stuffed animal — but in reality, it’s something far more sinister. Dendrocnide moroides is a notoriously painful stinging shrub found in Australian rainforests. It’s covered in tiny, silica-based hairs that inject a potent neurotoxin which causes immediate, agonizing burning. People describe the sensation as being burned by acid and electrocuted simultaneously. Apparently, the pain is so extreme that even morphine may not fully relieve it. The sensation can last for weeks, or even months.

A quick Google search unearthed all kinds of stories, including an incident involving a man who used gimpie-gimpie leaves as toilet paper, not realizing what plant he was picking up. The pain was so bad that supposedly he shot himself.

Gympie-gympie seedlings

Here’s a recent Instagram post from the Botanical Conservatory:

Personally, when I see a sign that says “Do not touch,” the first thing I want to do is touch. Fortunately, the gympie-gympie is locked away safely inside a terrarium. Ryan said that whenever they need to handle the plant, they have to don a full biohazard suit.

After the gympie-gympie encounter, the rest of the propagation greenhouse seemed a bit anticlimactic. Not that the plants were dull. Quite the opposite. There are lots of wondrous things to see.

Rocks — or not? The rock-like plants are Pseudolithos. The genus name means “false stone;” it’s easy to see why. These succulent flowering plants are members of the dogbane family (Apocynaceae) native to Somalia, Yemen, and Oman.

Pseudolithos cubiformis from northern Somalia, this one with immature flowers...

...and this one with open flowers

If you want your own Pseudolithos, you can buy them at the upcoming Botanical Conservatory plant sale for $15 (details at the bottom of this post)

These are Euphorbia obesa (aka baseball plant). It’s a dioecious species, i.e. plants are either male or female.

The mesh bag is to prevent unintended cross-pollination with other euphorbia species nearby

This is a Dorstenia, not sure which species, but the flowers are typical for the genus

Dorstenias are in the mulberry family (Moraceae)

Dendrosicyos socotranum, the cucumber tree from the island of Socotra off the coast of Yemen. The Botanical Conservatory is one of the few places (if not the only one) growing this rare plant in the U.S.

You can buy your own for $50

Moving from the staff/propagation greenhouse to the succulent collection greenhouse:

Uebelmannia pectinifera...

...a cactus from southeastern Brazil, makes for a mesmerizing pattern

Monstrose Astrophytum asterias

Eulychnia castanea f. spiralis

Gymnocalycium ambatoense

Parodia magnifica

Euphorbia venenifica (left), Dorstenia gigas on the right

A very old baseball plant (Euphorbia obesa)

Desmidorchis retrospiciens (formerly Caralluma acutangula) is a true oddity. The smell is vaguely unpleasant, designed to attract flies to pollinate the flowers.

The entire plant

Euphorbia virosa, aka the poison tree, is so poisonous that it can cause blindness if its sap gets near the eyes

A larger specimen of the Socotran cucumber tree (Dendrosicyos socotranus) we already saw above in the propagation greenhouse

Deuterocohnia brevifolia, a bromeliad from Argentina and Bolivia

A desert rose (Adenium sp.) in full flower

Moving on into the tropical greenhouse...

Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) and Hindu rope (Hoya compacta)

Staghorn fern (Platycerium sp.)

Here it’s all about the foliage:

Variegated philodendron

A super cool philodendron with elongated leaves

Vriesea sp.

Black-leaved begonia

More begonias

And even more begonias

This begonia had fierce-looking (but harmless) spikes on its leaf stems

Cryptanthus sp. (or hybrid)

Cochliostema odoratissimum, an epiphyte from Central America, its leaves...

...and flowers

Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica)

Coffea arabica fruit, i.e. coffee cherries

And another Do Not Touch sign, making me itch to touch the plant

And finally, a few photos of the welwitschias at the Botanical Conservatory. Welwitschia mirabilis is one of the true oddities in the plant world. Native to Namibia in southwestern Africa, this botanical anomaly is often described as a “living fossil.” It can live for over 1,000 years (!!!), but it produces only two leaves that grow continuously from a woody base, eventually splitting into leathery, wind-shredded ribbons.

This gymnosperm, a relative of conifers, ginkgos, and cycads, thrives in one of Earth’s harshest environments by harvesting moisture from coastal fog. Its deep taproot (up to 10 ft. long) and unique physiology allow it to endure extreme aridity.

Each plant only ever produces two leaves. They unspool from the body of the plant like endless ribbons.

Welwitschia mirabilis is dioecious, i.e. there are separate female and male plants

This is a male plant

The pollen is bright orange

These are female cones

The Botanical Conservatory also has one of the few (maybe the only?) variegated welwitschias in the country

It truly is a thing of beauty

The Botanical Conservatory is the source for welwitschias in the U.S. They have been very successful at growing and propagating it. According to Ryan, our guide, they have the largest breeding stock in the country and produce 1000+ seeds a year. They sell two-year welwitschia seedlings for $150. If that seems expensive, bear in mind how rare Welwitschia mirabilis is.

I’m not tempted by welwitschia (been there, done that, failed miserably), but if you are, the Botanical Conservatory will have a plant sale this Saturday, April 25, starting at 9 am.

They will sell welwitschias (of course), but also lots of other interesting plants. Check out this Instagram story for a teaser:

The plant sale will be in the parking lot behind the Botanical Conservatory greenhouses on Kleiber Hall Drive. Arrive well before 9 am for the best selection.

First wave of cactus flowers, mid-April 2026

2026-04-20T00:30:00.000-07:00

Early to mid-April is prime time for echinopsis flowers. We’re a bit late this year compared to 2025, but my (im)patient waiting has finally paid off: This past week, we had 15 different echinopsis hybrids flower, some for the first time.

Echinopsis ‘Celeste’
Echinopsis ‘Daydream’
Echinopsis ‘Dream Catcher’
Echinopsis ‘First Light’
Echinopsis ‘Flying Saucer’
Echinopsis ‘For Norma’
Echinopsis ‘Liskes Feuerzauber’ [‘Magic Fire’]
Echinopsis ‘Pink Diamond’
Echinopsis ‘Pink Stripes’
Echinopsis ‘Salmon Queen’
Echinopsis ‘Shades of Bourne’
Echinopsis ‘Sleeping Beauty’
Echinopsis ‘Tondelayo’
Echinopsis ‘Wessner 368’
Echinopsis ‘Yellow’

Southern California cactus grower and hybridizer Brent Wigand, my source for many of these beauties, has thousands of echinopsis in his nursery. He posted videos of his 2026 Megabloom just last week (you can watch them here and here). It’s a spectacle not to be missed.

Because of the relatively cool weather we had in the last few days (highs in the low to mid-70s), the flowers lasted longer than I had expected — some three days. If it had been hotter, they would have been exhausted after a day, two at the most. I’m so happy we got to enjoy an extended flower parade.

Echinopsis ‘Liskes Feuerzauber’

I took a lot of photos, starting in the morning when the cacti were still in the shade, and continuing into the afternoon. Some flowers look noticeably different in the shade vs. full sun. In the shade, the colors tend to be much softer, with pastel tones dominating. In the sun, they get a lot punchier. None of the photos below are filtered or artificially saturated; all I did was increase the contrast when the lighting was too flat.

I often get asked whether and how I fertilize my echinopsis. I use a balanced slow-release fertilizer like Osmocote 14-14-14 in March and again in June (it’s expensive, but a little bit goes a long way), supplemented by an application of bloom fertilizer like Espoma Flower-Tone after each wave of flowers. That seems to do the trick for me.

Note on taxonomy: There’s quite a bit of confusion about Echinopsis vs. Trichocereus. Technically, Echinopsis (and Echinopsis hybrids) are fairly small globe-shaped cacti, while Trichocereus (and Trichocereus hybrids) form tall columnar stems. Trichocereus was lumped into Echinopsis in 1974. In 2012, genetic analysis found that the two genera have divergent lineages, meaning they’re not as closely related as once thought. As a result, Trichocereus was restored as a genus, and it would be more correct taxonomically to refer to hybrids like ‘First Light’ and ‘Flying Saucer’ as Trichocereus. But often the parentage is murky and most likely involves both Echinopsis and Trichocereus (or even other genera), so for the sake of convenience I continue to refer to all of them as Echinopsis hybrids.

On that note, let’s take a look.

----✦----

Echinopsis ‘Celeste’

Hybridizer: Bob Schick, USA

Flower size: 4 inches

Note: Huntington introduction (ISI 2000-5)
[more info on the Schick hybrids available through the Huntington]

Echinopsis ‘Celeste’

Echinopsis ‘Daydream’

Hybridizer: Bob Schick, USA

Flower size: 4 inches

Note: Huntington introduction (ISI 98-7)
[more info on the Schick hybrids available through the Huntington]

Echinopsis ‘Daydream’

Echinopsis ‘Dream Catcher’

Hybridizer: Brent Wigand, USA

Flower size: 6 inches

Note: To see more of Brent’s plants, visit his group Torchcactus on Facebook.

Echinopsis ‘Dream Catcher’

Echinopsis ‘First Light’

Hybridizer: Mark Dimmitt, USA

Flower size: 5 inches

Note: Echinopsis ‘First Light’ is a perennial favorite. It was created by Tucson plant breeder Mark Dimmitt. It’s a cross between two other hybrids: ‘Diehl’sche Hybride’ (Echinopsis candicans × Echinopsis eyriesii var. grandiflora) and ‘Newlands Orange’ (Echinopsis huascha ‘Gold’ × Echinopsis huascha ‘Red’).

Echinopsis ‘First Light’ just beginning to open up

Echinopsis ‘First Light’

Echinopsis ‘First Light’ later the same morning

Echinopsis ‘First Light’ later in the afternoon of day 2...

...all flowers open

The only thing I don’t like is the lamp post on the left

Echinopsis ‘Flying Saucer’

Hybridizer: Hans Britsch, USA

Flower size: 6-9 inches

Note: ‘Flying Saucer’ is a perennial favorite of garden visitors and passers-by (and my wife and me). It’s a hybrid between an unidentified Soehrensia species and Trichocereus schickendantzii. It was created by Hans Britsch at his nursery, Western Cactus Growers, in Vista, California. ‘Flying Saucer’ is by far the best known and most popular of all Echinopsis/Trichocereus hybrids. More info on ‘Flying Saucer’ here.

So many buds, so much promise

Day 1, shorter stem going off first

Day 2, both stems in flower

Day 2

Day 3

Looks like a coronal mass ejection

Native bees love these large flowers

Finally, the party is over

Echinopsis ‘For Norma’

Hybridizer: Bob Schick, USA

Flower size: 5 inches

Note: Huntington introduction (ISI 2015-02)
[more info on the Schick hybrids available through the Huntington]

Echinopsis ‘For Norma’

Echinopsis ‘Liskes Feuerzauber’ [aka ‘Magic Fire’]

Hybridizer: Reinhard Liske, Germany

Flower size: 6 inches

Note: Flowering for me for the first time, this is my 2026 favorite. It’s from the same breeder as ‘Pink Stripes’, my 2025 favorite. The original German name is ‘Liskes Feuerzauber’, but in the U.S. it’s often referred to as ‘Magic Fire’. ‘Liskes Feuerzauber’ has the same parentage as ‘Pink Stripes’ (‘Wörlitz’ × ‘Cantora Gelb’) and is, in fact, from the same seed batch. Two spectacular hybrids created at the same time. What are the odds of that?

Day 1:

Echinopsis ‘Liskes Feuerzauber’, three perfect flowers on day 1

Echinopsis ‘Liskes Feuerzauber’

Day 2:

Two more buds opened on day 2, for a total of 5 big flowers. Because of the moderate daytime temperatures (low 70s), the flowers lasted longer than they otherwise would have.

I know I went a bit overboard with these photos...

...but it’s such a sensational flower

Echinopsis ‘Pink Diamond’

Hybridizer: Bob Schick

Flower size: 4 inches

Note: Huntington introduction (ISI 97-23)
[more info on the Schick hybrids available through the Huntington]

Echinopsis ‘Pink Diamond’

Echinopsis ‘Pink Stripes’

Hybridizer: Reinhard Liske, Germany

Flower size: 6 inches

Note: ‘Wörlitz’ × ‘Cantora Gelb’. Flowered last year for the first time and was my 2025 favorite. From the same seed batch as ‘Liskes Feuerzauber’, my 2026 favorite (see above).

Echinopsis ‘Pink Stripes’

Echinopsis ‘Salmon Queen’

Hybridizer: Harry Johnson, USA

Flower size: 3-4 inches

Note: Harry Johnson was a Southern California breeder who created a lot of different hybrids in many different colors from the 1930s through the 1960s. He died in 1987 at the age of 95. Here is an interesting write-up about him. Johnson’s work was the basis for many hybrids created by Bob Schick starting in the 1970s.

Echinopsis ‘Salmon Queen’

Echinopsis ‘Shades of Bourne’

Hybridizer: Southfield Nurseries, UK

Flower size: 4 inches

Note: Southfield Nurseries in Morton, Lincolnshire have created dozens of echinopsis hybrids named after the nearby town of Bourne.

Echinopsis ‘Shades of Bourne’

Echinopsis ‘Sleeping Beauty’

Hybridizer: Bob Schick, USA

Flower size: 4-5 inches

Note: Huntington introduction (ISI 97-28). Very fragrant; probably the most fragrant hybrid I have.
[more info on the Schick hybrids available through the Huntington]

Echinopsis ‘Sleeping Beauty’

Echinopsis ‘Tondelayo’

Hybridizer: Bob Schick, USA

Flower size: 5 inches

Note: Huntington introduction (ISI 97-34)
[more info on the Schick hybrids available through the Huntington]

Echinopsis ‘Tondelayo’

Echinopsis ‘Wessner 368’

Hybridizer: Andreas Wessner, Germany

Flower size: 3-4 inches

Note: Andreas Wessner’s website: https://kakteen-shop.com/. I was debating whether this hybrid is special enough; it does look like so many other hybrids, and the flowers are on the small side. Garden real estate is at a premium, and each plant has to earn its keep. The jury’s still out on this one...

Echinopsis ‘Wessner 368’

Echinopsis ‘Yellow’

Hybridizer: ???

Flower size: 3 inches

Note: I received this plant from a friend. It’s fairly basic as far as echinopsis hybrids go (it doesn’t even have a real name), but I want to include it here to demonstrate how the flower color can change from one day to the next. The petal shape is nice, too. I’ll hang on to this one for a while; a clump with multiple flowers could be very nice.

Day 1, pure clear yellow

Day 2, mango orange

Finally, here’s a photo of the sidewalk bed where much of this action has been happening:

Except it doesn’t look quite like that. There’s a streetlight right in the middle:

I can’t make the lamp post go away in real life, but I can in photos thanks to the magic of Photoshop.

Long overdue visit to Justin's garden

2026-04-17T00:30:00.000-07:00

Last week, I caught up with my friend Justin. He lives in Pinole, about an hour away, but for one reason or another, I hadn’t seen his garden in 10 months. High time for an update. (If you want to see what Justin’s garden looked like in previous years, check out these posts: June 2021 | June 2022 | June 2023 | October 2023.)

The Agave applanata near the driveway has grown dramatically. It’s over 6 ft. wide and tall now (for comparison, Justin is 6'3"). Justin believes it will flower soon. I think he wants the space back so he can plant something else (I can relate).

Agave applanata on the left, Agave horrida on the right looking downright puny

Mangave ‘Bloodspot’ × Agave titanota on the left, Agave applanata in the middle, Agave horrida on the right

What this corner looked like in June 2021

Now it's f***ing personal

2026-04-15T08:29:00.000-07:00

The other day I walked into my greenhouse, perfectly relaxed and certainly not expecting anything bad. Imagine how p***ed I was when this greeted me:

It got worse from there...

...much worse:

Nothing left here!

Weirdly enough, nothing else was eaten, just these Astrophytum cactus — and there definitely are other tasty morsels in the greenhouse. I don’t “collect” a lot of plants, but I did collect these astrophytums.

I knew immediately who the culprit was. It’s always the same one. It starts with an r, has an a in the middle, and ends with a t. Let me spell it out: r-a-t. If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you might know that rats are my arch nemesis. They’ve done more damage in our garden over the years than anything else. Not just ornamentals: More than ¾ of the vegetables and herbs my wife planted in recent weeks have been gnawed down to stubs.

Poison traps aren’t an option because of Stella, and I don’t love the idea of live traps: What am I going to do with a trapped rat? Drive it to the county line and set it loose?

So I did what I typically do: Set out our electronic rat trap. When a rat steps on the metal plate inside the contraption, it gets killed by a high-voltage electric shock. All I have to do is dump the lifeless carcass in the garbage without ever having to touch it — no guts, no gore. The model we have (Victor M2) is even Wi-Fi enabled and comes with an app that tells me when a rat has been killed. I know, a bit ludicrous, but that’s what it does.

When I got up the next morning, I immediately checked the app. No kill. I was disappointed but not surprised. Rats are exceedingly wary of new objects in their environment so it takes them a little while to get used to the presence of a trap.

When I made it to the greenhouse later that morning, this is what I found:

That’s the same hollowed-out cactus you saw above, plus a nice addition. If that isn’t a middle finger to yours truly, I don’t know what is. F**k you, smart boy. You can’t fool me with your stupid trap.

Of course that’s silly anthropomorphizing, but it makes me feel better, so please bear with me.

I put my remaining astrophytums in a tray, including two that have some damage but may grow out of it, and hope to keep them safe from the voracious fangs.

Please keep your fingers crossed that I’ll catch the f**r soon. Sorry for the swear words, but that’s the mood I’m in.

Day 3 update: I added another electronic rat trap (we have two).

Day 4 update: Still no kills.

Little Prince of Oregon: a look behind the scenes of a wholesale nursery

2026-04-12T09:19:00.000-07:00

One of the highlights of my Easter trip to Portland was a visit to Little Prince of Oregon, a wholesale nursery in Aurora, south of Portland. Their plants are in garden centers and retail nurseries all over the West Coast, easily recognizable by their colorful plant tags featuring a crowned frog:

Usually wholesale operations aren’t set up for visitors, especially for Joe Blows like myself, but Loree worked her magic and arranged for a tour with production manager Mike Hicks and propagation assistant Ann Amato (who is also a personal friend of both of us). For most people, visiting a wholesale nursery would be the very definition of boring — lots and lots of plants, mostly small, crammed together on tables or the floor. But for plant nerds, it’s like getting to see the inner workings of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.

Living Little Prince sign — a perfect use for sempervivums

(Left to right) Production manager Mike Hicks, yours truly, Ann, and Max from Oakland (see his and his husband Justin’s garden here). Photo courtesy of Loree.

Close-up of the letter C

Little Prince of Oregon (LPO) was founded in 1997 by Ketch de Kanter and his friend Brett Francis. The name itself goes back to de Kanter’s childhood; his father often joked that Ketch’s mother treated him like a “little prince,” and the nickname stuck.

What started as a modest operation heavy on common landscape shrubs and groundcovers has evolved over nearly 30 years into an impressive business with almost 100 greenhouses covering over 175,000 square feet, including a new 14,400 sq. ft. production facility completed in early 2025. In 2024, LPO was honored as the Operation of the Year by Greenhouse Grower magazine, underscoring its status as an industry leader.

The days of boring landscape shrubs are long gone. Today, LPO is known for growing plants that customers cannot find elsewhere, over 1,500 different varieties in total. This includes 16 separate product lines, each with a witty name like Fit for a King (rare and unusual plants), Lords of the Fly (carnivorous plants), Little Prince of Darkness (dark-leafed plants), Prince of Paradise (tropical accent plants), Blades of Glory (ornamental grasses), Cliff Hangers (trailing plants for walls or containers), FootPrints (groundcovers that tolerate foot traffic), and Beau Château (sophisticated house plants). The nursery emphasizes a rigorous integrated pest management (IPM) program using beneficial organisms and biological controls like predatory insects to produce healthy, sustainable plants and reduce reliance on traditional chemical controls.

Seven of the 99 greenhouses

The clouds were glorious

If I ever own acreage, I want a utility vehicle like this

The first greenhouse we visited was the fern house, tended by Ann. I love ferns, and I’ve always envied gardeners in more moderate climates who can grow them with ease. Fortunately, Little Prince of Oregon grows several dryland ferns that should do well in my climate, like Cheilanthes lanosa, Cheilanthes argentea, Cheilanthes sieberi (actually C. distans), and Anemia mexicana.

Loree and Mike in deep conversation, no doubt about ferns

Max, me (turned away), Ann, and Mike (photo courtesy of Loree)

See the hoses on the ground? Everything is watered by hand. This allows for better monitoring and more precise care than automated systems.

The German in me loves the orderly way the plant tags were lined up

Silver cloak fern (Cheilanthes argentea), a dryland fern I can grow

Alpine water fern (Blechnum penna-marina), “alpine” is a good clue that it’s not for me

Crested hart’s tongue fern (Asplenium scolopendrium ‘Cristata’)

Sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis)

Poison rock fern (Cheilanthes sieberi); I have no idea why it’s called that, but it handles dry conditions well and will soon be growing in my garden

Japanese painted fern (Athyrium nipponicum), can’t remember which cultivar, but I can’t grow it anyway

Wood fern (Dryopteris sp.), LPO has 14 different kinds

Maidenhair spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes)

Slender-crested male fern (Dryopteris filix-mas ‘Linearis Polydactyla’)

Arching Japanese holly fern (Cyrtomium fortunei var. clivicola)

East Indian holly fern (Arachniodes simplicior ‘Variegata’)

Mexican flowering fern (Anemia mexicana). I hadn’t heard of it before, but I’m going to try it my garden.

The Lords of the Fly line of carnivorous plants

Trumpet pitchers (Sarracenia sp.) should theoretically grow in my climate, but I don’t want to be responsible for plants that need to be kept moist at all times

Assorted butterworts (Pinguicula sp.). They look so cool, but I know that trying to grow them would only lead to heartbreak.

Butterwort cultivar

Pinguicula cyclosecta...

...looking almost otherworldly

Planter Poppers, “Mix -n- Match to design your own planter”

Even though it looks like a fern, it’s not. It’s a club moss (Selaginella sp.).

This one is a club moss, too (Selaginella erythropus ‘Sanguinea’)

Creeping saxifrage (Saxifraga stolonifera)

It spreads vigorously via its threadlike red stolons. It likes water, so it wouldn’t get very far in my garden.

The LPO website lists 23 different begonias, but there are more in the greenhouses that haven’t made it onto the website yet. I love begonias for their variety of color and leaf shape, but they aren’t the easiest to grow in a dry-summer climate — and most of them hate winter cold.

Begonias...

...so...

...many...

...begonias!

One of the strangest begonias I’ve ever seen, Begonia ferox. The leaf surface is covered with pointy spikes that look fierce but really aren’t.

As luck would have it, LPO introduced an indoor plant line roughly 18 months before COVID-19 hit, positioning them perfectly for the subsequent boom. As people stayed home during the pandemic, interest in houseplants skyrocketed, causing LPO to invest even more heavily to meet the intense demand for tropicals and succulents. In March 2020, when many retail stores were forced to close, LPO launched a program allowing retailers to sell directly from the LPO online inventory, with garden centers receiving 20% of the sale.

Predictably, demand for houseplants declined after the pandemic, but LPO is still growing a good selection of plants that stand out from the typical offerings you see.

Stromanthe sanguinea ‘Triostar’

Philodendron ‘Ring of Fire’

Philodendron ‘Prince of Orange’

Philodendron ‘Sun Red’

Production manager Mike Hicks is a true plant nerd. Instead of simply growing more of what sells well, he takes chances and brings in plants most buyers haven’t seen before. Good examples are these two new aeonium introductions. I’ve seen many aeoniums, but I’ve never seen any quite like these. Hopefully they’ll make it into retail channels soon.

Aeonium ‘Wheels of Fascination’

Aeonium ‘Wheels of Captivation’

I love seeing the patterns formed by hundreds of plants, all with tags oriented in the same direction:

My favorite part of our visit came toward the end when we entered this room. This is LPO’s plant tag library. Each cardboard box contains labels for a specific plant variety. So many plant tags. Can you even imagine? If we’d had more time, I would have taken a much closer look. What can I say, I love tags.

Thousands upon thousands of plastic pots waiting to be filled:

At the end of our tour, Mike showed us how cuttings and seedlings are placed in pots:

A hopper dispenses the soil mix into pots within a tray. A brush levels the soil, ensuring the density is consistent across all pots.

A mechanical plate with pegs (a “dibbler”) presses down to create a uniform hole in the center of the soil

One cutting or seedling is placed in each hole; after that, a plant tag is inserted in each pot

The trays with the filled and labeled pots are loaded onto carts for transport to the greenhouses

In the shipping department, rolling racks with plant orders are waiting to be loaded onto delivery trucks or picked up by customers

A typical order

Little Prince also sells variety packs of succulents, 32 to a flat with 8 different varieties

Here are some interesting articles on Little Prince of Oregon if you want to learn more:

Leading Women of Horticulture: Alexa Patti [Head Grower] of Little Prince of Oregon Nursery (Greenhouse Management, March 2026)
Up Close with Little Prince of Oregon Nursery (Greenhouse Grower, October 2024)
Little Prince Is Making a Big Impact in Horticulture (Greenhouse Grower, August 2021)

LPO production manager Mike Hicks and his wife Megan Big John, also a horticultural professional, are plant lovers of the highest order and have created a spectacular garden at their home in West Lin, Oregon. Check out these videos by Donna Avallone of Over the Fence and Loree’s blog post:

How They Made a Tropical Paradise , Part 1 (Donna’s video)
PNW Margaritaville Garden, Part 2 (Donna’s video)
The Big John Hick Oasis (Loree’s blog post)

From Portland to Pinole

2026-04-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

I haven’t been posting much in the last ten days. But it’s not because I’ve been lazy. Quite the opposite; I’ve been busy. Over Easter, I spent four jam-packed days in Portland, touring nurseries and gardens, shopping at Hortlandia, the giant spring plant sale organized by the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon, and hanging out with a great group of plant peeps. And a couple of days after I got back, I visited my friend Justin in Pinole, about an hour from here.

I have plenty of blog material for weeks to come, but it’ll take a little time for me to edit my photos and find the right words. Here are a few teaser photos to tide you over.

PORTLAND

Driving all over the Portland area for four days

My friend Loree Bohl, the author of the groundbreaking book Fearless Gardening (sadly out of print now) and the brain behind the popular blog danger garden, had organized a Spring Fling for a bunch of plant geeks from California and Oregon. The four days I spent in Portland went by in a blur, but we covered a lot of territory. Head on over to Loree’s blog for a summary of our adventures.

Here are some teaser photos I took:

Four of the 99 (!) greenhouses at Little Prince of Oregon, a large wholesale nursery south of Portland

Fern house at Little Prince

I love the patterns created by hundreds of plants

Aeonium ‘Wheels of Captivation’

The private gardens we visited ranged in size from 4,000 square feet to 30 acres:

Garden of mosaic artist Jeffrey Bale

Jeffrey found these pieces while living in India

Agaves in the garden of Heather Tucker and Greg Zwart

Felony Flats Botanical Garden, the private garden of Eric Peterson and Robert Brigman

Garden of John Kuzma and Kathleen Halme

Rancho Cistus, Sean Hogan and Preston Pew’s private garden at Cistus Nursery on Sauvie Island

Bella Madrona, the storied garden of Geof Beasley

I’d first visited Bella Madrona during the 2014 Garden Bloggers Fling, and I was excited to go back

We also saw two outstanding crevice gardens, both created by Kenton Seth, North America’s leading crevice garden expert and co-author of the book The Crevice Garden:

Crevice garden at Rancho Cistus

Crevice garden at Dairy Creek Meadows...

...Craig Quirk and Larry Neil’s garden...

...outside of Portland

And, hands down, the two most spectacular private greenhouses I’ve ever seen:

Craig Quirk and Larry Neil’s greenhouse surrounded by crevice gardens

Inside Craig Quirk and Larry Neil’s greenhouse

Eric Peterson’s masterpiece, designed and built by himself — he even made most of the stained-glass windows

Inside Eric Peterson’s greenhouse

I was staying at Loree and her husband Andrew’s home, so I had plenty of opportunity to explore and photograph the danger garden:

The shade pavilion is still in winter mode, acting as a greenhouse for plants that need protection against the rain and freezing temperatures

Shade pavilion on the right, garage in the center

Loree has an ever-expanding collection of ferns

Loropetalum chinense and Agave ovatifolia

Agave ovatifolia and Yucca rostrata next to the front door

The basement becomes a garden room in the winter

As I mentioned earlier, there’s much more to come.

PINOLE

Davis to Pinole

A couple of days after I got back from Portland, I made the 50+ minute drive to Pinole to hang out with my friend Justin. I hadn’t seen his garden in a while, and I was eager to see how things looked.

Justin’s Agave applanata is now 6 feet tall and wide — Justin for scale (he’s 6’3"). Also notice how small Agave horrida seems in comparison.

Lots of spring color

Agave shawii has the most colorful marginal teeth

Impressive clump of seed-grown Agave utahensis var. eborispina

Echinocereus × roetteri

Justin planted a variety of Calochortus last year, and some are flowering now

I took more photos of Justin’s garden and greenhouse and will have a dedicated post next week.

RELATED POSTS

Little Prince of Oregon: a look behind the scenes of a wholesale nursery

Garden update, early April 2026

2026-04-02T00:30:00.000-07:00

If you’re like me, you have a hard time believing it’s April already. April!

I haven’t started any major projects this year, but it’s still worth taking a quick look at the garden before spring is over for good. The California poppies are already fading and going to seed, so summer isn’t that far off.

View through the ponytail palms towards the house; the front door is to the right

Bed next to the front door

The front door is on the right. New solar spotlights from Costco, uplighting the ponytail palms and the Aloe vaombe at night.

Most of the aloes are done blooming for the year, but there’s never a shortage of other flowers. Several of my hechtias have started to bloom — a bit early, it seems.

Hechtia argentea produces almost comically tall inflorescences. The flowers themselves are white, tiny, and insignificant.

Hechtia lanata, on the other hand, has a pretty showy inflorescence: short and fluffy

This Hechtia lanata has been in the ground for 5+ years, but this is the first time it’s flowered

Deuterocohnia brevifolia is blooming, too. The flowers are easy to miss because they’re almost the same color as the leaves and they don’t stick out very far.

Geum ‘Scarlet Tempest’ has been a stellar performer for 5+ years. It flowers profusely, and for a long time.

I’ve never had much luck with staghorn ferns, but when I saw this one (Platycerium bifurcatum ‘Netherlands’) at a local Ace Hardware for $17.99, I decided to try again. So far so good, although it’s only been three weeks.

View from the front porch

Along the sidewalk:

Jerusalem sage (Phlomis fruticosa) is covered with yellow flowers at this time of year. It’s a vigorous grower and needs to be reined in occasionally, otherwise it would take over this corner of the sidewalk bed.

A bit hard to see, but Mangave ‘Foxy Lady’ is flowering. Not just the main rosette, but several of the pups, too. I fear the whole clump will die, as mangaves are wont to do after they bloom.

Flowering for several months now, Grevillea ‘Scarlet Sprite’

Mangave ‘Permanent Wave’ (top), with Ruschia lineolata ‘Nana’ on the left and sundrops (Oenothera serrulata ‘Southern Belle’ ) on the right. The sundrops will be in flower from now until fall.

Agave oteroi ‘Filigree’ from our January trip to Santa Barbara

As I mentioned earlier, most aloes are done blooming, but Aloe ‘Yemeni Gold’, a hybrid from Aloes in Wonderland, is ramping up

Speaking of ramping up: Echinopsis ‘Flying Saucer’ is getting ready for its first wave of flowers (this is what it looked like last year on April 3)

Rounding the corner of the sidewalk bed:

As I mentioned earlier, the California poppies are on their way out. I’ll rip them out before they become too straggly.

Mangave ‘Bloodspot’ × titanota, a Nick Deinhart hybrid, is looking so good that I fear it will bloom (and then die) in the near future

A few ‘White Linen’ poppies have reverted to orange. Usually, I remove them, but this year I was too lazy.

Aloe marlothii, which took 11 years to flower, is done now

Moving on down the sidewalk bed

Yucca rostrata on the left. It bloomed last year for the first time, and it looks like it’s getting ready to split into two heads.

Agave parryi and dogweed (Thymophylla pentachaeta)

Alyogyne ‘Ruth Bancroft’ has started its spectacular flowering season (more info on this Australian shrub here)

Alyogyne ‘Ruth Bancroft’ and Eucalyptus macrocarpa

Eucalyptus macrocarpa and Aloe ‘Erik the Red’ (done flowering)

Far end of the sidewalk bed

One lone aloe still blooming, Aloe striata × betsileensis, a Nick Deinhart hybrid

Moving into the backyard:

The new pot clusters in the backyard did well in the winter

This is Stella’s domain

The only winter loss was Euphorbia lactea ‘Dragon Bones’. It rotted. I replaced it with a good-sized cutting from a monstrose apple cactus (Cereus repandus). It’s definitely hardier than the euphorbia.

This puya has been a mystery. Now it’s blooming, with truly odd but weirdly wonderful bluish flowers.

I was finally able to ID it as Puya spathacea

Another cool flower on the left. It is...

...Aechmea recurvata ‘Aztec Gold’. The flower will last for 6+ months. After that, the flowering rosette will die, but there’s a good-size pup already to take the place of the mother plant.

A few photos of the succulent mounds in the backyard:

Fan aloe (Kumara plicatilis) is flowering now, one inflorescence per head

Closer photo of Kumara plicatilis

Bed #1. The agave is A. ‘Baccarat’.

Variegated cow’s horn agave (Agave bovicornuta ‘Holstein’)

Bed #2

It took a few years, but the ‘Slim’ bottlebrush next to the vegetable stock tank is finally living up to its potential: narrow and tall, and very floriferous. In the nursery business, it’s still sold under its old botanical name, Callistemon viminalis ‘Slim’, although all callistemons except for four were moved to the genus Melaleuca in 2009 based on DNA evidence.

Melaleuca viminalis ‘Slim’

Melaleuca viminalis ‘Slim’ from the other side of the fence

The next big event in the garden will be the first wave of cactus flowers. In a couple of weeks or so.

Collector's garden in Sacramento with a Southwest flair

2026-03-30T13:21:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, my friend Theresa had an open garden for the Sacramento Cactus and Succulent Society. I’d visited before (and I posted about it here) but every time I pull into her driveway, I go “wow.” It’s not only the size of her property — almost two acres, enormous by my suburban standards — but also the architecture of her house.

This is her front door:

A side patio with her collection of potted mesembs:

As you can see, Theresa is serious about mesembs, especially conophytums. The latter range from small to tiny, and you’d think that they’re easy to kill, considering how fragile they look. Let’s put it this way: It wouldn’t take me long to kill them, but Theresa has figured out what their cultivation needs are.

Theresa and her husband built their Southwest-inspired home 30+ years ago. It would look right at home in Arizona or New Mexico, but in Northern California, you almost never see this style of architecture. The burnt orange color makes a fantastic backdrop for plants, as you’ll see below.

The pool...

...is pretty dreamy, too!

The nooks and crannies near the house are in the same Southwest style

That’s an outdoor shower there on the left

Koi pond and patio covered with solar panels

Spiral cactus (Cereus forbesii f. spiralis)

Behind the pool is Theresa’s little greenhouse:

Greenhouse on the right (this photo is from my October 2020 post)

A few photos of potted plants outside the greenhouse:

Bonsai’d Yucca gloriosa

Crested aeonium

Perfectly grown dudleyas

Aloe parvula

The greenhouse isn’t large, but it’s packed with small treasures, most of which I know very little about:

Tylecodon buchholzianus

Conophytum wettsteinii

Adromischus marianiae

More conophytums

Medusoid euphorbia

Aloe laeta, a beautiful but tender species from Madagascar

Homalocephala polycephala, the Mojave cottontop cactus (very hard to keep alive in cultivation)

Rebutia rauschii

Tephrocactus bonnieae (formerly Puna bonnieae)

Thelocactus hexaedrophorus

Echinocereus (flowering) and other cacti

Mammillaria bocasana

Collection of Ariocarpus, one of the most sought-after cactus genus

Some ariocarpus are so, hmmmm, curious looking that only a collector could love them

Back of the greenhouse in the photo above

Massive clump of aeonium; ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens) on the right

Aloes, ice plants, aeoniums, ocotillo, and more

Opuntia gomei ‘Old Mexico’

Back patio, garage on the right (behind the tree):

Back patio

Urn orchids (Bletilla striata)

The area next to the back patio and garage is a succulent garden, mostly cacti but a couple of aloes as well:

A variety of cactus, including several forms of prickly pear

The clump on the right is Opuntia cochenillifera (garage partially visible in the back)

Aloidendron ramosissimum, with a totem pole cactus (monstrose form of Lophocereus schottii) in the front

Moving farther away from the house:

The largest Mangave ‘Tooth Fairy’ I’ve ever seen, surrounded by Penstemon heterophyllus ‘Margarita BOP’

Mangave ‘Freckles and Speckles’ bulbil. It broke off when I touched it, so I got to take it home.

In addition to succulents, Theresa, a master gardener, also grows a wide range of perennials and shrubs, including many California natives. My attention, however, immediately went to the flamboyant exotics, like this one:

Grevillea ‘Kings Rainbow’

Something that attracted a great deal of attention was what’s left of a bloomed-out octopus agave (Agave vilmoriniana). Its flower stalk was packed with bulbils, small plantlets that are genetic clones of the mother plant:

Agave vilmoriniana flower stalk with thousands of bulbils, another smaller specimen of A. vilmoriniana on the right

Several visitors took bulbils home with them

In nature, the bulbils stay on the flower stalk until they’ve reached a viable size, then fall off and root into the ground. Even if only one in ten bulbils ends up surviving, that’s still a huge success for the plant.

In cultivation, bulbils root readily — many of them already have rudimentary roots when you pop them off the flower stalk.

You could open a business selling nothing but A. vilmoriniana

Below is another A. vilmoriniana in Theresa’s garden, with the remains of an old flower stalk on the right. Theresa has had multiple generations over the years. A. vilmoriniana is one of the most garden-friendly agave species; the leaves are soft and bendy, and there are no stiff terminal spines or marginal teeth.

Soon the folks who took home bulbils will have their own octopus agave growing in their garden. And when it flowers and produces bulbils, they can share the wealth with their friends and neighbors. Truly, the gift that keeps on giving.

Kyle's garden, late March 2026 (back)

2026-03-27T17:52:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I showed you my friend Kyle’s front yard in Sacramento. If you missed it, click here to check it out.

Now let’s walk into the back.

The Cécile Brünner rose above the gate to the backyard was still in bloom. This is an old-fashioned polyantha rose bred in France and introduced in 1881. It’s prized for its abundance of fragrant flowers. It doesn’t bloom for long, but when it does, it’s the center of attention.

I missed the peak of the aloe bloom by a couple of weeks, but there was still plenty to see:

The purple flowers on the left are from Alyogyne huegelii, a floriferous shrub from Western Australia

The burgundy-colored leaves on the left are Hechtia ‘Wildfire’, always a standout even if its barbed leaves draw blood when you get too close

Looking from the back patio towards the fence on the south side; the gate to the backyard is around the corner on the right

With a garden as special as this, Kyle has every reason to smile

Easter lily cactus (Echinopsis oxygona) getting ready to flower just in time for Easter

Kyle has a lot of potted plants, but since they’re in matching or complementary containers, the overall look is neat and orderly — something I should try to be better at

That Alyogyne huegelii again

Mangave ‘Silver Fox’ flowers

Kyle didn’t escape this weird winter unscathed either (and neither did I)

The plant stands above are actually bed posts that Kyle found by the curb while walking the dogs. They fit in perfectly.

Dudleyas growing in a pocket of soil between two rocks

Mangave ‘Purple People Eater’

Wide view towards the house

Wide view towards the office shed in the northeast corner

Irises, too. Kyle’s style is the very definition of fusion gardening.

Fence on the north side

In front of the office shed

Ferocactus glaucescens blooming already

Dasylirion longissimum

One of the first bread poppies to bloom

And finally some night-time photos courtesy of Kyle. When I visit other people’s gardens, I usually see them in the daytime. But after dark, they assume a different kind of magic altogether.

I’ll have another update on Kyle’s garden in late spring when the annuals and perennials are at their peak. At the rate things are unfolding this year, it won’t be long!

Kyle's garden, late March 2026 (front)

2026-03-25T08:48:00.000-07:00

If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you’ve seen photos of my friend Kyle’s garden in Sacramento. (If not, click here to check out my previous posts.) Kyle is the most active gardener I know, continuously tweaking and refining. I get to see his garden quite frequently, and yet, every time I visit, I notice things that hadn’t been there before. No garden is ever finished, not really, and that’s doubly true for Kyle. He has boundless energy, and it flows right into his garden.

I caught up with Kyle last week and took a bunch of new photos. I was going to squeeze them into one post, but there are so many it makes more sense to spread them out over two posts.

This post is about the front yard. But before we dive in, take a look at this picture I took in December 2022:

December 2022

Keep this photo in mind as you look at the pictures that follow.

March 20, 2026

Kyle has gradually increased the elevation along the perimeter of the front yard by raising the soil level and adding tons (literally) of rocks. This has created multiple planting surfaces — not just horizontally, but also on the sloping sides. The rock placement produces many different pockets — ideal for succulents that naturally grow at an angle, including dudleyas, hechtias, and some agaves.

You can never have too many golden barrels

Agave oteroi ‘Filigree’

Mangave ‘Red Wing’

Mangave ‘Pineapple Express’

Aloe aculeata

Mangave ‘Tooth Fairy’

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, Kyle has added a lot of different companion plants that complement the succulents, for example Plectranthus neochilus ‘Mike’s Fuzzy Wuzzy’

Agave titanota ‘Lion’s Mane’

Hechtia argentea growing vertically in a crack between the rocks — like a giant spider

Just one small vignette...

...but check out the plant variety!

Echeveria cante

Over the last few years, the front lawn has shrunk considerably. To use a somewhat tortured metaphor: If the lawn originally was a family-size pizza, so many bites have been taken out of it that it’s now just a mini pizza. The latest “nibbles” are the meadow areas you see below; Kyle wanted to make space for flowering annuals native to California and beyond. This is the first year, so he doesn’t really know how this experiment will shake out, but it looks very promising.

Here’s another area that used to be lawn. Now it’s a great place to sit and look at the garden.

The master of his domain

The most recent changes in the front yard are along the side that faces the neighbor’s driveway. Kyle extended the rock border and created a strip for more succulents and companion plants. On the neighbor’s side of the rock border he planted three maiden grasses (Miscanthus sinensis ‘Gracillimus’) that will act as a visual screen and give him and his wife some sense of privacy as they grow taller.

Maiden grasses (Miscanthus sinensis ‘Gracillimus’) for screening

More room for plants

Kyle sent me some in-progress photos of this project. This gives you a better idea of the amount of work (and materials) involved.

Before

The grasses were moved more to the right

Extending this bed meant redoing the irrigation

Irrigation installed

Rocks placed

View from the other side

Completed

From the other side

Kyle’s garden continues to be a big inspiration for me. His energy has rubbed off on me in no small measure. As a result, I’m doing things in my own garden that I might otherwise not do, like constantly analyzing what’s there, removing plants that no longer bring me joy, adding more rocks (you can never have enough rocks). In other words, not settling, but always striving to create something better. That’s huge, and I’m very grateful to Kyle for that extra push he’s given me.

Check out this post for a look at Kyle’s backyard in late March 2026.

Steve Super's super plants, March 2026

2026-03-19T20:31:00.000-07:00

I was on the Central Coast last weekend (see map at the bottom of this post), and my first stop was to see Steve Super. I’d visited him in February 2024 when his retail area was in downtown Los Osos; he’s since moved to a greenhouse complex outside of town. More on that later.

First a bit about Steve and his business. Steve cultivates and breeds a wide variety of rare and unusual plants that are well adapted to California’s Mediterranean climate. This includes aloes, agaves, and other succulents as well as bromeliads and even some perennials. He’s a one-man operation, and he focuses on plant quality and botanical rarity over mass production.

In recent years, Steve has gained recognition for his aloe and dyckia hybrids, which have become sought after for their distinct patterns and colors. He’s also been developing his own mangaves, which are more compact than the ones already on the market and hence better suited for container culture.

Steve doesn’t have a conventional retail storefront with public hours. Instead, he sells online through his own website (stevesupergardens.com) and on Etsy as well as on the Palmstreet platform, both in a Marketplace storefront with permanent listings and in live auctions (in the Palmstreet mobile app, search for SteveSuperGardens). In addition, he is a frequent vendor at plant sales on the Central Coast.

Steve Super in one of his greenhouses

View of the nearby hills, so lush at this time of year

Outdoor tables, mostly agaves and aloes

Steve shares growing space with Nick Wilkinson of Grow Nursery and landscape design company Botanica Nova. Their greenhouses are outside of town on the grounds of a small annual and perennial plant nursery. There are no fancy trappings here. It’s all about the plants, and the plants sure looked happy.

Greenhouse 1

Greenhouse 2

There were so many cool plants to look at, I felt pulled in all directions. The photos below show just the plants that called out to me. There were many others I didn’t get around to. Take a look at Steve’s website to get a better idea of the range of plants he grows. Steve says visitors are welcome to stop by and pick out their own plants. Contact him via email to make an appointment.

Needless to say I first looked at the agaves.

Agave utahensis var. eborispina, one of the most alluring agaves, yet so slow and challenging in cultivation

This specimen had incredible spines

Agave oteroi, just one of many in the greenhouse, each one unique

Variegated Agave horrida

Steve has been making his own agave hybrids as well as mangaves (agaves crossed with manfredas). Below are some examples.

Agave lophantha ‘Quadricolor’ × Manfreda ‘Chocolate Chip’ (bottom center) and Agave lophantha ‘Quadricolor’ × Agave ovatifolia ‘Vanzie’ (the other six). In the ‘Quadricolor’ × ‘Vanzie’ cross, there was quite a bit of variability.

These...

...look a lot like the seed parent, Agave lophantha ‘Quadricolor’

The brownish-purple tinge is superb

Mangave ‘Bloodspot’ × Agave oteroi

A couple of variegated sports of Walters Gardens mangaves:

Variegated Mangave ‘Crazy Cowlick’

Mangave ‘Tooth Fairy’ with medial variegation. So cool, but not for sale

Steve has also created a number of spectacular dyckia hybrids:

I’m a sucker for silver leaves, especially when they have big teeth

I was tempted by so many of them

Just take a look!

I really should start a dyckia collection

These dyckia seedlings vary in color from green to dark red

Again, so much variation within the same seed batch

I picked this one up for my friend Kyle

The teeth!

On to aloes. The first one I want to show you is a variegated clone of the popular hybrid Aloe ‘Moonglow’:

The first variegated ‘Moonglow’ I’ve ever seen

‘Moonglow’ is a perfect landscape aloe (take a look at mine in flower a few weeks ago). Steve had some other aloe hybrids best suited for landscaping; I picked up an Aloe striata × camperi ‘Cornuta’. But the real stars in Steve’s aloe lineup are his dwarf hybrids. They’re similar to the “fantasy” aloes created by Kelly Griffin and Karen Zimmerman, but I would argue they’re even more mesmerizing.

Here are just a few of them:

This one is a hybrid with Aloe castilloniae

Some of these hybrids are named (like ‘Plasma Flame’ and ‘Pagoda Star’), with multiples available. Others are one-of-a-kind. If you’re a serious collector of these fancy aloes and live in California, I’d say plan a trip to Los Osos so you can pick out your own unique specimens!

On to cacti. Steve has been growing and hybridizing epiphyllums for years...

So many epiphyllums

...and he has also been crossing trichocereus with lobivias:

These should produce show-stopping flowers similar to ‘Flying Saucer’ (see here in my garden)

A few other cool plants:

Steve’s black greenovia hybrid (Aeonium ‘Zwartkop’ crossed with Greenovia dodrantalis)

A super chunky and compact Dudleya brittonii

A particularly colorful Aechmea recurvata ‘Aztec Gold, with the main rosette just starting to flower

The main reason for my trip was to hang out with aloe whiz Nick Deinhart. Nick uses a few tables in one of Steve’s greenhouses for seedlings and met me there. Nick and I are working on a project; more on that at a later date.

Nick Deinhart, me, and Steve Super

Where I live (top) and where I went (bottom). It’s about 300 miles and takes about 4½ hours.

Steve is one of those modest guys who is completely dedicated to his plants. He does amazing work away from the limelight — toiling in obscurity, you might say. And yet his creations, original and unique, are far more exciting than what you typically see online, in nurseries, or at plant shows.

If this post seems like a thinly veiled advertisement for his business, it’s because it is. Steve is the kind of passionate plantsman who deserves our support and business far more than the corporate growers that dominate the market. More so now than ever.

You can find Steve online:

On his website
On Etsy
On Palmstreet (in the app as SteveSuperGardens)
On Facebook
On Instagram

Here is my haul from Steve. As is often the case, I really should have gotten more, but I do love what I have.

Aloe dorotheae × rupestris. It looks a lot like dorotheae, but Steve said it should grow to 1-2 ft. wide.

(Aloe somaliensis × rupestris) × ‘Thai hybrid’. I’m super excited about this one. It looks like a window-sill fantasy aloe, but it’ll grow to a much larger size and hence be perfectly suited for landscape use.

Aloe striata × camperi ‘Cornuta’. This one should get to 2-3 ft. wide.

Agave lophantha ‘Quadricolor’ × ovatifolia ‘Vanzie’. I have no idea what to expect, both in terms of size (‘Quadricolor’ gets to about 1.5 ft in width, ‘Vanzie’ about 4 ft.) and offsetting (‘Quadricolor’ pups like crazy, ‘Vanzie’ is solitary).

Mangave ‘Inca Treasure’, one of Steve’s hybrids. This is Steve’s photo. My specimen doesn’t look like this yet, but hopefully it will soon, given enough UV exposure.

Winter damage update (March 2026)

2026-03-13T00:30:00.000-07:00

I’ve been dragging my feet on this, but the time has finally come to address the elephant in the room. The winter of 2025–2026 has been like no other I can remember. We got down to freezing maybe a couple of times, for a few hours near sunrise, but that was it. Some mild frost, but no serious freeze. And we haven’t had excessive amounts of rain either. As a result, we shouldn’t have had much, if any, damage in the garden. And yet look at this:

Agave potatorum ‘Cherry Swizzle’ rotting in the center

As you can see below, there are plenty more examples of rotting agaves.

I had barely brought home this variegated Agave attenuata when it started to fall apart:

Variegated Agave attenuata

Mangave ‘Bloodspot’ × Agave parrasana:

Mangave ‘Bloodspot’ × Agave parrasana

This Agave impressa was one of my favorites. This really hurts:

Agave impressa

And it is a complete loss. There is no coming back from this:

Agave impressa

This variegated Agave victoriae-reginae is a goner:

Variegated Agave victoriae-reginae

The biggest surprise of all was the shocking damage on several Agave victoriae-reginae:

Agave victoriae-reginae #1 and 2

Agave victoriae-reginae is one of the hardiest species, according to the San Marcos Growers website tolerating temperatures as low as 10°F, so this damage is not caused by the cold. Plus, it’s been through far wetter winters, so it’s not that either. At the end of this post I’ll share what I think was the cause.

Agave victoriae-reginae #2

Specimens #1 and 2 above look they will live. The rotten (and now desiccated) leaves will eventually be shed.

Specimen #3 below won’t make it, I’m afraid. The rot has progressed too far towards the center. This agave species grows very slowly; I estimate even the smallest of the three (the one below) to be 10 years old. That makes the loss even more painful.

Agave victoriae-reginae #3

The lower leaves on Agave mitis var. albidior below look pretty bad, but the rot appears to have stopped before it got too close to the center:

Agave mitis var. albidior

I’m fairly confident it will live.

Agave mitis var. albidior

Likewise, I’m cautiously optimistic that this Agave margaritae will make it:

Agave margaritae

Unfortunately, the cacti in the next three photos have kicked the bucket:

Echinopsis chamaecereus hybrid

Lobivia acanthoplegma var. roseiflora

This golden barrel (Echinocactus grusonii)...

...split open like an overripe durian fruit, and smelled like one, too

In general, aloes fared significantly better than agaves, but I lost this one:

Aloe deltoideodanta ‘Sparkler’ progressed quickly from the rot you see above to total mush

Aloe fosteri looks bad, but the rot has stopped, and the very center seems tight. I give it a 50:50 chance.

A few more random losses:

Cheiridopsis denticulata

Hechtia michoacana

Hechtia lanata

As promised, here is my theory why the winter of 2025–2026 has been particularly brutal for Sacramento area succulent gardeners:

The Central Valley was trapped under an unrelenting blanket of Tule fog that lasted for weeks at a time. This specific combination of factors created a perfect storm for succulent death, turning normally bulletproof plants into mush.

The Tule fog this year was driven by heavy rains in the fall of 2025, which saturated the soil. When a high-pressure system settled over the state, it acted like a lid, trapping a thin layer of cold, moist air against the valley floor. While the Sierra foothills and Southern California saw record-breaking warmth, Sacramento stayed socked in. This prevented the ground from warming up, keeping succulent roots in a cold-soak state for an extended period of time. Without any wind to break the inversion, there was zero air circulation. This is significant, because for succulents, airflow is the primary defense against the buildup of moisture on leaf surfaces.

Succulents are remarkably resilient to dry cold, but they have almost no natural defense against sustained wet cold. Succulents breathe through stomata. In 90%+ humidity with no sunshine, the plant cannot transpire. Water stays trapped inside the fleshy leaves, increasing internal pressure until cell walls begin to burst, which then becomes an entry point for opportunistic fungi.

Sunlight provides natural UV radiation that kills many surface-level fungal spores. Without sunshine for weeks, fungal pathogens like Anthracnose were able to colonize plants without any environmental resistance.

Agaves were particularly hard hit. Their rosette shape, where new leaves emerge from a central cone, creates a natural funnel. Moisture from the fog condensed on the leaves and trickled down into the crown. Because there was no wind or sun to dry out this “cup,” the moisture sat against the sensitive growing point, leading to bacterial and fungal crown rot — a death sentence.

There you have it, a layman’s speculation, based on a bit of research and personal experience.

Beyond these fungal issues, I had a different kind of damage to contend with on some of my dudleyas:

Example #1

Example #2

When I first saw these nibble marks, I immediately thought of rats. They are my go-to culprit for a lot of things, and often I’m right on the money.

This time, though, it wasn’t rats. At least not the nocturnal kind with long hairless tails. It was daytime rats with bushy tails, aka squirrels. This guy, to be precise:

I caught him red-handed, and he was shameless:

It might be the same one I caught eating my echeverias in November.

There’s no way for me to keep the squirrels out of the yard — not even Stella is enough of a deterrent — so the only thing I could think of was to place a couple of mouse traps in the dudleya bowl:

And it seems to be working. I occasionally find the traps on the ground, so they do get triggered. Fortunately, no squirrel has been injured so far; the last thing I want is to deal with a critter caught in the trap.

After all this talk of death and destruction, I want to end on a positive note. Take a look at this variegated cow’s horn agave (Agave bovicornuta ‘Holstein’) in the backyard. It’s never looked this beautiful:

Agave bovicornuta ‘Holstein’

I had another open garden (early March 2026)

2026-03-09T18:00:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, I had an open garden for members of the Sacramento Cactus and Succulent Society (SCSS) and my volunteer group at the UC Davis Arboretum Teaching Nursery. The weather couldn’t have been better — afternoon temperatures in the mid-70s — and in spite of the unpleasant wind, a good time was had by all. At least that’s what I hope. And if people didn’t like the plants, they had my friend Michele’s insanely delicious brownies to fall back on. (Thank you, Michele, for all your help.)

The timing was perfect, too. Many aloes were at peak bloom — just what I had hoped for. I took a bunch of photos since the garden looked so tidy, so lean back and enjoy.

The far end of the sidewalk bed has never looked better. You can see the aloes from a block away!

Moroccan daisy (Rhodanthemum hosmariense), native to — you guessed it — Morocco. I’m always amazed by the sheer flower power of this otherwise unassuming perennial.

Two aloes dominate this corner: Aloe vaombe × spectabilis (right), and Aloe ‘Erik the Red’ (left)

Aloe vaombe × spectabilis

On the far right is the Aloe ‘Moonglow’ that fell over in January

No aloe has better flower color than ‘Erik the Red’

Aloe ‘Erik the Red’ is a complex hybrid from Leo Thamm’s breeding program at Sunbird Aloes in South Africa

The deep red flower color comes from Aloe mawii. Other gene contributors are A. petricola, A. marlothii (red form) and A. arborescens.

OK, one more photo of ‘Erik the Red’

This is a hybrid created by my friend John Becker, combining the deep red flower color of Aloe mawii with the elegant habit of Aloe vanbalenii

Aloe capitata var. quartziticola with its signature pom-pom flowers

Aloe capitata var. quartziticola

Not all aloes: Agave parryi flanked by Rhodanthemum hosmariense (left) and Thymophylla pentachaeta (right)

This hybrid of uncertain origin is the most floriferous aloe I’ve ever seen

It flowers almost constantly, only taking a break at the hottest time of the summer

I’ve waited for 11 years for this Aloe marlothii to flower for the first time, and I’m not disappointed

I was hoping for yellow flowers, and it looks like that’s what I got

Aloe ‘Superman’ (A. cameronii × white-flowering ferox) in front of a pretty much perfect Yucca linearifolia

The ‘White Linen’ California poppies...

...have kicked into high gear now that the days are sunny and warm

Felicia echinata rising above Agave mitis ‘Chocolate Edge’

Lachenalia quadricolor in front of Aloe labworana

Aloe ‘Erik Red and White’ (A. ‘Erik the Red’ × white-flowering A. ferox)

Aloe ‘Erik Red and White’

Aloe castanea flowering for the first time. I got it in a 2" pot at a UC Davis Botanical Conservatory sale in October 2017. Aloes often are a long-term investment.

Aloe ortholopha × spectabilis, a Nick Deinhart hybrid, also flowering for the first time

I love the flower color and the rakish angle of the racemes

Mangave ‘Bloodspot’ × Agave titanota, a mangave created by Nick Deinhart

My most recent purchase, frying pan poppies (Eschscholzia lobbii) native to the Central Valley. They’re significantly smaller than regular California poppies.

Rounding the corner of the L-shaped sidewalk bed

Opuntia sulphurea; its spines are almost papery, certainly much less dangerous than they look

Agave ovatifolia, Aloe marlothii ‘Utrecht’, and Grevillea ‘Scarlet Sprite’

Grevillea ‘Scarlet Sprite’ (right) in all its spring glory, with pearl bluebush (Maireana sedifolia) in the middle and ‘Ian Bush’ manzanita (Arctostaphylos ‘Ian Bush’) on the left

My species tulip experiment outlined in this post has been a success. OK, I should qualify that. It’s easy to get newly planted tulip bulbs to flower. Getting them to come back is another thing. But I’m cautiously optimistic for next year.

Tulipa ‘Lilac Wonder’ (T. bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder’)

Tulipa ‘Lilac Wonder’ in front of Boophone disticha

Tulipa ‘Little Princess’ (T. hageri × aucheriana)

Tulipa ‘Wild Blue Heart’ (T. humilis ‘Alba Coerulea Oculata’)

The small shrub in the next two photos doesn’t attract much attention most of the year, but when it’s in full flower, it sure is a pretty sight.

Guichenotia ledifolia, a small shrub in the mallow family from Western Australia. Oddly enough, it doesn’t seem to have a common name.

Guichenotia ledifolia flowers

We’re almost at the driveway end of the L-shaped sidewalk bed.

Aloe excelsa, one of only a few aloes not in full flower yet

Arctotis ‘Pink Sugar’

A few photos of the rarely featured driveway bed:

Aloe ‘Maui Gem’ (A. mawii × globuligemma)

Aloe ‘Maui Gem’

Moving into the front garden:

View through the ponytail palms (Beaucarnea recurvata)

Cleistocactus strausii, with Leucadendron ‘Jester’ in the background

Euphorbia grandicornis-type hybrid

Agave desmetiana ‘Galactic Traveller’

Mangave ‘Whale Shark’

The last of this year’s Persian lime crop

Kitschy, I know, but I love these metal mariachi musicians

A duo of Lomandra ‘Platinum Beauty’ in Veradek Patina series planters (I first talked about these planters in this post)

Just one photo from the backyard. I’ll have more soon.

Stella enjoying the sun on her outdoor dog bed

The plant I was asked about the most at my open garden was not a succulent, but an Australian member of the protea family:

Banksia blechnifolia aka the Southern blechnum banksia

The foliage is stiff but fern-like, hence the species name (Blechnum is a genus of ferns, mostly from the neotropics)

Unlike most banksias, which are shrubs or trees, Banksia blechnifolia creeps along the ground, and its inflorescences seem to emerge from the soil

Banksia blechnifolia has proven to be bullet-proof in my garden, handling both heat and cold with aplomb. If you want one, like quite a few open garden visitors seemed to, you can get your own in a Big Fella pot from my friend Troy at Waltzing Matilija Nursery.

Lest you think this winter has been nothing but puppies and rainbows, far from it. The aloes made it through just fine, but I lost a lot of agaves and some cacti because of the long periods of Tule fog where everything was sopping wet for weeks on end. More on that in a future post.

When a cactus is squishy, you know something isn’t right

Aloes in peak bloom at the Taft Gardens outside of Santa Barbara

2026-03-03T15:13:00.000-08:00

Visiting Taft Gardens was high on our priority list on our recent trip to Santa Barbara. Kyle had seen my previous posts about this spectacular garden tucked away in the hills outside of Ojai (2019, 2024 and 2025), but he had never been there himself. Taft Gardens is a worthwhile destination year-round, but when the aloes are in bloom (December through February), it becomes a wonderland unlike any other in the U.S. You’ll see what I mean in a minute.

The scenic drive from Santa Barbara is less than an hour. Highway 150 hugs the northern shore of Lake Casitas and affords beautiful views:

View of Lake Casitas from Highway 150

Taft Gardens is located at the end of a private road. When you make reservations (required), you receive detailed directions and the gate code for the day. Without the directions you won’t know where to turn, and without the code you won’t be able to open the locked gates.

The road to Taft Gardens is very steep in places

After you check in for your allotted two-hour time slot (either 11 am or 1 pm every Thursday, Friday, or Saturday) you’re free to roam. Kyle and I visited on a Saturday, and we saw maybe six other people — in essence, you have the garden to yourself. I hope you get to experience it yourself some day: Three miles removed from the highway, there is no man-made noise, just the sounds of nature.

Taft Gardens has to be one of the best-kept secrets in Southern California. Some people we talked to in Santa Barbara either had never been there or they didn’t even know it existed.

Check-in kiosk and plant sale area. Many of the plants are cuttings from the garden; they’re priced very reasonably.

A bit of background about Taft Gardens for context. Summarizing from my 2019 post:

Taft Gardens was started in the late-1980s by real-estate developer John Taft and his wife Melody on their 265-acre property in the foothills of the Topatopa Mountains near Lake Casitas. Since the climate is very similar to what you find at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, the initial idea had been to grow South African proteas. This was soon expanded to include a wider range of plants from South Africa’s Cape Province, especially aloes, as well as proteacea from Australia.

The South African Garden was created by Laurence Nicklin, a landscape designer and botanist from Cape Town who left South Africa specifically to accept this commission. While working on the garden, Laurence fell in love with John Taft’s daughter Jenny and the two soon married. Today, Laurence works as a landscape designer in Ojai.

The Australian Garden is the brainchild of Jo O’Connell. Her story mirrors Laurence Nicklin’s. She relocated from Australia specifically for this project and, just like Laurence, she found love in Southern California and settled there. Today, Jo runs Australian Native Plants Nursery in nearby Casitas Springs with her husband Byron and still maintains the Taft’s Australian Garden.

For more on the history of Taft Gardens, read this excellent Los Angeles Times article from November 2021.

The cultivated gardens occupy 15 of the 265 acres of the property. There are about ten distinct sections, but Kyle and I spent most of our time in the South African Garden. Why? Three words: aloes in bloom. I hope my photos below manage to convey what an incredible place this is.

On the surface, the aloe spectacle at Taft Gardens is similar to Aloes in Wonderland, Jeff Chemnick’s private botanical garden in Santa Barbara, but Taft is even more expansive. There are thousands of aloes, many of them 10, 12 or even 15 ft. tall now. It’s like walking through an aloe forest.

We recognized Aloe ferox, Aloe candelabrum, Aloe marlothii, and Aloe speciosa, but others we weren’t sure about because the plants aren’t labeled. It doesn’t matter. It’s about the experience, not plant names. And what an experience it is. I knew what to expect, but it was Kyle’s first visit, and he was positively awestruck. I hope my photos manage to convey some of the sense of wonder we felt walking among the aloes.

Aloe marlothii

Same Aloe marlothii with Kyle (6’4") for scale

Aloe marlothii

Aloe marlothii silhouette

Aloe speciosa

Kyle photographing a trio of Aloe speciosa

Aloe speciosa

A few close-ups of aloe flowers:

Aloe speciosa

Aloe wickensii

Dried up flower petals

A few photos of other parts of Taft Gardens:

Floss silk tree (Ceiba speciosa) next to the Pavilion House, which you can rent

Near the Amphitheater

We were puzzled by these shade sails. They don’t seem to protect anything in particular. Maybe part of an art installation?

Moon Gate in the Studio Garden

Check out the size of these jade plant trunks

Cactus Garden

Lily Grove Lawn

Grass trees (Xanthorrhoea sp.) in the Australian Garden

To help you find your bearings, here’s a map showing Ojai in relation to Santa Barbara, with Los Angeles at the bottom right:

To visit Taft Gardens, go to their website and make a reservation for the time slot of your choice ($20 per person). You’ll receive an email with everything you need to know to find the gardens.

Spectacular large-scale front yard overhaul at tz_garden

2026-02-27T12:23:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, after visiting Hans at Dry Oasis Plants in Half Moon Bay, Kyle and I checked in on our friend Tracy in Livermore. Tracy writes about her garden on her blog tz_garden. If you follow her blog, you know that she’s been making major changes to her front garden. In fact, she’s been completely transforming it, creating mounds, adding rocks (some massive), and planting hundreds of new plants, both succulents and South African and Australian shrubs. The last time Kyle and I were there, last May, it looked like this:

Tracy’s front garden, May 2025

Now, nine months later, it looks like this:

February 2026

To say that things have changed would be the understatement of the year.

Take a closer look at these photos. There is much to see.

The standout at this time of year is Aloe ‘Tangerine’ with its signature orange flowers. As you’ll see, Tracy has at least five of them in the front and back.

Tracy and Kyle in front of the massive 3,700 lb. boulder Tracy calls the “meteor”. She documents the delivery in this post (big truck, forklift, the works).

Boulder from the other side

Quick detour to the front of the house, the only photo I took there: row of Agave attenuata growing in mostly shade. It’ll be interesting to see how they fare, considering Agave attenuata is a bit iffy in our inland Northern California climate (Livermore is pretty similar to Davis in terms of summer and winter temperatures).

Wide view of the front

First mound...

...with Aloe ‘Yemeni Orange’ from San Marcos Growers on top

Third mound

The chairs and table are made by Werph

Three Agave chazaroi from Dry Oasis Plants still waiting to be grounded

A few close-ups, beginning with two Veradek Selena planters from their Patina series made of a steel-and-plastic composite that develops a rusted exterior much like Corten:

Hechtia ‘Tehuacan’ from San Marcos

Aloe pluridens

The plant palette Tracy chose is pretty much exactly what I would have picked if this were my garden:

Aloidendron ‘Samson’ (Aloidendron barberae × ramosissimum), originally discovered at Aloes in Wonderland

Leucadendrons and grevilleas, too

Rocks and agaves:

Agave victoriae-reginae

Agave titanota ‘Lion’s Mane’

Tiny succulents tucked into rocks, masterfully done:

These sempervivums will be spectacular once they’ve filled the area

While the front garden was the main focus of our visit, the back is just as spectacular. The plant and design choices Tracy has made are so similar to what I would have done that I felt completely at home. If I lived here, there’d be very little I’d change.

Like in the front, Aloe ‘Tangerine’ is stealing the show at the moment

Aloe ‘Tangerine’

Two more Aloe ‘Tangerine’

That fluffy shrub (Phylica pubescens) is spectacular, especially when backlit

It’s easy to see why its common name in its native South Africa is featherhead

Aloes and agaves galore, with softer-leaved plants for contrast

Ingenious way to plant a dudleya

Ferocactus rectispinus with insanely long spines

Queen palms on top of the backyard slope

Tracy likes reused chimney flue liners, too

Exquisite lighting on this clump of Cleistocactus strausii, softened by Acacia cognata ‘Cousin Itt’ right and left

Agaves, aloes, dudleyas, and cacti among the rocks

Dudleya brittonii and Mangave ‘Snow Leopard’

In a garden full of succulents, flowers like this Blue Poppy anemone (Anemone coronaria ‘Blue Poppy’) stand out

To follow the progress of Tracy’s massive project, check out her blog tz_garden. This post, for example, features a 2-part video walkthrough of her front garden. As they say, “A picture is worth a thousand words:”

And since even people who live in our area are a bit iffy on the exact location of Half Moon Bay (Dry Oasis Plants) and Livermore (Tracy), here’s a handy map courtesy of Google:

Dry Oasis Plants in Half Moon Bay, CA: aloes and agaves, oh yeah!

2026-02-23T16:28:00.000-08:00

Located in Half Moon Bay on the California coast south of San Francisco, Dry Oasis Plants is a small nursery focusing on plants suited for dry gardens and xeriscaping, offering everything from small 4-inch pots to 15-gallon architectural specimens. Their primary specialties include aloes and agaves as well as cacti and other succulents. Operating out of a nearly 14,000-square-foot space in a greenhouse complex off Highway 1, the nursery provides high-quality plant material for both individual enthusiasts and landscape professionals.

Hans Brough

Dry Oasis Plants is the brainchild of Hans Brough. He graduated from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo with a degree in Landscape Architecture but worked as a web designer and software engineer for many years while collecting and growing succulents in his private garden. In 2023, he moved into a greenhouse that had originally been a hydroponic lettuce-growing facility. In this blog post, he describes the labor-intensive process of dismantling the old hydroponic infrastructure — miles of PVC pipes, pumps, sand, and filters. Operating on a lean budget, he built nursery tables using found materials around the property, such as leftover dimensional lumber and Styrofoam “lettuce rafts” for lightweight tabletops, as well as inexpensive plastic crates to elevate plants. His biggest operational constraints are finding enough unused tabletops and free pallets. He prefers to scrounge for these materials so he can allocate his budget to buying more plants rather than expensive lumber.

When Hans expects customers, he sets out a sign in front of the entrance to his greenhouse. Otherwise customers wouldn’t know which space is his.

One notable feature is Dry Oasis’ selection of plants from San Marcos Growers (SMG). Hans has been purchasing stock from SMG over the last year with an eye towards continuing to propagate some of the aloes and agaves only SMG carried. Now that SMG has closed for good, it is up to growers like Hans to carry the torch so the legacy of San Marcos lives on.

A while ago, Hans invited me to visit, and last weekend, Kyle and I finally had time to make the 100-mile drive to Half Moon Bay. I’d heard wonderful things from my friends Michele and Tracy (both have been to Dry Oasis Plants several times), so my expectations were high. I’m very happy to report that seeing Hans’ operation in person was even more impressive than I had thought.

The greenhouse is one big open space with thousands of plants on tables and on the floor. As I mentioned earlier, Hans has everything from small plants in 4" pots to landscape-sized specimens for instant impact. The plants are beautifully grown and look clean and healthy.

Aloidendron barberae in the foreground, behind them Aloe lukeana, and beyond them several open-pollinated Aloe pretoriensis

Aloidendron ‘Hercules’

Aloe ‘Cynthia Giddy’, a great hybrid for landscaping

20-gallon Aloe tongaensis ‘Medusa’

Aloe vaombe

Aloe vaombe closeup

Aloe lolwensis

Aloe ‘David’s Delight’

Aloe rupestris

Aloe kedongensis

Hans propagates plants himself through seeds and cuttings, and he buys tissue-culture liners from Rancho Tissue Technologies. There were countless trays of small aloes and other succulents:

Aloe marlothii liners still in the tray in which they were delivered. Typically, there are 72 cells per tray.

Here’s an example of a tissue-culture liner, or plug — essentially a baby plant. Hans grows them on until they’re large enough to sell, initially in 4" pots and then in progressively larger containers. (Photo by Hans Brough.)

Dyckia liners

Aloe ‘Wahoo’ on the left

Aloe ‘Wahoo’

Very few aloes form bulbils on their flower stalk — plantlets that are genetic clones of the mother plant. The aptly named Aloe bulbillifera is an exception. These baby plants can be popped off when they’re a little bigger and planted in soil. They root willingly.

Many aloes change color when stressed, either because of sun exposure, cold, or lack of water. This is Aloe elgonica in between green and red — I’ve never seen this pattern before.

Hans’ primary focus is aloes, but there was a good selection of agaves, too. Here are some of them:

Agave ‘Little Shark’

Agave ‘Green Glow’ (a green version of ‘Blue Glow’)

Agave filifera

Seed-grown Agave xylonacantha with quite a bit of variability

The teeth look formidable, but they’re fairly dull and harmless

Agave ellemeetiana ‘Satina’

Agave bovicornuta (front) and variegated Agave mitis (celsii)

Variegated Agave mitis (celsii) babies forming a dense tapestry — a sight you don’t get to see very often

Seeds from Agave angustifolia (see here)

Some cactus cuttings, too

But back to aloes because there were more aloes than anything else:

Aloidendron dichotomum (formerly known as Aloe dichotoma)

Aloe labworana

I already have three labworana, but these were so pretty, I was tempted to get another one. Because why not. But ultimately sanity prevailed.

Aloe comptonii looking plump and happy

Aloe dorotheae ‘Crimson’. These are tissue cultured, i.e. genetically identical, and yet their coloration varies from light green to dark red.

As I said earlier, Hans’ greenhouse was spotless and the plants were happy and healthy. That’s quite a feat, considering there are many thousands of plants and the entire operation is run by just two people: Hans and his wife, with occasional help from their kids. And taking care of the greenhouse isn’t the only task: There’s the website to maintain, sales calls to be made, new plants to be bought, and customer orders to be filled and shipped.

When people visit my garden, I often get asked which nurseries in our area have a good selection of the kinds of succulents I have in the ground — plants suitable for landscaping, not precious collector plants to be kept in pots. My answer is often received with disappointment because there really aren’t many such places in Northern California. The nursery at the Ruth Bancroft Garden has the largest selection; local garden centers usually only have a limited range. That’s why I’m happy to say that after seeing Hans’ operation — how extensive the inventory is, how clean the greenhouse is, and how well cared for the plants are — I can whole-heartedly recommend Dry Oasis Plants.

Check out the Dry Oasis Plants website. Smaller plants can be shipped (see here how they package their plants) or they can be picked up at the greenhouse (as documented by fellow blogger Tracy Rinella in this post). Many plants are available in larger sizes — 2, 3, 5, or even 15 gallons; these need to be picked up in person.

Fortunately, Half Moon Bay is easy to get to: 45 minutes from San Francisco and from San Jose, 2 hours from Sacramento. And it’s a beautiful place to visit. The town itself is a throwback to the California beach towns of decades past, there are great beaches (and world-class surfing), plenty of restaurants and shops, and, most importantly (haha) several other nurseries north of downtown right on Highway 92. That makes Half Moon Bay a perfect destination for a weekend outing.

My haul was very modest, but that's all I have room for at the moment. There'll be more trips to Dry Oasis in my near future.

Aloe dorotheae, Agave filifera, Aloe vaotsanda, Aloe ‘Wahoo’, and Aloe comptonii

Note that Dry Oasis Plants doesn’t have fixed hours so you need to make an appointment.

Tony & Holly Krock's demonstration garden in Santa Barbara

2026-02-19T18:07:00.000-08:00

If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you’re probably familiar with Tony and Holly Krock. I’ve visited them at their private home and their greenhouse on previous trips to Santa Barbara. On our recent trip, Kyle and I checked in with the Krocks to see what they’ve been up to. A lot, as it turns out. Read on.

But some background first so you don’t have to dig through my old posts: Tony and his wife Holly, a horticulturist by profession, operate Krock Nursery in Santa Barbara, specializing in rare and unusual agaves and other succulents for the collector market. The nursery focuses heavily on variegated plants and specimens with unique morphological features, like pronounced teeth and spines. While many of their plants go to overseas collectors, they also sell on online platforms such as eBay and Palmstreet.

Tony and Holly Krock, true salt of the earth folks

Tony is widely recognized for his expertise in agave propagation. He uses advanced methods (cringe-inducing for regular folks) such as coring or vertically cutting solitary agaves in half to stimulate the meristem tissue and force the plants to produce offsets (here is a demo Tony gave me a couple of years ago). This approach allows for the propagation of rare species that do not typically produce pups on their own. Tony has traveled extensively in Mexico; one of the agaves he and his travel companions discovered in Oaxaca in 2019 was described as a new species, Agave yucuanensis, in 2024.

Holly contributes significant horticultural research to the nursery and recently collaborated with pest control advisors to develop and test an effective organic treatment for agave mites (here is a post I did about her treatment protocol).

In 2019, the Krocks moved their operation from their backyard to a 30×100 ft. greenhouse they’re renting elsewhere in Santa Barbara. Initially, they shared it with orchid and tillandsia growers, but over time, they took over the entire space.

There’s plenty of room around the greenhouse, so in August 2024, they started to build a demonstration garden to showcase their favorite plants, including agaves, aloes, cacti, and caudiciforms. Their friend Zarac Lompart of West Inland Design helped with the hardscape and ran the machinery. And yes, there are rocks. Lots of great rocks, which made Kyle and me very happy.

The garden is still in its infancy, but when you look at the photos below, you can see the tremendous potential. With so many cool plants already in the ground and others waiting to be planted out, it’ll be spectacular in a few more years. I’ll definitely have an update down the line.

This stunner is a variegated Aloe ‘Hercules’. Believe me, they don’t all look this spectacular. I have a (small) one, and it pales in comparison.

Lots of work still to be done, but squint and use your imagination!

Lots of room, lots of plants

This aloe is one of several specimens of ‘Pandan’, a hybrid between Aloidendron barberae and Kumara plicatilis (the latter is commonly known as the fan aloe). It was originally created by Ronald Regehr of Cactus Canyon Nursery in Vista, California, and the cuttings came from Jeff Chemnick of Aloes in Wonderland via San Marcos Growers. In fact, I believe Tony bought San Marcos’ stock plants. Another plant no longer available after San Marcos shutting down operations.

These variegated Agave attenuata look perfect in the Krocks’ demonstration garden, but they’re a heartbreak plant in our climate. Not that that’s stopping me...

So. Beautiful.

Cacti, too! The one on the left is a very special Cleistocactus strausii, an extra hairy clone from the late Richard Bogart of Desert Images that he called ‘Super Nova’. Tony shared cuttings with Kyle and me.

Totem pole cactus (monstrose form of Lophocereus schottii)

This awesome groundcover is Dichondra repens from New Zealand. Holly said it does great most of the year but struggles a bit in the summer. I have some growing in the backyard, and I concur (and our summers get quite a bit hotter than in Santa Barbara).

This cactus is called creeping devil (Stenocereus eruca) because it crawls along the sandy flats of the Pacific Coast of Baja California. I have a specimen that has tripled in size in just a small rectangular box Kyle made for me (check out this post; it also has photos of the massive clump at the Huntington in Pasadena).

Cereus forbesii ‘Spiralis’

One of the most beautiful specimens of Agave impressa I’ve seen, grown from seed by Nick Deinhart (Nick and Tony have been on many plant expeditions to Mexico together)

Variegated fan aloe (Kumara plicatilis), the first of its kind I’ve ever seen IRL

Pachypodium geay from Southwest Madagascar makes a great silhouette

A lot of plants are still waiting to go in the ground, from 24-inch boxes to 1-gallon cans.

Another Aloe ‘Pandan’

Nolina longifolia Tony recently bought from San Marcos

Quite a few Australian grass trees (Xanthorrhoea sp.) from San Marcos Growers

The ultimate heartbreak plant for me, spiral aloe (Aloe polyphylla). This specimen is perfection. I’ve tried and failed so many times that I’ve given up for good. This aloe hates our summer heat. Hates it.

Variegated Aloe ferox, about as rare as it gets

Agave utahensis ssp. eborispina, slow as molasses and finnicky to boot. It grows in a very inhospitable climate in northwestern Nevada and southeastern California and does not tolerate much water.

Agave isthmensis × filifera ‘Krocky’ on the left and Agave ×romanii ‘Gypsy Queen’ on the right. Both started to rot at the Krocks’ home in Goleta so they’re moving them to their greenhouse location, which is outside the fog belt and gets more sun.

As I mentioned, this is just the beginning of Tony and Holly’s demonstration garden. But the bones are in place, and the plants they’ve chosen are both rare and beautiful. I can’t wait to see the garden grow.

Follow Tony on Instagram (@agavekrock) to see pictures taken in habitat — he’s photographed so many cool plants. And if you’re interested in buying plants, check them out on eBay and Palmstreet.

Index of posts from January 2026 Santa Barbara trip

San Marcos Growers closing after 46 years: a fond farewell

2026-02-15T18:26:00.000-08:00

If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you’re familiar with San Marcos Growers (SMG) in Santa Barbara, both as a supplier of über-cool plants and as the operator of arguably the best plant resource on the web. San Marcos has been there throughout my gardening life — a constant, like sunshine in the summer and aloe flowers in the winter. But all of that is over now. After 46 years in operation, SMG closed its gates for good on December 23, 2025.

I’ve been friends with Randy Baldwin, SMG’s general manager, for a number of years and have had the opportunity to visit the nursery on several occasions. When I stopped there in January of 2025, I thought it was the last time. And I was right. Sort of. While San Marcos did cease operations a couple of months ago, they still have quite a few plants left and continue to be open by appointment for the time being. Needless to say Kyle and I jumped at the opportunity when we were in Santa Barbara at the end of January. As sad as I am, I’ll be forever grateful I was able to say farewell in person.

There’s plenty of information online about SMG and the impact they’ve had on the nursery trade and horticulture in California, but here’s a quick recap.

San Marcos Growers was established in 1979 on San Marcos Road (hence the name) in the Goleta Valley north of Santa Barbara as a wholesale nursery specializing in plants suited to California’s Mediterranean climate, including California natives and exotic vines, shrubs, trees, succulents, and grasses. It was started by Jim and Marcia Hodges along with David Gress, who had been the City of Santa Barbara’s arborist; Hodges recognized the city’s need for quality trees and plants for streets and landscapes.

In 1981, Randy Baldwin, recently graduated from UC Santa Barbara, joined the operation. He started out as production manager and gradually became the nursery’s driving force, expanding its plant palette to include rare Mediterranean-climate plants from Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and other regions. In 1990, Randy was appointed general manager, and under his leadership SMG grew significantly, both in acreage (from its original 6 acres to about 21+ acres) and in reputation among landscape professionals throughout California.

Randy and his wife Heide under the Arbutus ‘Marina’ in the nursery’s demonstration garden. It was included in the California Big Trees registry in 2013.

San Marcos became known for introducing and propagating unusual plants that were hard to find elsewhere. In the mid-1990s, Randy created one of the earliest nursery websites in the industry, including a plant database that became (and still is) an invaluable resource for gardeners and professionals far beyond Santa Barbara.

For decades, SMG supplied trees and plant material to retail nurseries, landscape designers, gardens like Lotusland and Disneyland, and institutions such as UC Santa Barbara. While the nursery was never open to retail customers, its plants found its way into gardens up and down California and beyond, shaping landscape aesthetics and contributing to the increased use of native and Mediterranean-climate plants.

Despite its decades of success, SMG couldn’t escape the fate that has befallen so many nurseries in California: The land it occupied was simply too valuable to leave undeveloped. Santa Barbara County has been under intense pressure to build affordable housing, and the 21 acres the nursery had leased from the property owners since 1979 was a tantalizing target. In just a few years, close to a thousand housing units will be built on the nursery grounds that were once home to hundreds of thousands of plants.

One thing will not change: SMG will always be remembered as a cornerstone of California horticulture — innovative in plant selection, influential in landscape design, and beloved among gardeners and professionals alike.

The remaining San Marcos trucks

On January 22, 2026, the Santa Barbara Independent, the region’s leading alternative weekly newspaper and daily news website, published a heartfelt tribute to SMG and Randy Baldwin written by Matt Kettmann. This is not the usual fluff piece; it’s a thoroughly researched and beautifully written 3,500-word article that, short of a book, will be the definitive account of the nursery. If San Marcos plants have touched your life in any way, I urge you to read it.

Here are a few excerpts that capture what the horticultural community has just lost:

The end of San Marcos means the very real disappearance of actual plants, a diminishing of horticultural information, and a fading network of international connections that turned this humble patch of flat ground into one of the most important botanical centers on our planet.

Whether the everyday citizen ever experiences what that means remains to be seen, but it’s happening across California, as other important nurseries close, bigger ones consolidate, and the menu of available plants shrinks. For those who work in the landscaping industry — that is to say, professionals who design, restore, and maintain the planted part of our world — the end of San Marcos is being felt as a generational cataclysm.

The article goes on to quote landscape designer John Greenlee, known internationally for his groundbreaking use of grasses in residential and commercial landscaping. John eloquently expressed what so many of us feel:

“But the heart and soul [of why SMG thrived] is because of Randy Baldwin, a most brilliant plantsman. It’s more than just a nursery. It’s the entire essence of it all. It can’t be duplicated. There will never be another San Marcos Growers. Randy Baldwin is a national treasure. It’s truly, truly, truly the end of an era.”

And yes, reading this did bring a tear or two to my eyes.

Boxed dragon trees awaiting transport

Here are some photos of our visit on January 30, 2026. The next time I’ll make it to Santa Barbara, things will look very different.

Agaves and other succulents still available for purchase

However, most of the nursery grounds looks like this

This is the “Corral” where many stock plants once lived. Most of them have been sold.

Somebody has bought a lot of Agave americana ‘Yellow Ribbons’

More agaves waiting to go out

Agave bovicornuta ‘Holstein’, a spectacular variegate originally found at San Marcos

Aloe chabaudii ‘Dan’s Tangerine’, one of many San Marcos introductions that won’t be available any longer

All of these aloes, including most of the remaining Aloe chabaudii, are ready to go to new homes

Kyle tooling around the growing grounds in an electric cart

Our haul, some of it at least

If I had acreage, the first thing I would buy is one of these carts

Me making a list of our plants so they can be rung up. Everything was 50% off, and we took advantage of that.

With the third row of seats folded down, our Honda Odyssey has a large cargo area. But it still filled up quickly.

Aloe whiz Nick Deinhart who had come down from San Luis Obispo to meet us, Randy Baldwin, and Kyle

The SMG era has come to an end. But Randy’s story will continue. He’s still busy winding down operations and he is committed to keeping the cherished SMG website going. Beyond that, he’s much sought after for his horticultural expertise and encyclopedic knowledge. To quote from Matt Kettmann’s article in the Santa Barbara Independent:

“As anyone knows who has ever asked him a plant question, even a seemingly simple little plant query, the answer you get back is often worthy of a master’s thesis,” said Jeff Chemnick [of] Aloes in Wonderland. “I don’t know where he gets the time to run this empire, maintain the website, schmooze everyone silly, and still have the time to so thoroughly research and reply in detail, and I mean great detail.”

While the experimental nursery era may be fading these days across California, Baldwin’s information is keeping the fire alive for those who light more torches.

The sad truth is that some, maybe many, plants that only SMG carried will simply no longer be available. Others, fortunately, will live on as independent nurseries like Dry Oasis Plants in Half Moon Bay will continue to propagate them and keep the legacy of San Marcos Growers alive.

This and that, mid-February 2026

2026-02-12T16:38:00.000-08:00

I have plenty more posts from Santa Barbara in the pipeline, but I want to take a quick break to show you some recent developments in our own garden.

Remember my big Aloe ‘Moonglow’ falling over about three weeks ago? I made a clean cut to the trunk and replanted it a bit closer to the fence. Here it is today, not missing a beat:

Replanted Aloe ‘Moonglow’ this close to flowering

That was ‘Moonglow’ #1.

This is what greeted me when I got back from Santa Barbara last week:

Aloe ‘Moonglow’ #2 face-planted on the sidewalk

Aloe ‘Moonglow’ #2 had fallen over, too!

That pesky thing called gravity at work again!

Amazing how in just a day or two in this horizontal position the flower heads had already started to change orientation!

I made a clean cut and reset the ‘Moonglow’ a bit closer to the fence, just like the other one.

Aloe ‘Moonglow’ #2 after resetting

As of today, the flower heads are still in the wrong orientation, but I imagine they’ll right themselves in due course.

Aloe ‘Moonglow’ #2

Speaking of aloes, a few are flowering now:

A mystery aloe I originally got from Jeff Moore of Arid Adaptations in Tucson. It flowers pretty much all the time, year round. In fact, I’ve never seen an aloe that works as hard as this one does. Unfortunately, it has remained solitary, so no offsets to share.

Aloe laeta × conifera hybrid from Brian Kemble. It has proven to be bullet-proof...

...and it looks great, too

Most aloes are still a few weeks away from flowering. I’m not the most patient person, but anticipation really is sweet.

Aloe speciosa × barberae, a Nick Deinhart hybrid

Aloe ‘Erik the Red’ from the breeding program of Leo Thamm of Sunbird Aloes in South Africa, the same team that created ‘Moonglow’ (more info on the San Marcos Growers website)

Aloe ‘Erik the Red’

Aloe vaombe × spectabilis is going nuts this year, with more flowers than ever

Another photo of the reset Aloe ‘Moonglow’. In front of it is Aloe capitata × ferox, a hybrid created by my friend Justin Thiel, and to the left Aloe 'Jacob's Ladder'.

A few noteworthy shrubs:

(Left to right) Arctostaphylos ‘Ian Bush’, pearl bluebush (Maireana sedifolia), and Grevillea ‘Scarlet Sprite’

Grevillea ‘Scarlet Sprite’ covered with hundreds, maybe thousands, of flowers

Pearl bluebush (Maireana sedifolia) is a rarely seen but oh so beautiful shrub from South Australia that deserves to be more widely grown

Arctostaphylos ‘Ian Bush’, a manzanita hybrid found at Las Pilitas Nursery. It’s been an easy plant (not all manzanitas are) and flowers freely.

The corner of the L-shaped sidewalk bed

Leucadendron ‘Jester’ is so colorful at this time of year. Next to it is a naturally occurring hybrid of Yucca queretaroensis and filifera (see the SMG website for more info).

I’ve begun to put some of my haul from Santa Barbara in the ground:

Hechtia ‘Silver Tongue Devil’ from Jeff Chemnick of Aloes in Wonderland

Hechtia ‘Silver Tongue Devil’ at the top, Agave oteroi ‘Filigree’ from San Marcos Growers at the bottom

Finally, take a look at the photo below. There’s a monster among us!

Massive weed emerging from the lush foliage of Sphaeralcea philippiana. Pulling it will be so satisfying. I’ll wait a few more days to savor the anticipation. Remember what I said about anticipation being sweet?

More from Santa Barbara: ...aloes, margaritas, and sunsets

2026-02-09T13:03:00.000-08:00

This is a continuation of my previous post featuring random pictures from around Santa Barbara. To see other posts from my recent trip, click here.

Aloes

As I mentioned earlier, Agave attenuata, the foxtail agave, was the most common landscape succulent we saw in Santa Barbara. But there were plenty of aloes as well. The ones that were in flower were immediately noticeable. We spotted many Aloe arborescens, but for some reason neither Kyle nor I took a single photo (they’re pretty boring).

I did take photos of Aloe ‘Jacob’s Ladder’, lots of them. Last year, Randy Baldwin of San Marcos Growers told me about a mass planting of ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ in a local business park. I featured it in this January 2025 post, together with a spectacular display of Aloe ‘Birds and Bees’ in another commercial landscape nearby.

I wanted Kyle to see both of these plantings so we stopped there after we left San Marcos Growers on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, the ‘Birds and Bees’ were past their prime, but ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ was in full bloom, as you can see below.

Aloe ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ has been growing in the Huntington Desert Garden for many years and was made available to the public in 2003 through the Huntington’s International Succulent Introductions program. It forms clumps to 3 ft. in height, with each rosette eventually growing to a width of 2 ft. The parentage of this aloe isn’t known, but the experts at the Huntington think it’s a hybrid of Aloe dawei.

According to Randy Baldwin, the planting of ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ at the Santa Barbara business park started with 37 five gallons purchased from San Marcos Growers in December 2021, followed by another 33 five gallons in the spring of 2022, for a total of 70. Assuming that each original ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ has produced three offsets since then (a conservative guess), there should now be close to 300 plants. No wonder the overall effect is so striking. Unfortunately, with San Marcos Growers gone, finding ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ for purchase will be a bit of a treasure hunt. (Good news: Dry Oasis Plants in Half Moon Bay has ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ in three gallons.)

Aloe ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ at a Santa Barbara office park

I want to live in a town where commercial landscaping looks like this!

Not long after leaving the ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ business park, Kyle and I came upon a mass planting of a low-growing aloe with yellow flowers along a busy road. Of course we had to stop. We weren’t entirely sure what this aloe was, but it looked very much like Aloe maculata, after Aloe vera probably the most common aloe in cultivation. (Later in the evening, I checked the San Marcos Growers website, and Kyle and I now think it’s this form of Aloe maculata.)

Yellow-flowering form of Aloe maculata

The flowers are quite distinct

The color is a vibrant yellow

Beyond these mass plantings, we saw other aloes in the front yards of houses in our residential neighborhood.

No clear idea which aloe this is

Aloe marlothii with its signature quasi-horizontal flowers

We did a double take when we saw this row of aloes. We think it’s Aloe arborescens — not the typical shrubby look but trimmed up into single-stemmed plants.

Residential landscaping

As you look at the photos below, bear in mind that they were taken on just four or five small residential streets in the beachside neighborhood where we stayed. The quality of residential landscaping was so much higher than what I see here in Davis and Sacramento. It’s got to be the climate — which is pretty much perfect.

Massive variegated Euphorbia ammak

I admire minimalist designs like this, knowing full well that I would never have the discipline to replicate it in my own garden

Dymondia margaretae and cobbles: This could be featured in any number of publications on contemporary landscape design.

Equally magazine-worthy: Agave ovatifolia surrounded by a sea of Senecio serpens

Agaves and grasses

A beautiful house with low-water landscaping

Wider view

Several houses in our neighborhood had dramatic lighting at night

Simple, but effective landscaping in a neighborhood shopping center

Margaritas

A margarita at the end of a jam-packed day of plant hunting is a well-earned treat. At least that’s my philosophy. Several people had recommended Taquería La Única for dinner, and we loved the food so much, we went there two evenings in a row. Quite possibly the best fish tacos I’ve ever had, prepared perfectly and presented beautifully. And the margaritas, wow. I’ve had many margaritas in my day, but these were something else. They were decorated with skewers of fresh fruit (watermelon, mango, pineapple, strawberry) and sweet treats and even came with a rubber duckie. This wasn’t a special order either, just their regular house margarita.

A rim of Tajín instead of salt

As Loree Bohl (the danger garden) said in a comment on my previous post: “That’s not a margarita, it’s a fruit salad with tequila!”

Sunsets

When you’re in one of the most picturesque places on the California coast, watching the sunset from the beach is a no-brainer. And there’s no shortage of beautiful beaches in Santa Barbara.

Arroyo Burro Beach (aka Hendry’s Beach)

Arroyo Burro Beach, called Hendry’s Beach by locals, is easy to get to and clearly very popular (we had to park on a residential street a little ways away because the parking lot was full). It’s also the most dog-friendly beach in town, as evidenced by a dog wash station in the parking lot. The sunset was every bit as spectacular as we had hoped for.

The second sunset we saw was from One Thousand Steps Beach, a 10-minute walk from our vacation rental. The beach is named for the long and precipitous concrete stairway built in the 1920s that leads down a cliff. While the name suggests a massive climb, there are “only” 157 steps.

One Thousand Steps Beach is particularly dramatic because it’s quite narrow and the bluff rises steeply to the mansions on top. The most surprising thing: The beach smelled like a freshly paved road! The smell of tar took me aback at first, but it’s an entirely natural phenomenon. It’s caused by natural seeps in the sea floor that leak roughly 6,500 to 7,000 gallons of crude oil every single day. The oil rises to the surface, coagulates, and is carried by currents and winds to shore. Warmer water and air temperatures make the smell more pungent. Sometimes tar balls are washed onto the beach, and stepping on them is said to be quite unpleasant. Fortunately, we didn’t encounter any and were able to enjoy the sunset unencumbered.

Agave fields

This two-part post started with agaves, so it’s only appropriate that it ends with agaves.

If you’ve ever driven down the Central Valley on I-5, you know what a mind-numbingly dull experience that is. But something exciting is happening near Coalinga in Fresno County: agaves are being planted for agave spirits. Acres upon acres. In fact, agaves are becoming an ever more important crop, not just in Fresno County, but also in Santa Barbara County and in Yolo County where I live. Here’s a good article if you want to learn more.

The next time you find yourself driving down the Central Valley, keep your eyes open for agave fields. They appear like a mirage, out of nowhere, and disappear almost as quickly. But what a sight, however briefly!

Index of posts from January 2026 Santa Barbara trip

More from Santa Barbara: agaves...

2026-02-06T17:44:00.000-08:00

Before I start going into detail about the places Kyle and I visited on our Santa Barbara trip last weekend, here’s a collection of pictures from around town. They’re a bit random, but there is a theme: aloes and agaves. They’re everywhere in Santa Barbara.

We stayed in a small vacation rental in the Mesa neighborhood. The location was insane: just a block from a bluff that overlooks the ocean. The nearest beach access was an easy 10-minute walk — plus a steep climb down 1,000 steps to the eponymous One Thousand Steps Beach. Well, it did feel like 1,000 steps, but in reality it was only 157 steps (I looked it up).

Steps down to One Thousand Steps Beach

I’ll show you some sunset photos of One Thousand Steps Beach a little later, but let’s begin with one plant that is positively everywhere in Santa Barbara: the foxtail agave (Agave attenuata).

Up here in the Sacramento Valley, we have to protect Agave attenuata against the sun in the summer and the cold in the winter. A dip into the high 20s inevitably causes prominent black spots on the leaves. If it weren’t such a bewitching plant, I wouldn’t bother, but I must admit, I have a soft spot for it. Maybe because it’s such a challenge for me.

In Santa Barbara, on the other hand, Agave attenuata needs no special treatment. Because it offsets prodigiously and hence is easy to pass along to neighbors and friends, it dominates both residential and commercial landscapes. As a result, some people dismiss Agave attenuata as pedestrian, even weedy. Not yours truly. Even after seeing literally thousands of them over the course of three days, I still find it beautiful.

This variegated form called ‘Kara’s Stripe’ is particularly striking

Agave attenuata is attractive by itself, but when it flowers, it becomes a showstopper. It’s easy to see why its common name is foxtail agave. It does resemble a foxtail: about halfway up, the flower stalk makes a sharp downward bend, and then it arches up again. Thousands of individual flowers give it a floofy appearance.

Another common name for Agave attenuata is swan’s neck agave — also quite appropriate

Definitely taller than me

Even taller than Kyle

Almost alien-looking at night

Here you can see the fluffy flowers

The bees went wild

Staying in a residential neighborhood gave us the opportunity to walk around nearby streets and check out the landscaping. There were plenty of Agave attenuata, but other agaves as well:

Agave ‘Blue Flame’ and the equally beautiful Cuphea micropetala

All too many Agave americana look messy when they’re allowed to grow into massive clumps, but this one — meticulously de-pupped to be solitary — was beautiful

This Agave americana was good-looking, too

These Agave americana ‘Marginata’, on the other hand, are completely out of control

Kyle’s body language says it all: WHY? Actually, it’s WTF?

I set out to write one post, but I have so many photos to share that I will break it into two parts. Here is the continuation: aloes, margaritas, and sunsets.

Index of posts from January 2026 Santa Barbara trip

Awesome long weekend in Santa Barbara

2026-02-03T14:36:00.000-08:00

I just got back from a long weekend in Santa Barbara, one of the top two aloe destinations in California (the other being San Diego). As you may remember, I did the same trip in 2024 and 2025. This time, my frequent partner-in-crime Kyle was able to come along. Sharing an experience like this with a great friend and fellow plant nerd makes it all the more memorable.

We even had some beach time...

...and a margarita, complete with a rubber duckie!

This post is just a quick summary of the places we visited; there’ll be more detailed posts in the coming weeks.

San Marcos Growers

Over the past 46 years, San Marcos Growers (SMG) has given California gardeners more cool plants than any other grower. As a wholesale operation, it wasn’t open the public, but many retail nurseries up and down the state (and even beyond) carried their plants. As I mentioned before, SMG officially closed its gates on December 23, 2025, but there are still quite a few plants available for purchase. In the coming years, 1,500 housing units will be built on the nursery grounds to help meet the acute housing shortage in Santa Barbara County.

We hung out for a few hours with Randy Baldwin, SMG’s long-time general manager, and aloe and agave whiz Nick Deinhart who came down from San Luis Obispo for the day.

Seeing SMG for the last time was bittersweet: bitter because the plant world is immeasurably poorer without them, and sweet because Kyle and I got to buy a few more plants that will carry on SMG’s legacy in our gardens.

Click here to read my post about our farewell visit to SMG.

There’s still a good selection of succulents left...

...but most of the nursery grounds looked like this

Kyle hauling our plants

Our haul

SMG haul loaded into my van

Krock Nursery

Our second stop was at Tony and Holly Krock’s nursery. I’ve blogged about the Krocks before (February 2024 | April 2024) and it was good to catch up. They’ve been busy creating a demonstration garden next to their greenhouse and it looks fantastic already. In a year or two, it’ll be a real destination.

Tony and Holly Krock

The Krocks’ demonstration garden in the making

Taft Gardens

I was blown away by the aloe spectacle at Taft Gardens last year, so my expectations were high. I’m happy to report that this year’s flower show did not disappoint. The aloe garden was started in the late 1980s so there are hundreds of mature specimens, some approaching 20 feet in height.

Taft Gardens continues to be one of the best kept secrets in California. Even people in Santa Barbara, just 45 minutes away, went huh? when we told them that we were going there.

So many mature aloes

Aloe ferox

Kyle next to an 18-foot Aloe marlothii

The cactus garden is small but beautiful in its own right

Aloes in Wonderland

I’ve raved about Aloes in Wonderland before (April 2019 | February 2024 | February 2025), and Jeff Chemnick’s garden plus nursery continues to be the top aloe destination in all of California. Every plant is for sale: you pick and you dig, or you hire Jeff’s crew to do the digging for you. Jeff gave us an in-depth personal tour — a very special treat.

A sea of flowering aloes

So many things to look at, it’s overwhelming

Unnamed aloe hybrid

Agave franzosinii, too

Cold Spring Aloes

Our final destination was Cold Springs Aloes, Tom Cole‘s nursery and garden in Montecito. Tom is a humanitarian aid worker who has lived and worked in sub-Saharan Africa for over 30 years. He has formally described several new aloe and sansevieria species and authored a book on the aloes of Uganda. His personal collection comprises about 250 species, predominantly from East Africa, all grown from habitat seed. I was able to buy two rare species, Aloe percrassa and Aloe allochroa.

The nursery is chock full of aloes

Duo of Aloidendron barberae

Aloe volkensii ssp. multicaulis

Tom with offsets from the Aloe excelsa that sparked his love of aloes many years ago

Plant haul

I usually come home with a pretty decent haul. With Kyle along, this year’s haul was twice as big. We’d taken my Honda Odyssey van, so we had plenty of space — and we managed to fill every square inch.

Our haul the evening before we headed home

Mostly aloes and agaves, with a few dyckias, hechtias, and other succulents thrown in for good measure

The bulk of our haul came from San Marcos Growers

Below is a list of plants Kyle and I brought home from Santa Barbara. I post these lists more for myself than for the public because I refer to them quite often to figure out what plant in my garden came from where.

Genus	Species	Kyle or Gerhard	Source
Aechmea	recurvata	K + G	San Marcos Growers
Aeonium	‘Super Bang’	K + G	Terra Sol
Agave	attenuata ‘Variegata’	G	Tony Krock
Agave	desmetiana ‘Galactic Traveller’	G	San Marcos Growers
Agave	horrida	K	San Marcos Growers
Agave	margaritae	K	Tony Krock
Agave	oteroi ‘Filigree Devil’	K + G	San Marcos Growers
Agave	oteroi ‘Filigree’	K + G	San Marcos Growers
Agave	parrasana ‘Sea Star’	K	San Marcos Growers
Agave	toumeyana var. bella	K + G	San Marcos Growers
Agave	weberi striated	K + G	Tony Krock
Aloe	‘Chico Banana’	K	San Marcos Growers
Aloe	‘Tropic World’	K	San Marcos Growers
Aloe	‘Viper’	G	San Marcos Growers
Aloe	(cameronii x aculeata) x marlothii ‘Utrecht’	K + G	Nick Deinhart
Aloe	[(globuligemma x mawii) x microstigma] x marlothii	K	Nick Deinhart
Aloe	aculeata	K	Tony Krock
Aloe	allochroa	K + G	Tom Cole
Aloe	bussei	K	Tom Cole
Aloe	dawei	K + G	Taft Gardens
Aloe	lukeana	K	Tom Cole
Aloe	millotii	K	San Marcos Growers
Aloe	pearsonii	K	Tony Krock
Aloe	percrassa	G	Tom Cole
Aloe	schoelleri	K + G	Nick Deinhart
Aloe	scobinifolia	K	San Marcos Growers
Aloe	x spinosissima (SMG form?)	K	San Marcos Growers
Aloe	ankoberensis	K	Tom Cole
Babiana	stricta	K + G	Taft Gardens
Centaurothamnus	maximus	K + G	San Marcos Growers
Cleistocactus	strausii	K	Tony Krock
Dyckia	floribunda ‘La Rioja’	K	San Marcos Growers
Dyckia	platyphylla	K	San Marcos Growers
Echeveria	cante	K + G	Taft Gardens
Fouquieria	purpusii	G	Tony Krock
Hechtia	‘Silver Tongue Devil’	G	Jeff Chemnick
Hechtia	lanata	K	Tony Krock
Kalanchoe	tomentosa ‘Chocolate Soldier’	K	Taft Gardens
Leucadendron	‘Afterburner’	G	Seaside Gardens

Succulents and More™

Evening get-together in Kyle's magical garden

Dairy Creek Meadows: an extraordinary private garden in the making

Flying Saucer comes crashing down

Weird, wonderful (and painful) plants at the UC Davis Botanical Conservatory

First wave of cactus flowers, mid-April 2026

Long overdue visit to Justin's garden

Now it's f***ing personal

Little Prince of Oregon: a look behind the scenes of a wholesale nursery

From Portland to Pinole

Garden update, early April 2026

Collector's garden in Sacramento with a Southwest flair

Kyle's garden, late March 2026 (back)

Kyle's garden, late March 2026 (front)

Steve Super's super plants, March 2026

Winter damage update (March 2026)

I had another open garden (early March 2026)

Aloes in peak bloom at the Taft Gardens outside of Santa Barbara

Spectacular large-scale front yard overhaul at tz_garden

Dry Oasis Plants in Half Moon Bay, CA: aloes and agaves, oh yeah!

Tony & Holly Krock's demonstration garden in Santa Barbara

Related posts

San Marcos Growers closing after 46 years: a fond farewell

This and that, mid-February 2026

More from Santa Barbara: ...aloes, margaritas, and sunsets

Residential landscaping

Margaritas

Sunsets

Agave fields

Related posts

More from Santa Barbara: agaves...

Related posts

Awesome long weekend in Santa Barbara

San Marcos Growers

Krock Nursery

Taft Gardens

Aloes in Wonderland

Cold Spring Aloes

Plant haul