Category Archives: succulents
birthday plants
My birthday took up just about every single day last week, and more days on the weekend, which is how I rationalized a trip on Saturday to find that hitherto unknown-to-me, unmet, spectacular plant that would forever after be marked … Continue reading
Posted in plant crushes, plant nurseries, pots and containers, succulents
Tagged Annie's Annuals & Perennials, Australian Native Plants Nursery, bromeliads, echeverias, Leucospermum cordifolium 'Yellow Bird, pincushion proteas, Roger's Gardens, South African plants, succulent containers, Ursinia anthemoides 'Solar Flare'
16 Comments
cochineal
“Under the seams runs the pain.” ― Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red I’ve been going over my notes the past couple months from Dr. Alejandro de Ávila’s remarkable lecture “Blood on a Fountain,” which he gave this past January at … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, artists, creatures, design, garden travel, garden visit, science, succulents
Tagged Amy Stewart, cochineal, Dactylopius coccus, Dr. Alejandro de Avila, dyes, Helen Quinn, Jardín Etnobotánico de Oaxaca, Monte Alban, Montezuma cypress, opuntia, Opuntia ficus-indica, Stenocereus marginatus, Taxodium mucronatum, The Drunken Botanist, The Ethnobotanical Garden of Oaxaca, UCBG "Natural Discourse", University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley
6 Comments
March evening/April morning
Walking off Easter dinner, what caught my eye last evening was a petite bloom on the melianthus, the first I’ve seen on this cultivar ‘Purple Haze.’ I’m really starting to believe now it is the holy grail, a dwarf melianthus, … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, garden travel, plant nurseries, pots and containers, succulents
Tagged Agave gypsophila, Argemone munita, Buck & Yvonne Hemenway annual garden tour/plant sale, Dustin Gimbel Second Nature Garden Design, Gasteria 'Little Warty', Linaria 'Licilia Peach', Papaver setigerum, Pilocereus azureus
6 Comments
it’s show time
Last week I planted out in the garden the remaining plants I brought home from last summer’s travels. All winter I eyed these purchases nervously, as though they were exhibits in a trial of my weak character. I knew they … Continue reading
Posted in garden travel, plant nurseries, Plant Portraits, pots and containers, succulents
Tagged bromeliads, Cassinia X ozothamnus, Echeveria multicaulis, Euphorbia ammak, Far Reaches Farm, Hechtia epigyna, Neoregelia 'Devroe', Neoregelia 'Punctatissima Rubra' x 'Tigrina, Orange County Cactus and Succulent Society, pitcairnia, plant sales, plant shows
3 Comments
what Dustin Gimbel does with gazanias
The humble gazania, that kaleidoscopic daisy from South Africa overused in years past as the go-to municipal ground cover, is undergoing a minor local revival. I included a few for this summer in my full-sun back garden, the LA Times … Continue reading
day trip to Phoenix’s Desert Botanical Garden
It’s pushing the concept of a day trip to its limit when it takes five hours each way, there and back, but the DBG was having their spring plant sale and, dammit, I needed to go. So the math worked … Continue reading
Echeveria ‘Opal Moon’
I always check the succulent tables at plant nurseries for something new and/or bizarre, but the offerings have been much the same so far this year. Once the eye has been well-trained on the familiar, whenever something unfamiliar pops up, … Continue reading
Jardin Majorelle, Morocco
What I know about Yves Saint Laurent, the fashion designer, as opposed to his enormous, well-known cultural celebrity, is limited to sewing up some of his “rich peasant” and stunning Russian collection designs off of Vogue patterns in high school. … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, artists, design, garden travel, garden visit, MB Maher, Plant Portraits, succulents
Tagged bleu Majorelle, Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent, general director Jardin Majorelle, Hugh Johnson, Hugh Johnson's The Principles of Gardening, Jacques Majorelle, Jardin Majorelle, Madison Cox, Marrakesh, Morocco, Robert Pogue Harrison, Suzy Menkes, The Principles of Gardening
7 Comments
back in the garden
I’ve still got a big cosmic hangover from visiting the California Science Center last week. “Hubble 3-D” was at the IMAX theater. My brain was not built for IMAX movies, so what with the 3-D glasses and sitting too close … Continue reading
the buzz on plants
Got home from work yesterday and was still in the process of dropping all my gear off in the office, when the first person to greet me did so briefly then in quick order uttered those anxiety-making words: “I’ve got … Continue reading
Posted in creatures, Plant Portraits, succulents
Tagged bees, Eddie Izzard, Euphorbia rigida, Sedum nussbaumerianum
10 Comments