Category Archives: agaves, woody lilies
Garden Bloggers Fling 2013; Organic Mechanics Garden
The first garden on Friday was created in the courtyard between two apartment buildings originally gifted to twin sisters by their father in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. The Organic Mechanics, James Pettigrew and Sean Stout, see opportunity where … Continue reading
Upcoming CSSA show at the Huntington
I won’t be able to attend the Cactus and Succulent Society of America show to be held at the Huntington Botanical Gardens June 28-30, 2013. But you should definitely go, for reasons photographed below. You will very likely find many … Continue reading
Occasional Daily Photo 5/27/13
Driving through California Heights for a recent garden tour, just before sunset I happened upon this house, seemingly fixed in amber during the rancho period of old California. This little house sits (as does ours) on the 300,000-acre tract that … Continue reading
pattern seekers
That’s one thing at least we all have in common. And a craving for pattern is thankfully one of the easiest (and possibly the healthiest) to satisfy. Unknown objects found at flea market. The seller thought they may have been … Continue reading
driveby gardens; more on the disappearing lawn
I got a very late start on the self-guided Lawn-to-Garden tour Saturday, thirty gardens from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., just because Friday was an unusually odd workday and I lingered and wallowed far too long in the glory of … Continue reading
tricks for the plant collector
A garden book among the many I’ve read that I’m reminded of almost daily is Pamela Harper’s “Color Echoes.” My synopsis goes like this: The eye is lonely and craves relationships, and will wander around restlessly to seek them out, … Continue reading
succulents around town
I’ve been accumulating photos of the ever-present succulent arrangements I see all over town. All over town might be an exaggeration. It’s just possible that I tend to gravitate to places where there will be succulents. But there’s no denying … Continue reading
studies in orange
(Agave “Mr. Ripple’ gets his portrait included because, as Van Gogh wrote, “there is no orange without blue.”)
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
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