Category Archives: agaves, woody lilies

weekend plans

Any big plans this weekend? We’re promised some rain, so it won’t be warm enough for pool parties. I’m meeting up with a friend this Sunday at the Huntington. While she’s traveling in Southern California, she’ll be visiting another garden … Continue reading

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this week in the garden; more silver leaves

Silver plants have sneakily become a new obsession. I should qualify that as unfamiliar silver plants, ones I haven’t grown before, and I’ve grown a lot. (Last year’s silver crush was the Afghan fig ‘Silver Lyre,’ mail-ordered from Cistus, a … Continue reading

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friday clippings 2/16/18

dark background is the creeping fig wall (Ficus pumila covering 6-foot high CMU wall, extending 2 feet up from the top, for a privacy-enhancing 8-foot wall) It’s been an incredibly balmy week in Los Angeles, notwithstanding a teasingly insufficient bit … Continue reading

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a much-delayed visit to Descanso Gardens

I was determined to attend botanist Jeff Chemnick‘s talk on plant exploration in Oaxaca, Mexico, yesterday, 7 p.m., hosted by SoCal Hort, located in an auditorium within spitting distance of Griffith Park. I had just visited his home garden/nursery in … Continue reading

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the January report

Another January gone. There have been nine reported on the blog. A lot has changed, but a lot is still weirdly the same. (For example, my obsession with poppies and agaves.) Inconsistent, ambivalent, flighty — those are the words that … Continue reading

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the week in plants 1/28/18

Aloe striata is getting ready to bloom. The Coral Aloe is not an uncommon aloe in Southern California, but it is in my garden. Sometime during summer, as I bring plants home from nurseries and shows, this aloe inevitably loses … Continue reading

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French chateau succulent garden

There I was, biking through French chateau country, rounding a bend in the zig-zag roads stitched with Lombardy poplars. And just as I was brushing the wind-blown hair out of my face, doing my best impersonation of Jeanne Moreau in … Continue reading

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summer is overrated

Agave bracteosa ‘Monterrey Frost’ I know those are fighting words, especially depending on where you live and your opinion of winter in general, and I’m not trying to pick a fight. We all miss those long days that stretch luxuriously … Continue reading

Posted in agaves, woody lilies, climate, Occasional Daily Weather Report, pots and containers, succulents | Tagged | 19 Comments

autumn garden triage

I spent most of October traveling, intermittently home just long enough to sweep up piles of ash and note that the customary accumulation of a summer’s worth of city grime on leaves had been augmented by heavy particulates from local … Continue reading

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postcards from Santa Barbara gardens

Ever since the area became accessible by car and rail in the early part of the 20th century, it has been a favored location for estates and marvelous gardens, among them El Fureidis, Val Verde, and Lotusland. — The Lightest … Continue reading

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