Category Archives: pots and containers

Hebe ‘Western Hills’

Hebes are the kind of tidy plants so perfectly composed they can be accused of conveying a touch of smugness, of rendering a garden a little too safe and suburban. I take the personal position that it’s best to resist … Continue reading

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Plug & Play

I briefly escaped the desk yesterday and checked out a couple local nurseries. Fall is when some interesting plants start to appear again in Southern California nurseries, for planting in the cooler temps, to be settled in by winter rains. … Continue reading

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Flea Market Shuffle

A sunny day at the flea market brings its unique brand of hangover. An unfocused listlessness follows the rest of the day. The adult equivalent of the delicious exhaustion I’d feel as a kid after spending a whole day at … Continue reading

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Chasing Plants

Post-Internet I’ve noticed plant desire has turned into a thinner and weaker strain now that it’s so easily satisfied. The really big desire, the kind that used to build up unrequited for years and years, is as analog as a … Continue reading

Posted in agaves, woody lilies, garden travel, plant nurseries, Plant Portraits, pots and containers, succulents | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Occasional Daily Photo 9/3/11

Asteeelia, you’re breaking my heart… But only because you’re so constantly, shimmeringly gorgeous. Ever-gorgeous is what you are. Allow me to sing your praises. This large pot of Astelia chathamica ‘Silver Spear’ has sat in the center of the back … Continue reading

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From Pot to Garden

Ah, the synergy of pots and garden. Apart from the infinite aesthetic considerations, from a practical standpoint, pots can render any garden effectively zoneless or, as in my very small garden, they can stretch available planting space. In a process … Continue reading

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Inter-City Cactus Show & Sale

I went to the show, had my mind blown, took some pictures. In other words, a typical succulent show…except that I introduced myself to a best-selling author on succulents in the landscape and containers and then gushed and fawned and … Continue reading

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Succulent Experiments: A Tutorial

What a surprise that Apartment Therapy liked the hanging planters for succulents I blogged about recently. The ones made from…um…car jack stands. Which we just happen to have in abundance here at home because there’s a couple 1970’s Volkswagen vans … Continue reading

Posted in Cinema Botanica, Department of Instruction, MB Maher, pots and containers, succulents | Tagged , , , , | 16 Comments

Tropicalissimo Redux

Anybody remember “tropicalissimo”? In gardening, it references a word used maybe a decade ago for the then-shocking innovation of incorporating tropicals in summer borders and containers. A fairly mundane practice now. Somewhat counter-intuitively, I’ve found these plants, the alocasia, colocasias, … Continue reading

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Occasional Daily Photo 7/29/11

Echeveria ‘Afterglow’ and Allium senescens. This little mid summer-flowering onion is sweet consolation for an allium-less garden up to this point. Unlike me, the early-blooming, flamboyant drumstick alliums don’t enjoy a zone 10 garden and prefer chillier winters. And although … Continue reading

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