What we call the Gold Country is the area on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada where gold was discovered by James Marshall on January 24, 1848, triggering the California Gold Rush. Marshall found gold while working on building Sutter’s Mill, a water-powered sawmill on the South Fork of the American River in the settlement of Coloma. And that’s where my frequent partner-in-crime Kyle and I were headed last weekend, not to pan for gold, but to visit a modern-day pioneer who is establishing a small succulent nursery outside of Coloma. Amie Frisch in her greenhouse After leaving the ..read more

What is beginning, you might wonder. The “it” in the title of this post refers to cactus flower season. For a few weeks now, peeps in Southern California and Arizona have been flooding social media with photos of their flowering cactus. Finally, we’re catching up here in Northern California. Kicking off the season for me is Echinopsis ‘Flying Saucer’, which produces one of the most spectacular flowers of any cactus. It literally causes people driving by to slow down or even stop (we live on a quiet street so there’s not much traffic). This year, our ‘Flying Saucer’ has 20+ flower buds on two s ..read more

Last year, I had the opportunity to visit the jaw-droppingly beautiful garden of garden designer Cricket Riley in Walnut Creek. One element I particularly loved was a sea of white-flowering California poppies in front of her house. The creamy hues of the poppy flowers contrasted perfectly with the pale blue of the Agave ovatifolia. I immediately knew that I wanted to do something similar in our garden. Eschscholzia californica ‘Buttermilk’ in Cricket Riley’s garden Agave ovatifolia surrounded by ‘Buttermilk’ poppies I wasn’t able to find seeds of the poppy variety Cricket u ..read more

A couple of days ago, I gave you a heads up about the upcoming Sacramento Cactus & Succulent Society Show & Sale (May 3-5, 2024). But we're not the only California club holding an event this spring: April 13-14, Watsonville: The Monterey Bay Area Cactus & Succulent Society's Spring Show & Sale will be on April 13-14 at the Portuguese Community Center, 124 Atkinson Lane, Watsonville, CA 95076. [More info] April 13-14, Rancho Palos Verdes: The South Coast Cactus & Succulent Society will have their Show & Sale the same weekend, April 13-14, at the ..read more

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM) in Exposition Park was established in 1913. With an extensive collection of over 35 million specimens, ranging from fossils and minerals to botanical and zoological specimens, it’s the largest museum of its kind in the western U.S. as well as a renowned research institution. One of the highlights is the Dinosaur Hall with its impressive displays, including the iconic Tyrannosaurus rex. Judging from the masses of humanity during our visit in November 2022, it’s the museum’s biggest draw. Official greeters The main reason why I wan ..read more

As Bob Dylan once said, “There is nothing so stable as change.” That’s true for a lot of things, but especially for taxonomy. Many people hate it when the botanical names they’ve painstakingly learned become something else. Others embrace it as a corollary of progress. Me, I’m OK with it as long as there’s a good reason. A big brouhaha ensued when in 2014 five new genera were split off the genus Aloe: Aloiampelos, Aloidendron, Aristaloe, Gonialoe, and Kumara. This wasn’t some random flight of fancy, but the result of molecular studies that shed new light on the evolutionary origin of what we c ..read more

My previous post was about the winter-flowering aloes in our garden winding down for the season. While they do provide most of the flower power at this time of year, they aren’t the only players. There are pops of color all over the garden, courtesy of South African bulbs, California natives, assorted perennials, and succulents other than aloes. Sometimes I forget I planted something, and it surprises me with an unexpected burst of flowers. ↷ Lachenalia is a large genus of bulbs from Namibia and South Africa. They’re still a regrettably rare sight in American gardens and deserve to be grown mo ..read more

As we approach the end of March, aloe flowering season is winding down. Even though the peak is behind us, there’s still plenty to see – and a few aloes are just now gearing up to bloom. This post is a collection of photos I took over the last few weeks. We’ve had the most beautiful spring weather, perfect for gardening and for greenhouse building. But the warm and sunny days also accelerated the demise of the aloe flowers that had been hanging on. Maybe I should reward my aloes with a bit of fertilizer now so they’ll be in great shape for next year’s bloom season! Aloe × spinosissima at ..read more

Often, people are surprised when they find out I don’t have a greenhouse. Somehow they assume that I have a large collection (of what?) that needs to be housed in a protected environment. Not so. That doesn’t mean I don’t have plants that shouldn’t be sheltered from the elements, mostly seedlings I started myself. Case in point: the echinopsis hybrids I blogged about last summer. In addition, I typically save offsets from aloes, agaves, and mangaves when I (re)move the mother plant. More often than not, the babies are left to their devices, sitting on the ground somewhere in the black hole tha ..read more

In my previous post, I showed you what was in bloom in the South African Garden when I visited Seaside Gardens Nursery on my recent Santa Barbara trip. This post focuses on the Succulent Garden, another of the 12 vignettes in the nursery’s fantastic demonstration garden. The Succulent Garden was originally designed by Mary Pat Moloney and Donna and Bill Baker. Bill Baker, who died far too young in 2009, was a renowned plantsman widely credited with popularizing Aloidendron ‘Hercules’ (see story here). Much of the plant material in this area comes from the Bakers’ garden, including several ‘Her ..read more