Far Out Flora

Gardening in the Outerlands of San Francisco

Outer Sunset Super Garden

April 26, 2012 by Megan | 22 Comments

Sweet Succulent Planter

Last Friday before I headed to the San Francisco Botanical Garden I had to pay a bill, so I took a different route to the muni stop than normal to hit up a mailbox. I busted out my camera when I saw this awesome example of a succulent planter. Lots of different colors and textures, plants that are practically impossible to kill in our neighborhood and common enough people won’t steal them (succulent theft is a problem here).

Super Sweet Succulent Container

Then I saw this in front of the next house and kind of freaked out. Seriously? Agave attenuata ‘Kara’s Stripes’ and a bunch of other cool plants thoughtfully arranged in containers. There are tons of succulents in our hood, but not usually put together with this much care.

The Container Craziness Continues

Wholly crap, it doesn’t end! Graptoveria ‘Fred Ives’ looking hot next to a golden Sedum with a dark purple Aeonium backdrop. Then something crazy happened. The owner of the house was out front saying good-bye to visitors, saw me freaking out taking tons of pictures and invited me out back to check things out.

Really?

Look at the beautiful raised bed down the center full of edible greens! This is how I envisioned our garden in a perfect world, but we drew the line at messing with hardscaping. As renters you have to draw the line somewhere.

Kalanchoe 'Fang' & friends

Dudleya pulverulenta (I think)

Man, this is embarrassing. You’d think I could easily pick out the difference between D. pulverulenta and D. brittonii by now, but I can never tell unless the two are both next to each other. My guess is for D. pulverulenta since the leaves don’t seem as narrow as the brittonii.

Lettuce land

Echium candicans

Big thanks goes out to Alan who let me check this fabulous garden out. I didn’t get to meet his wife/garden designer, but she did an amazing job!

 

 

Puya Alert! Puya Alert!

April 23, 2012 by Megan | 12 Comments

Puya chilensis

Freaky Bromeliad alert! On Friday I went to the San Francisco Botanical Garden for what may have been the last time while living here in SF. I must have spent at least four hours walking around visiting all my favorite plants. While wandering around the CA Native section back by the greenhouses I ran in to Derek of Plantgasm finishing up his propagation volunteer time. I had seen these crazy Puyas getting ready to bloom maybe a month ago, so we headed over to see what was going on and check out succulent land one last time.

Puya chilensis I think

I couldn’t find a sign, so I’m guessing this is Puya chilensis. Anyone know for sure?

 

Puya alpestris

Puya alpestris is still blooming. It looks like the Puya venusta should be doing its thing in a couple weeks, too.

 

Matti and the Puya

I took this pic back on March 18th and the bloom pictured is now shot. The bud to the right is blooming right now.

The Succulent Garden

I hate to get all mushy and stuff, but the San Francisco Botanical Garden is where we received the majority of our plant education. Nearly three years ago Matti and I enrolled in Plant Identification class at City College with Malcolm Hillan, it changed our lives. We spent two semesters of Saturdays at the botanical garden from 9 to 1, learning anywhere from 12-15 plants per class. We had to learn it all including family name, genus, species, origin, zone, sun, water, and spelling counted on quizzes and tests. Matti and I were both pretty freaked out after the first class when we could barely remember all the details for our first plant California native, Platanus racemosa and knew we had 149 more plants to go. Thanks Malcolm and our favorite classmates Rene and Johanna for making it so much fun!

p.s. the CA Native section is going off right now, too!

Super Succulent Moving Sale

April 3, 2012 by Megan | 20 Comments

e

Anyone need some Aloe zanzibarica?

On Saturday, April 14th from 9-5 at 1344 La Playa Street we’ll be having our super succulent garage sale! This past Saturday after a mini-breakdown (thanks extra hormones, for making this process even more difficult) we started pulling apart the garden to get ready for the succulent sale. It’s kind of crazy how many plants we have including that lovely Aloe zanzibarica above. We broke it apart in to chunks so more people can enjoy it. Most of our succulents will be in cutting form as it was just easier to chop them out of the garden.  Besides plants, we’ll also have tons of containers, some books and other random junk we need to get rid of before heading back to Wisconsin. Parking is usually pretty easy in these parts, unless it’s a ridiculously nice beach day. Don’t have a car? We’re only a half a block away from the N-Judah turnaround. If you have boxes or old flat trays, bring them with as we have limited options for carrying stuff away. Cash only please. Here are a few more pics of what we ripped out so far:

Senecio vitalis by the bucketload

Graptoveria 'Fred Ives' & Oscularia deltoides

Graptopetalum & bargain basement plants

 

Matti & one of many mystery Aeoniums

This is only a wee taste of the mass quantities of plants we’ll have available. Hope to see you!

Driftwood Insanity in the Sunset

March 17, 2012 by Megan | 28 Comments

Succulent driftwood container of happiness

About two years ago I blogged about this rock star of a garden in Outer Sunset. While walking the dog a couple weeks ago I ran in to it again and  it’s gotten better with age. Whoever created this work of garden awesomeness rocks! It’s on 44th avenue around Pacheco maybe (I can’t remember, but I’m pretty sure it’s south of Noriega).

Aeonium nobile

Succulents on the street

Ceanothus and super sweet fence

The fence was still a work in progress last time we visited, but we knew it was going to turn out amazing. Now I want to copy it. Looks like they used bits of reclaimed wood mixed in with driftwood. Hurray for Ceanothus bloom time!

The border

Sexy Salvia africana-lutea

My all time favorite Salvia. It’s gotta be the orangey-rust blooms. Now I know I planted ours in a ridiculous spot seeing how big they get. Ooops. I seem to have a problem with size denial… “It won’t really get THAT big”.

More happy border

Driftwoody container

This place is definitely worth swinging by if you’re in the neighborhood. Be sure to check out the best succulent garden on the Great Highway while you’re at it.

Foliage Follow Up First Timers

March 16, 2012 by Megan | 11 Comments

Euphorbia rigida & friends

So yesterday’s Bloom Day post was kind of lame. Lots of repeat blooms… nothing really exciting, so I finally got my act together for a Foliage Follow Up post. Not sure why we never did one before. We’ve got way more going on in the foliage department than flowers most of the time. Thanks to Pam at Digging for hosting the leafy online get together!

Dudleya pulverulenta

Momma Dudleya with new little pup. There’s another cutie on the other side.

Succulent friends

You gotta love Oscularia deltoides (the frosty blue guy crawling around in the Aeoniums). This side of the garden gets no direct sun for a couple of months in the winter, but the succulents don’t seem to care.

 

Othonna capensis

This teeny weeny little succulent is in my top ten favorite succulents list. It’s just so gosh darn cute.

Agave & friends

Dang it, I have no idea what Agave this is. We won it at the SF Succulent Society Sale a couple years ago and I never bothered to write down the name. Anyone know what it might be?

Succulentfest

Sorry the pic is so blown out. This is one of the oldest and least touched (rearranged) succulent sections of the garden besides the succulents under our Agave americana.

 

I

Plectranthus neochilus & Aeoniums

The Plectranthus buds don’t count as blooms, do they? I love this plant and its herby smell. You either hate the smell or love it. It’s super tough if you have a spot where nothing else with grow. Happy Foliage Follow Up!