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!
Happy Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day! We’ve got tons of cool stuff blooming right now including the tallest plant we’ve ever grown Dahlia imperialis ‘Double White’. There were a bunch of big babies in one gallons at Annie’s that needed a new home, so I took one home not knowing which tree Dahlia it was going to be (we’re usually pretty anti-white flowers). It’s pretty awesome, but I kind of want to try Dahlia tenuicaulis or crazy awesome Dahlia campanulata next year. There’s another shot of it in the container here (it’s kind of skinny).
Fuchsia thymifolia
Maybe a month or two ago I hacked this puppy back pretty hard since it was getting scraggly. Now it’s covered in flowers again. I think this is one of our very first Fuchsias. It loves a good hacking every few months.
Fuchsia denticulata
Quite a few of our Fuchsias are blooming right now and Fuchsia denticulata is one of my faves. Hummingbirds are having brawls and it’s December. The Wisconsinite in me is still in awe that it can be sunny and 65 sometimes even 70 degrees in December. January through March used to be my most hated time of the year and now it’s my favorite. Bring on the rain!
Fuchsia fulgens
While I love Fuchsia fulgens, I’m more excited about the Kalanchoe carnea growing behind the flowers. We started this guy from a stem we picked up on the ground in Santa Barbara last winter. I keep moving it around and pissing it off, but it seems to like the new spot.
Cyanotis somaliensis (Common Name - Furry Kittens or Pussy Ears)
A big shout out to Plants Are The Strangest People for helping us ID this purple poofy flowered thing several months back. I’m pretty sure this plant withstood dog pee in its not so great spot in the yard back in the day, but it now lives happily in a pee free zone. Everything I’ve read says it needs to be in zone 10 or above and I remember it dying back pretty hard after a frost. It’s been a great houseplant for us, too. We picked it up at Lone Pine Gardens a nursery that specializes in succulents and bonsai trees in Sebastopol. Cool place.
Oxalis herrerae
Matti picked up this bizarro Oxalis herrerae at Cactus Jungle last Spring. If we put it in the ground, kept it watered and fed it could potentially turn in to a three foot tall leafy shrub. We like the freaky succulent petiole action, so we keep it abused in a little pot. I wasn’t all that excited about it at first since Annie’s had some pampered plants leafy plants at the time. It’s pretty dang cool.
Eccremocarpus scaber 'Tresco Gold'
It took Eccremocarpus scaber ‘Tresco Gold’ a little longer to take off this year since most of it sprouted from the abundant seed of one crazy floriferous plants from last year. It seems to be lasting later in the season. Snip off the pretty seed heads if you don’t want lots and lots and lots of babies, but they’re easy to spot and pull, too. The hummingbirds go crazy for it. I’m convinced they like it more than any of our Fuchsias.
Anagallis monellii
I planted this Anagallis monellii in a big container last May or June. It bloomed like a little trooper for a couple months, got rangy, hacked it back and it’s coming back. It’s seriously one of the prettiest shades of blue out there, but it’s tough to capture in photos. I severely abused (moved at least three times in a not so nice manner) a different plant last winter that olerated my cruelty no-problem. Annie’s almost always has them available, so I started fresh with this guy.
Kalanchoe marmorata
We’ve had a couple of Kalanchoe marmorata hanging around for at least a year. They haven’t loved life in our garden (honestly, they’ve usually been jammed in sub-prime real estate), but this one finally liked it enough to shoot out some crazy four inch long flower. One of our favorite succulent bloggers Candy got a great shot of it looking happy, but not as spotty at Huntington Gardens this fall. From what I’ve read it sounds like the more sun it gets to more pronounced its leopard spots are.
San Francisco, if I haven’t told you how much I love you lately I apologize. Gardening in Winter is one of my favorite activities, especially after checking the temp in Wisconsin and giggling. I’m going to shut up now and show some more pics of stuff that’s blooming out back. Hurray for December!
Petunia exserta
Froofy Fuchsia (don't really know what hybrid it is)
Helenium autumnale 'Helena Red Shades'
Crassula erosula 'Campfire'
Graptoveria 'Fred Ives'
Lotus maculatus
Okay, I can’t keep my big mouth shut… Back in early October I was walking the dog around the neighborhood with the camera and took a pic of a house using Lotus maculatus as a ground cover in the middle of their driveway. It looks nice, check out the pic here.
We’re starting to get a sweet collection of cresting succulents these days. Check out this Graptoveria ‘Fred Ives’. Fab color and adds a lot of punch amongst the green and gray succulent. Parents of this cultivar are Graptopetalum paraguayense and Echeveria gibbiflora. Crazy how some plants can cross breed between genera.
Graptopetalum paraguayense crested
I believe this was the first cresting succulent that we had in our garden. Back in the day, we picked up some Graptopetalum paraguayense cuttings from a buddy. Turned out that a couple of them started to crest. We’re not exactly sure how, why or when cresting happens, but found this article from the Cactus and Succulent Society of America that explains some of it. Seems that the growing point starts to go a little funky where the single growing point turns into a growing line or plane. Then the plant may form a crest or fan shape. It’s not limited to just succulents, but can occur on a variety of other plants. Yesterday, we noticed that one of our Euphorbia flowers is starting to crest. Strange.
Echeveria 'Doris Taylor'
Here’s a cresting Echeveria ‘Doris Taylor’ which we added to our collection a couple of months ago. Recently, we saw one available over at Urban Bazaar, which was awesome. Sometimes known as the Woolly Rose, parents are thought to be Echeveria setosa and Echeveria pulvinata. It has hairy leaves and normally grows in a rosette.
Aeonium 'Sunburst'
Another fun succulent that I picked up from work is this cresting Aeonium ‘Sunburst’. You can really see the flat stem here caused from the growing point happening over a line. BTW, cresting is also known as Cristate.
NOID crested
Okay. These next two, we aren’t exactly certain what they are. Would love some help on IDing it…or even some guesses. If I had to take a bet, I would say this on above is some sort of Pachyveria.
NOID crested
Here’s another to we’re not exactly sure, but think it’s another Graptoveria ‘Fred Ives’…just growing under different sunlight conditions in our garden.
Senecio vitalis crested
Here’s a crester we no longer have, Senecio vitalis. The succulent was growing in a container and I think it got tossed during one of our revamping our garden sessions…oops.
Echeveria 'Winter Sunset'
We just planted this last one, Echeveria ‘Winter Sunset’ crested form. It has a cool looking stem and the rosettes are curving more than I could hope for. Does anybody have some fave succulents cresting in their collection? Would love to hear about them. Post some pics on our Facebook.
It’s that festive bloomy time of the month where May Dreams Garden hosts Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. At some point I will no longer be amazed that I can not only garden, but things are actively growing in mid-November. Coming … Continue reading →
