In Denver they had never thought to plant succulents in a trough before. Never. I find this to be a mysterious use of valuable newspaper real estate. Anyway, it was a TV report. TV9 News.
The newest use for troughs is in growing small cactus and succulents. In the next few years, look for succulents in particular to have a more visible presence…
Whatever plants you select for trough growing, you’ll create unique miniature gardens with great visual impact.
It’s good to know they are catching up to the rest of the world in Colorado.
It looks like we’re in for some water rationing in the East Bay. Reservoirs are moderate, but it seems that erratic rainfall has made the water board worried about 2 bad years in a row on water levels. They’re considering restrictions and rationing this summer. From the SF Chronicle.
EBMUD… said that although January and February were wet months, March was the second driest March in the district’s 85-year history and April is the driest to date.
That means the Sierra snowpack, which melts into the Pardee Reservoir where 90 percent of EBMUDwater comes from, is yielding half its normal runoff….
“All the research around the impact of climate change in California shows potential prolonged droughts, drier winters, more wild swings between drier years and wet years,” said Tony Winnicker, spokesman for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which provides water to residents of the city as well as communities on the Peninsula. “As water agencies and as consumers, we need to manage our water more wisely. There will never again be a period in California where we don’t have to think about water conservation.”
Winnicker and officials from 10 other regional water agencies met Wednesday to renew a campaign urging consumers to use less water. The meeting came one day after the East Bay Municipal Utility District, which provides water to 1.3 million customers in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, announced that its board is examining mandatory water restrictions, price increases and even water allotments in an effort to stretch its dwindling supply.
This is sounding like serious stuff. We’ve already had customers (yesterday) mention changing over to low-water gardens because of this.
Arctostaphylos pajaroensis “Paradise”
This is one of my favorite manzanitas. Great leave color and texture, beautiful bloom sprays, and delicious berries (for the birds).
This specimen was photographed at the UC Berkeley Botanic Garden.
In this video, cactus are being used improperly. Please, do not do this with your own cactus at home, it’s not fair to the cactus. Please be kind to your cactus. You know, I’m rambling, when you’ve probably skipped ahead to view the video anyway.
Now I know that you’ve finished watching the video, I can continue with my harangue. Where was I? Oh yeah, please stop harassing your cactus. We should all be kind to puppies and kids and cactus. Practice kindness on your cactus.
North of us got a bad freeze last weekend. The SF Chronicle says that Sonoma and Napa Counties got into the 20s. We got down to about 40, maybe the high 30s, which was very cold for us this late, but no frost. Our succulents have come through it just fine. I didn’t even know they had such a freeze just a few miles north of here until the paper told me so.
The worst spring cold snap in more than 30 years is threatening to wreak havoc on the wine industry as three recent days of frost have killed grapevine buds up and down the crucial North Coast vineyard region.
Poor little grapes, frozen before they even had a chance. I hope this doesn’t disturb the bees. We’ve had a resurgence of bees at the nursery this year, what with all the new California Natives we’ve been growing. They love the Ceanothus griseus.
Q: Dear Client Support, [ed: Woohoo! someone finally addresses a letter to us using our real name!]
I was wondering if there was a preferred air/soil temperature range for overwintered plant varieties such as Echeveria and Graptopetalum. I wasn’t sure if temperatures should be in the vicinity of 35 to 50 degrees for dormant plants, while Aeoniums, Haworthii, ect. should be temporarily provided warmer temperatures (above 60 degrees) during their growing phases in the fall and early Spring.
I also wanted to know if plants in dormancy should only be watered when either their leaves or root systems exhibit a certain degree of dehydration.
My thanks for your time and efforts in the matter.
Sincerely,
Joe
A: Joe,
Echeveria and Graptopetalum need to be kept above freezing and the colder it is, the drier they should be kept. Between 35 & 50 degrees they should be watered only once every 4-6 weeks, though again if it is very cold keep them dry. They need to concentrate the sugars in their leaves to keep from getting cold damage. Winter growing succulents do need more water in the winter since they come form locations that get most or all of their rain in the winter months. Our winter growers are outdoors year round and usually get down to the upper 20’s over night now and then. If it is expected to get that low we usually cover with frost blankets, though some have dealt with 25 degrees just fine.
Cleistocactus azerensis
The hummingbirds love these cacti. Our specimen plants have literally billions of blooms on them right now, and all summer long. I counted. First they bloom on the south side of the plant, all up and down. Then the blooms migrate around to the west and east sides, with a few on the north side popping by late summer.
The hummingbirds are territorial, so we see the same pair every day, checking for new buds here when they’re not finishing off the last of the Aloe striatas, which are just dripping with nectar.
Holly’s Hystrionics (great blog name!) really lives up to her name in dealing with repotting her agaves.
I free up a large enough hole in the wound-up roots to pass a thin transplanter spade through. Now I can begin the REAL work. I start removing the tired out dirt spadeful by spadeful. I am from the school of thought that figures, once a plant has grown so much it’s root-bound…the soil in that pot is depleted of any nutrients it once held. SO I just threw that dirt on the ground.
I had already prepared the new, larger pot with gravel in the bottom. YES, it has drainage holes. I’m cautious, sue me. I like a thin layer of gravel for ALL my plants.
Gwen Kelaidis’ Hardy Succulents will open your eyes to the many forms, varieties and colors succulents come in, and will show you how to integrate them in your existing landscape. She also offers tips for how best to grow them, the best varieties for cold regions, and combinations for container gardens.
Well, I guess that was obvious – it’s a library newsletter, so they’re not talking about succulents in Iowa, they’re talking about books in Iowa. Books about Succulents. Good grief, what was I thinking reading the Davenport Library Info Cafe newsletter? Will someone please get me some coffee this morning?
In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll 69% disapprove… of the job Bush is doing …the highest disapproval rating of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup Poll.
Aeonium atropurpureum and a big beautiful Bulbine, not yet in bloom.
These aeoniums are the species that the more well known A. “Swartzkopf,” or Black Rose, are cultivated from. We have both of these at the nursery, and some other cultivars too. Subtle differences in color, height, leaf width, and sexiness are the primary determinants for our customers. Of course, these are the dark aeoniums. The green ones are pretty nice too.
It turns out that the Las Vegas Water Authority is trying to get local residents to use less water. Who would have thought? I wonder if they’re trying to get the casinos to use less water? Hardly. Just local residents, it turns out. The LV Review Journal has the story.
The SNWA Landscape Awards honor creative and beautiful water-smart landscapes. Aestheticism and plant selection are key judging points, so if your landscape is mostly rocks, consider upgrading it…
OK, but who can do the landscaping for you, so you don’t have to, before you submit your landscape for an award? Why, here’s that info…
Q: Can you give me a name of a reliable landscape contractor to put in a xeriscape landscape?
A: Go to www.snwa.com and look under landscapes for a list of “Water-Smart Contractors,” who are SNWA trained and certified with emphasis on water conservation and installing proper irrigation systems. If you have questions about contractors you are considering, contact either the Nevada State Contractors Board and Better Business Bureau.
Now you know everything you need to know about Las Vegas.
Lewisia cotyledon
These California Natives are from the Siskiyous, and range into OR, WA and ID too, maybe. They have a deliciously edible root, called Bitter Root. It’s not so delicious after all.
They grow in rocky soils, and can’t ever sit in water. They can handle heavy winter floods rushing past them.
The flowers come in every color. Striped and solid. Some are even practically plaid. This is a very dark red bloom that you don’t see very often.
Calystegia macrostegia
Great twining vine, works well climbing on fences locally. Will bloom for much of the year, and will go dormant in the summer if you let it go dry. It’s a Coastal favorite, though it also comes from some of the srubbier chaparral areas of California.
Trichodiadema densum It’s been hot at the nursery, and these mesemb blooms opened up very quickly and started fading just as fast.
But really, aren’t you getting tired of all the new bloom photos? My eyes are getting overwhelmed from all the colors. So many colors….
It reminds me of my fraternity days when we had other means at our disposal to see all those pretty colors… So many colors….
Anyway, this mesemb is hardy in the ground in the Bay Area, won’t spread too fast, forms a nice low mound and gets covered in these pretty purple flowers in the spring. There. Now you know.
Previously in our saga, the Venus Fly Trap caught a slug. And it was good. Apparently very good. Delicious even, because the slug seems to have died and become dessicated and mostly consumed by the plant.
It’s not as disgusting as the previous photo, but it’s entertaining in its own right.
Just try not to look closely. Examine how much more there is for the plant to consume….
If you like, I can post a bigger version of this, even more closeup. Or would that just be piling on?
Harriet Love – New Pottery Opening tonight, April 18, 4-6pm at the nursery. Cactus Jungle Nursery and Garden 1509 4th Street, Berkeley
Please come and share our wine and cheese and crackers, ’cause if you don’t we’ll be very sad, and we’ll eat too much and drink too much, and then maybe we’ll have fun anyway. But really, you know, you should come.
It’s probably enough already about Home Depot, what with all the insults being thrown around here. So on to the Cactus. The Providence Journal has some article or other about Broadway star Mandy Patinkin and his Cactus Farm in Rhode Island, or something like that.
Its the same with the desert gardens that frame so many homes there. Theyre striking, a creative minimalist mix of rocks and cactus. But thats the problem to a New Englanders eye. Theyre not lush. Just as the Southwest isnt. Ive grown to like lush….
I like the green, forested New England scenery more than desert cactus, even though it means seeing it covered with snow in winter….
mpatinkin@nullprojo.com
Well, I guess that wasn’t the topic of the article at all. I’m just a little distracted, what with this whole Home Depot theme I’ve attached to these posts all day long. What if they sue me? Will I take down these posts? Will I step up the insults? Will I start a new site called homedepotplantssuck.com? Only time will tell…
I think I mentioned earlier that today is Pick on Home Depot Day here at the Cactus Blog. I don’t know why. It’s not like I have anything particular to say about them. Well, I do, but it’s probably not printable in a family blog. (Which is why it’s good this is not a family blog.) But first, we have these lovely terrestrial bromeliad blooms making big news in the Liverpool Daily News, which I believe is in England.
The puya alpestris is on the verge of blooming into pollen dripping blue/green flowers.
A member of the cactus family, the spiky puya 1.5 metres tall, is expected to burst into colour by the weekend.
Visitors to Ness Botanic Gardens will be lucky enough to see its spectacular metallic teal-blue flowers.
Odd that they would say it’s in the cactus family, when of course it’s in the bromeliad family. I know the news will call any spikey plant a cactus, which one could see as a colloqiual reference, but actually using a botanical reference seems a bit too much of an error.
Anyway, we were talking about Home Depot. Here’s one thing they do wrong: they overwater the cactus so that you have to buy them within a day or two of them arriving or they’re already half dead. We get people at the nursery bringing in the cactus they bought at Home Depot, and they’re half-dead. So you know, you’re rescuing the plants you buy from Home Depot, so you better be ready for the extra work. And it’s just like buying a puppy from a mall pet store – you’re rescuing the poor thing, but then they just fill in behind with another poorly bred dog, thus encouraging bad practices down the line. You should find yourself a reputable breeder, whether you’re buying dogs or plants.
That whole paragraph really went off the rails. I find it entertaining when I write in a run-on sentence kind of way. I hope you do too.
“Tough Plants for Every Climate: Hardy Succulents,” by Gwen Moore Kelaidis, photography by Saxon Holt. Storey Press, $19.95.
There are groups of plants, such as conifers and the underused succulents featured in this book, that more gardeners should use. Gwen Moore Kelaidis, a longtime member of the American Rock Garden Society and a garden designer in her own right, certainly is familiar with these lovely plants, and she hopes to tempt gardeners into growing a few with this new book….
Ms. Kelaidis, who resides in Denver, certainly knows her stuff and brings a fine introduction to these diverse plants to print.
I haven’t read it, but I do know that nobody at Home Depot has read it either, because they’re illiterate there, and they wear funny clothes, and they don’t like healthy plants either. Yes, that’s right, they prefer sickly plants at Home Depot, because that way they know that I’m really just writing satirically and not even a little bit trying to libel them, even though they really do prefer ugly plants at Home Depot. And they eat cheetos too.
AGAVE ATTENUATA: The soft succulent is easy to propagate.
Photo: CHAS METIVIER, FOR THE REGISTER
Did I mention that you can get agaves at all your quality local nurseries? And places like Home Depot almost never have any good ones? Those guys are just sad. Now that’s a real specimen plant that you just won’t find at a place like Lowe’s either.
The Houston Chronicle recommends planting succulents and then go ahead, line it up on your railing, because its easy.
Short on garden space? There’s no need to give up plants….
Succulents are the easiest container subjects. And they’re great fun.
Yeah, whatever. Just keep buying those plants from your local independent garden center, or I’ll be very upset with you. Home Depot is the devil. There, I’ve said it. Now what are you going to do?
And don’t think I say this just because I own an independent garden center myself. Of course, I think of it more as a small local specialty nursery, but Home Depot has been the devil long before I ever started gardening. And they smell bad too.
Q: Hi. I called your store last weekend and had some questions about a cereus cactus I have that appears to have scales but also seems to be “dying” from the top down. I was told to email some photos of my plant, so I’m sending them now. I would really appreciate your looking at them and advising me of what I can do to salvage my cactus. If you have any problems accessing the pictures, please let me know.
Thank you very, very much for your time and assistance.
Sincerely,
Jenny
A: Jenny,
It looks like your plant has both scale insects and an infection, viral or fungal (most likely brought on by the bugs…). You should spray with Neem Oil to kill the scale. You can then clean off the dead ones with a small paint brush dipped in rubbing Alcohol. For the infection, I hate to say it but you need to cut off the top a couple of inches below the “icky” part and then look at the cut part to make sure there is no black or orange spots in the soft tissue, if there are you need to clean the knife with alcohol and re-cut lower down until you only have clean green tissue showing. Then pour household Hydrogen-Peroxide over the cut to sterilize. Do this again for the next few days to make sure the infection is dead.
It will scar up and then branch around the cut and in a few years it won’t be that noticeable.
