As one might have guessed from many of my recent posts, I really do love aloes. I have found them to be quite adaptable in almost any garden setting. Along with my xeriscaping, I have intermingled aloes throughout my tropical areas as well. With my free-draining decomposed granite, they actually do very well with a lot of…
I have been holding on to this post for over a year now. Figured it was about time that I showed readers the most impressive Encephalartos cycad collection I have seen in a private garden. Of course it had to be in South Africa, the land of Encephalartos. This garden I am about to show is only…
Thanks to the creative requirements that using airline points can produce, my trip to Madagascar involved flying Delta there and Air France back. This gave me the opportunity to spend two full days in Johannesburg, South Arica, as I waited for my connecting flight to Madagascar. The first day would be spent visiting the Apartheid Museum, the Mandela House…
Cycads are what I consider to be one of the most underused plant groups in people’s landscapes. Sure, some can be spiny and expensive, but the tradeoff certainly outweighs these possible negatives. For example, how many other plants can you grow in your garden that actually increase in value with each flush of new leaves? Cycads…
My wife wanted to do something different from our yearly routine this 4th of July weekend. I told her that if she wanted to plan something, I would temporarily relinquish my role as the Family Event Coordinator. So what does she plan for her first family trip with the new title? Palm Desert. In the middle of July! Not sure…
A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post showing off a bunch of my larger aloes that were in bloom. I mostly included the stem-forming varieties along with a few larger, non-stem-forming types. This week I will show some of my small aloes that were in flower around the same time. When growing dwarf or…
While aloes have been planted in Mediterranean climate gardens for centuries now, they have started to explode in both abundance and variety thanks in part to homeowners’ desire to plant more water-wise plants in their gardens. Here in Southern California we have seen water shortages lead to large water rate increases. With the current drought showing…
I have had another first in the garden. To my surprise, a few of my Lithrops have decided to flower. Now, to be fair, I did only just plant them last spring so I have a few more years to go to see if they will be happy in the long term. However, just seeing a flower coming…