This past weekend I drove up to Los Angeles to visit the 31st Annual Inter-City Cactus and Succulent Show and Sale that took place at the Los Angeles Arboretum. LA traffic never makes things easy, so a 3-hour drive turned into 4 that Friday. The show was well worth the drive, however. The Inter-City Cactus and Succulent…

This past week I gathered the wife, kids and dogs and loaded up our trailer for a camping trip to the Kern River. The long-range forecast when we planned the trip months prior didn’t show that it would be over 100 degrees Fahrenheit each day we were there. Let’s just say it was a very hot week, but the temperature…

With the ever increasing popularity of water-wise gardens in Southern California, there is a similar increase in new plants available. The palette for gardeners increases almost daily. One plant that has been around for a while appears to me to be unjustly absent from that palette of many of these new water-wise gardeners. It is a plant that…

A few years ago when I started my blog I had no idea that the most popular post would end up being the post about my dwarf agaves. Readers have really gravitated to those posts. In fact, the most read page on my blog is the one on the work I did to my boutique agave planter…

Earlier today I drove up to Costa Mesa to finally visit the Southern California Spring Garden Show “At Home in The Garden.” I have heard mixed reviews over the years about the show with some years being great and others a waste of time. The biggest complaint I hear from people now is that the larger…

This post most likely won’t be overly exciting to anyone other than a cactus collector. Still, a true plant lover can’t but appreciate the flowers on my Geohintonia mexicana that just opened. Cactus are the butt of many jokes from a few of my close, fellow plant collector friends that never got into the ‘cactus craze.’ Their belief is…

Two years ago I bought a plant at Home Depot that I had not seen for sale before. It was a new cultivar of Society Garlic (Tulbaghia violacea) called ‘Purpleicious.’ At first it looked to be one of those plants that would be too good to be true. Society Garlic with purple leaves? No way. So I decided to purchase one…

Back on August 25th, 2015, famed plantsmen and palm tree growing legend Mardy Darian passed away at 82 years young. I first met Mardy in 2008 when I went with a few friends to tour his Vista, California, garden. In an effort to limit visitors and to generate some income to assist with his water bill, Mardy would charge…