A rainy day garden: often a curse in the tropics, but a rare treat in Southern California. I can honestly tell you that I have never said, “Oh, darn. It’s going to rain” while I have had my garden here in Vista, California. If you do not live in a low-rainfall Mediterranean climate, you can not really understand why rain…
Welcome to the new year. Welcome to Bob’s garden. Last year I wrote a post about aloes, with a spotlight on hybrids. Those plants were all from the exceptional garden of Bob De Jong. That post received a lot of positive feedback and came with many private requests to see more. Wanting to oblige, I have waited…
A huge part of running a garden blog is the photography. Some of my favorite garden blogs that I frequent feature great photography, and it is a key reason why I visit them so often. Over the last few years of running Married to Plants, I have grown quite a bit as a writer. While my…
Plant snobs. Any long-time gardener or plant collector has run into them. The further you dig yourself into the gardening lifestyle, the more the plant snobbery reveals itself. Sadly, what is lost in all this is the beauty that can be found in a commonly available plant. Common plants become common for a reason. After many…
I love plants. After all, I am “married” to them. Hopefully without the other plant groups getting wind of this, I must confess that palm trees are my true love. I lost count some time ago, but if I were to guess, I would say a safe estimate is that I have over 150 different types…
Last month I was invited to attend a small, local plant group’s monthly meeting in the Los Angeles area. My wife and son were out of town that weekend, so what a great opportunity to stay at Disneyland with my 8-year-old daughter and the next morning attend the meeting and tour a “must-see collection of plants.” So…
For palm collectors in California and other Mediterranean climates, Ravenea glauca has become a very popular palm tree over the last two decades. Some of the reasons for the popularity of Ravenea glauca stems from its overall hardiness in terms of cold tolerance, pest resistance and its ability to grow in many types of soil. Not only does it do well…
This is the second post of an ongoing blog series on Married to Plants about palm tree growing tips. The first post was about palm tree mounding. This post is on the exceptional Stuewe and Sons treepots and the benefits of using their containers with palm cultivation. Because your choice of container is one of the…