When I was a kid, the last place I wanted my mom to bring me was a plant nursery.  "Not the nursery!" I would wail.  "We'll be there forever!"  What am I supposed to do at the nursery?!?!"

Fast-forward 25 or 30 years: guess whose favorite places are plant nurseries?  (Well, along with coffee shops and bookstores, and come to think of it, my mom introduced me to both coffee and books, too.)  Though a few decades elapsed before my plant obsession took hold (though there were warning signs in the form of dalliances with bonsais and jade plants), I fully attribute it to my mom.  

When I was growing up, we lived in a number of different places, and each is marked in my memory by the plants my mom tended there: the sunflowers she grew in Dallas, the olive tree that exasperated her in Sacramento, her gorgeous tomato garden in Tracy.  I also remember her mom's amazing tiered garden, which I think of whenever I catch the intoxicating scent of mint plants in the summer sun.

Some of my fondest memories entail talking to my mom in the yard while she weeded or watered or planted. I only wish I had imbibed more of her expertise when I was younger so that I wouldn't have so much catching up to do now.  She is also an expert at plant identification.  Two days ago, I texted her a picture of a strange flower I liked. She didn't know it, but googled and managed to ID it shortly after I had given up (osteospermum "flower power," in case anyone's interested).

On Mother's Day, of course, I'm thinking about my mom (and I'm super excited, because she's coming to visit me in my new Zone 5 abode soon!).  I'm also thinking about my wife's mom, who passed away a few years ago, and who also loved gardening.  Today we bought a plant in my wife's mom's honor--one she used to keep in her garden (I can't remember the name--I'm terrible with non-succulents), and I'm looking forward to making it part of our garden tomorrow.

In addition to wishing you all a happy Mother's Day, I want to share some pictures I took two months ago on a trip to southern California. It was one of the saddest and happiest trips I have ever taken. We were there for my paternal grandmother's funeral. She exited this world far before I thought she would, and I think about her every day. After the funeral, my mom and I spent a couple days together--just the two of us, which we hadn't done in ages. ​We chose Manhattan Beach and had so much fun.  When we weren't in pursuit of coffee or books or red wine or looking at open houses or eating sushi, we were obsessing over the magnificent Manhattan Beach succulent scene. 

I couldn't believe the variety and vigor of plants growing in people's yards! Observe, e.g.:

I love this next one.  On yeah, a crassula moonglow.  No big deal...  I think most people have a couple dozen of those growing like weeds in their side yards below a thriving agave kissho kan, right?  Right?  OMG.  

There is also a walk/bike path along the beach that extends the length of the city. It is clean and well-maintained, and long stretches have lovely beds of succulents surrounded by grey river rock. The pictures don't quite capture the splendor (and it was a foggy morning, so you can't see the ocean), but they'll give you an idea:

Of course, I was selfishly trolling the succulent beds for stray leaves and fallen stems, with the hopes of scooping them up and rooting them in my little succulent room back on the east coast. I thought my mom was doing the same thing for her succulent collection, and when I witnessed the scene pictured below (left), I speculated aloud that she was liberating a piece of the giant crassula mesembryanthemoides. Nope! She gave me an "Oh, puh-leez" look and I realized that she was guerilla weeding this public space (action shot below on the right). Just randomly weeding, because weeding was needed. That encapsulates my mom's generous nature.  

Restaurants and public businesses in Manhattan Beach also had some terrific plantings. For example, if I'm remembering correctly, this healthy, robust faucaria was just chilling casually in the window box of a coffee shop...

And these lush thickets of kalanchoe thyrsiflora were on a curb/median strip that appeared to be completely neglected--which the plants didn't seem to mind a bit. 

The sunsets at Manhattan Beach were also terrific.  Of course, the picture below doesn't do the sunset justice; sunset pictures never do.  But it's still beautiful. I love the kid with the surfboard running toward the ocean. Shouldn't we all try to catch as many good waves as we can before the sun dips below the horizon?

Anyhow, dear succ-ers, today I wish you many succulent pups, abundant time for gardening, and a very happy Mother's Day.

I love you, Mom!! 

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I thought about arranging these in various ways, but my partner liked them best lined up in a row, which she says makes our deck look like a ship.  I say: okay, cool.  Not bad for a $15 find in a salvage yard, eh?

Fall has descended on Northern California, and recently we had the rain to prove it.  Although this marks the inception of my annual worry that my succulents are going to get too much water outside (which precedes my annual worry that my succulents will freeze, or else get terribly leggy indoors), I have to admit that they look absolutely gorgeous after a rain.  Here are some of my favorites:

I'm not going to pretend that my photos are as cool as Liz's, but I thought I'd share them nonetheless.  (And, hey, not bad for iPhone photos, eh?)  The Ruth Bancroft Garden is also featured, I just discovered, in a book that came out less than a year ago: Succulent Paradise.

Let's start with a few agaves, shall we?

Next, a few aloes.  It's tough to capture the grandeur of the aloes here.  There were really some amazing specimens, including huge aloe nobilis and aloe striata, of which I have no decent pictures.  My favorite aloe, though, was the one immediately below this text, and to the right.

As regular readers of this blog are already aware, I am a bit of a haworthia geek.  I may or may not have squealed aloud with glee when I saw a whole bunch of gorgeous haworthia truncata of various types, shades, and sizes growing among the rocks in a shaded area.  Observe:

Although I wasn't always the world's biggest gasteria fan, I have to admit that they've grown on me more and more...  particularly en masse and variegated!

And sempervivums (doesn't it seem like it should be "semperviva?") abounded:

Can we talk about terrestrial bromeliads for a moment?  ...Actually, I don't have much to say about them; I just love the phrase "terrestrial bromeliad"--though these dyckia look extraterrestrial to me.  I love the combinations of purples and greens.

Onto echeverias.  Like (nearly) everything else in the Ruth Bancroft Garden, most of the echeverias weren't labeled.  Ruth Bancroft (who is alive and kicking at over 100 years old!) doesn't like the way labels can detract from plants in a garden, which I can understand.

Last but not least...  cacti!  The RBG is home to dozens, maybe hundreds, of cacti varieties.  It's a great time to visit the garden, because many of them are in bloom right now.  A few favorites:

Bottom line: if you're anywhere in Northern California, it's worth the drive to Walnut Creek to check out the Ruth Bancroft Garden!  (Especially if you're meeting your awesome parents for sushi.)  And be sure to check out their nursery, too--they had several hard-to-find plants at pretty reasonable prices.  Ta ta for now, succ-ers!

On Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending the Cactus & Succulent Society of San Jose's annual show and sale.  I went last year and enjoyed it, and the difference between how much I saw/knew/understood this year vs. last year was huge, which was kind of gratifying.  I may or may not have stood around allowing people to solicit me for advice.  It may or may not have made me want to write a book about succulents and/or transform into Debra Lee Baldwin.  Just sayin'. 

If memory serves, last year's sale favored cacti over succs, but this year's wares were fairly evenly divided between cacti and other succulents.  Plus, I like cacti more than I used to, particularly rebutias, of which there were plenty.  One vendor had air plants, and there were some "meh" plastic pots.  That was my only real disappointment--I wanted to pick up some cool pots, and this wasn't the place to do it.

Anyhow, without further ado, here are some photos of my favorite eye candy from Saturday's show!  Some of these won prizes, and others did not, but they all caught my eye.  Enjoy!