Don't pretend you don't waste an inordinate amount of time fawning over succulents. You know you do. You're probably every bit as much of a hapless succ-er as I am. Today I began wondering about how I can spend so much time thinking about succulents, and decided to catalog some of the more ridiculous succulent- and cacti-related ways in which I spend my not-actually-all-that-copious free time.  

1. Studiously pretending offense when my wife says something like, "You spend more time on your plants than you do on your research!"
2. Bidding early on an eBay plant I know I'll never afford, then getting an email three days later that says something like, "Tiger Eye variegated Japanese haworthia sold for $275.50 over your max bid."
3. Watching Debra Lee Baldwin's videos. She is so mesmerizing!
4. Taking a container garden apart and putting the plants from it into individual pots.
5. Taking plants out of individual pots and putting them into a container garden.
6. Organizing plants in my plastic flats by genus and species.
7. Creating labels for plants that don't have them (I wish I did this more often).
8. Shopping online on Mountain Crest Gardens or Jadepoint Succulents or Plant Delights or some other store I like and putting a bunch of stuff into my cart to see how much it would cost if I placed an order.
9. Picking dead leaves off the bottoms of various plants, especially echeverias.
10. Checking plants obsessively for babies, mealybug, etc.
11. Leaf.  Propagation.  OMG.
12. Freshening the top dressing. (Did I really just write that? Yes. Yes, I did.)
13. Going to local nurseries to "see what's new" because you "never know."
14. Flipping obsessively through Under the Spell of Succulents or Aloes and Agaves in Cultivation.
15. Looking at the bottom of pots to see if any roots or babies are coming out of drainage holes, which would mean that I am basically forced to stop everything and repot immediately.
16. Organizing pictures I have taken on various succulent outings and adventures.
17. Fancifully planning visits to various parts of the world where succulents feature prominently (South Africa, anyone?).
18. Instagram.
19. Setting up alerts for phrases such as "crassula barklyi" and "haworthia maughanii."
20. Googling things that seem absurd, such as "variegated ariocarpus" and spending 30 minutes at a time drooling over the results.

How about you, my dear succ-er friends? Do any of these resonate with you? Do you have any succulent-ish pastimes to add to the list?

'Twas the month before moving, and all through the house,
I prepped plants with a fury that frightened my spouse.
Agaves were wrapped in old towels with care,
So heavy in boxes that movers did glare.
Crassulas snug in nests of paper towels,
I was up all night packing, listening to the owls.
Some plant boxes piled in the big moving truck,
Others sent via post (I was wishing them luck).
My wife did her best to tune out all my chatter,
And my friends surely thought I was mad as a hatter.
But to the Northeast my plants trekked by and by,
As I climbed on the plane and got ready to fly.
I would meet my dear plants at the end of the flight,
And hope to the heavens they'd turn out all right.
If they all died, I'd shoulder the blame.
And as we traveled eastward I whispered their names.
Now lithops! Now aloes! Now little gasterias!
On ariocarpus!  Astrophytum asterias!
Now haworthias glauca, pumilla, truncata!
On tephrocactus and aloe striata!
Most were bare-rooted, but still I did fret,
About all my plants and their tiny plantlets.
As soon as I got to our house in Zone 5
I tore open boxes to see what was alive.
I will not lie--there had been some attrition,
But I lined up pots, got my dirt in position.
I potted with fury, I planted with skill,
I set plants on shelves and on each windowsill.
Laying my finger aside of my nose, 
​I sized up the damage and set plants in rows.
I was covered in soil, from my foot to my head,
Just gratified not all my wee ones were dead.
Thanks to my wife, who is rather indulgent,
We now have a plant room, with succs so effulgent!
You can hear me exclaim, pretty much every night,
"Happy Zone 5 to all, and thank God for grow lights!"

Jeff Moore may be Under the Spell of Succulents, but I'm under the spell of Jeff Moore--the author of the next succulent book you have got to read.  Moore runs Solana Succulents (pictured), a nursery just north of San Diego that I visited a few years ago and loved for its diverse selection of succulents and its combination of wildness (it's not overly manicured) and orderliness.

Under the Spell of Succulents has been out for over a year, but you may not have happened across it because it isn't available on Amazon.  Instead of an American publisher, Moore opted for a more obscure overseas press.  Random?  Maybe, but who cares!--the book's quality is top notch: nice paper, colorful photos (over 800!), and great print quality.  It's the kind of book that just feels good when you hold it, and it's a real bargain at $29.99 and 244 pages. 

At first, the book's organization is a little perplexing.  The 11 main chapters are thematic, some focused on types of planting (vertical gardens, container gardens, succulent bonsai), some on types of growth (variegation, crests), and others on people (collectors, growers).  Interspersed between these main chapters are brief "interludes" that focus on a specific type of succulent (cacti, aeoniums, euphorbias, and so on).  But when you read the book, the organization starts to make sense.  Moore's purpose is not a controlled presentation of succulents.  Instead, it's like his nursery: sprawling, idiosyncratic, and magical.  For collectors like me, it's the perfect book through which to wander on a fall weekend afternoon.  The book's structure compels you to read it in its entirety--if you don't, you'll miss something cool: a page of stunningly variegated agaves, a list of aloes by category (centerpiece aloes, colorful clumpers, etc.), or instructions for planting echeverias in a strawberry pot.  The sum effect is really compelling. 

The photo choices in Under the Spell of Succulents are likely to appeal specifically to collectors.  Moore emphasizes plants that dazzle, including many that have just become popular in the last 5-10 years.  He is not super concerned with covering his "bases"--making sure you know all the "classic" agaves, for example.  Instead, he shows you plants that make you think, "Whoa, I have got to try growing that!"  If you're like me and love being wowed by features like interesting variegation, this is a huge plus.  If you're more of a purist and would rather gaze at agave tequiliana or agave americana than at a blue glow or a Joe Hoak, this may not be the book for you.

If the book has a weakness, it's something about which I (lovingly) complained when I reviewed Debra Lee Baldwin's Succulents Simplified: crassulas and haworthias, both near and dear to my heart, get a semi-short shrift compared to, say, aloes.  Even so, I wasn't particularly troubled by the omission and know that this is a book to which I will be returning again and again. 

Get your very own copy of this masterpiece on Moore's Solana Succulents website, and be on the lookout for his next book, Aloes and Agaves in Cultivation, which will be released in 2016.  According to Moore, this next book will "differ from the other aloe/agave books in that 99% of the images are non habitat, but actual plants growing in California, so it will appeal more to the enthusiast." 

This enthusiast, for one, can't wait to be under Moore's spell again soon. 

I mentioned a few days ago in my Terra Sol post that I drove up 101 from Southern to Northern California.  I made one other stop besides Terra Sol, at a great place called Seaside Gardens in Carpinteria, not far from Santa Barbara.  Not only do they have a pretty cool nursery (full disclosure: it seemed somewhat overrun by ants), but an amazing, extensive garden divided into sections.  My favorite of the sections were "Succulents" (duh) and "South African" (because it contained so many succulents).  As you can see from the pictures below, the fabulousness was pretty thorough.  

Given the amount of time I spend at Stanford, I make my way to the Arizona Garden relatively often.  It had been a couple of months, so I headed over there today and checked out how everything is doing, especially since we've had a little rain.  Every time I'm there, I notice something new, and this visit was no exception.  (Who knew we had astrophytums, for example?)  If you're a regular reader of the blog, you've seen some of these before, but bear with me...  and enjoy the photos.