My girlfriend and I took a trip to Sonora over Valentine's Day weekend.  In addition to binge-watching "House of Cards," hiking at Glory Hole, and drinking marvelous tea, we ventured to a place called K&L Cactus.  I had no idea what to expect, but my girlfriend gamely agreed to drive an hour out of our way to middle-of-nowhere Ione, CA.

Oh my gosh.  It was SO worth the trip.  K&L Cactus consists of two enormous greenhouses positively bursting with incredible plants.  K&L's proprietor, Lorraine (pictured below in one of her greenhouses; I'm the one on the right), is not only a very kind, interesting, and cool person, but is stunningly knowledgeable about succulents and cacti.  She talked patiently with me as I peppered her with questions and wandered slowly through her beautiful greenhouses.

I've been to a lot of succulent and cactus places, and K&L is easily in my top two or three.  If you prefer the meticulous labeling, easy-to-read pricing, and impeccable organization of a place like Flora Grubb, K&L might not be for you.  But if you're like me and love a sprawling jungle of a nursery every bit as much, you've got to make the pilgrimage to K&L.  It's easily worth the trip just to meet Lorraine! 

I spent so long in the greenhouses that my girlfriend eventually retreated to the car with the dog and played games on her iPhone (talk about a good sport...).  But before she did, she unleashed her formidable photography skills on K&L.  The pictures in this post were all taken by her.  Enjoy the eye candy!

My only regret is that, starving grad student that I am, I couldn't afford to spend more money there!  Still, I took home several goodies, and I'm hoping this post will throw some more business Lorraine's way.  I know I have a lot of readers in the Davis/Sacramento area, and Ione is only an hour away from you.  Call K&L and set up an appointment to visit--it's well worth it!

First of all, I wanted to thank all the new readers who are following Gardening Succs!  I really appreciate it.  This blog has gone from zilch, zip, nada to about 200 visitors each day (with a high of 800!), and the Gardening Succs Facebook page has over 1000 "likes."  Thank you!

Next, a confession: I suffer from propag-addiction, one of the most common succulent ailments around (more info on specific ailments soon--I feel another infographic coming on...).  Sooo, following the growers at Lone Pine, I decided to start using flats for the plants I both (1) already have several of and (2) would like to grow more of.  But since I don't have enough of any one type to fill a flat, I used two different kinds to fill a flat:

In the next flat I made, I used four different kinds.  (So far, I've only made these two flats.)

What am I going to do with the new plants?  Sell them?  Give them away?  Propagate more plants and see if I can get on "Hoarders?"  I have no idea.  Most likely, I'll try to trade them with other succulent aficionados for plants I don't have yet.

For many of my plants, though, I only have one or two specimens.  Or three.  Or four.  (Whatever--don't judge me.)  Here's a shot of the inside of part of my greenhouse.

And lastly, just for fun, two random pictures I took in my backyard the other day.

Thanks again for being awesome, and for sticking around to watch this blog grow.  I promise you, it'll only get better!

As some of you have noticed, I've been posting a little less frequently than usual lately--that's because I've been so busy planting!  (Well, and working a lot.)  I thought I'd share a few recent favorites from the past two weekends.

This one occupied several hours.  I took an old basket my girlfriend dug out of the garage and made a sempervivum landscape.  This has at least 20 different varieties of semps and jovibarba, and was a blast to make.  You can't tell from this photo, but I played a lot with height, and made little hills and valleys.  I also used chunks of wood and stone in the landscape.  The final product is about 24-30" x about 14-18".  Click on the pic below for a larger version.

Next up: crassula coccinea (I think), surrounded by a cottony expanse of sempervivum arachnoideum, potted into a shallow square pot from Succulent Gardens.  Here's a birds'-eye view.  The semps become a kind of top dressing themselves.

During my visit to San Diego, several succ-ers told me not to miss the San Diego Botanic Garden in Encinitas.  I did as instructed.  Despite the $12 entry fee, it was well worth a visit.  The place is huge--I spent two hours there and covered less than half of it (concentrating, as you might imagine, on the succ-heavy portions). 

The garden is arranged into several smaller sub-gardens, some arranged by theme (e.g. undersea; children's; landscape for fire safety) and others arranged by region (e.g., Australian; Mexican; Canary Islands).  Here are some pics I took in particular gardens.

My only complaint was that so many of their plants weren't identified (and I detected only the scantest correlation between a plant's rarity and its likelihood of bearing a label).  So while you can come here to see a lot of plants, I think the best way to enjoy this garden is just to enjoy the beautiful displays of color, light, and shape without worrying too much about what's what.  All, in all, though--definitely worth a visit.

Hello, fellow succ-ers!  Today I thought it would be fun to share pictures of some fun plants in my collection.  You can click on most of the pictures to see a larger version.

Thanks for checking these out!  I'd love to hear your comments (and see some of your pics!).