'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.

On my way back from a work trip this weekend, I decided to take 101 (yay!) instead of 5 (yawn!) from Southern to Northern California.  Not only was the traffic a little lighter, but--oh darn--it took me past some cool-looking nurseries I had never visited.

The best of these was Terra Sol Garden Center in Santa Barbara (don't be fooled by the unassuming website--these folks are pros), which had at least a dozen plants I hadn't seen for sale anywhere else.  As the more seasoned succ-ers among you know, after a few years as a succulent devotee, this almost never happens anymore outside of plant society sales, so I was seriously stoked.  

Of course, I'd never leave you out in the cold, dear readers--I made sure to snap a few pics so you could spend money unwisely vicariously through me.  

First, they had a whole slew of Renny hybrids.  As many haworthia fans will know, Renny is a legend, and she offers some of the weirdest, most striking, and most richly variegated haworthias out there.  Usually I can't afford her plants unless they're wee seedlings--I've seen her stuff on eBay go for hundreds of dollars(!).  These particular hybrids were $29.99 each, which is far less than comparable plants would cost on eBay ($50-80).  True, there were no extra-special variegated maughaniis or anything, but it was still a cool selection.  Observe:

Let's look at a couple of those a little more closely.  (Click on them for a larger image.)

...Aaaand, let's look at the one I bought even more closely.  Because HOLY COW IS IT BEAUTIFUL.  When I got home, I just put it on the kitchen counter and basically forced my poor partner to examine it with me for 20 minutes.  She maintains that it looks like "all [my] other haworthias."  Which, actually, it does not.  It is totally unique and a thing of beauty.  But wonderful and indulgent woman that she is, she understood how much it thrills me and just sort of smiled and rolled her eyes.  

Even though agave Joe Hoaks have been getting more and more popular, you still don't see them all that often (at least not up in Northern California).  But a mere agave Joe Hoak wouldn't be sufficient for the likes of Terra Sol.  Check out this ridiculously cool variegate:

Next, lower left is a cool ant made of rusted metal and stones, sitting atop maybe the largest mound of abromeitiella brevifolia I've ever seen.  And how about the plant on the lower right?  Now that's what I call a caudex.

The selection of agaves there was also terrific.  Two of my favorites are below: agave titanoa "white ice" to the left, and a variegated agave blue glow (sometimes called "agave snow glow") below to the right.  

Next, the elusive aloe polyphylla (spiral aloe):

On the lower left is an aloe rubroviolacea, which has been on my wish list for ages and ages, but I can never find a small one anywhere, and the big ones are far too expensive.  Unfortunately, this streak was unbroken at Terra Sol.  (If anyone knows where I can find a wee one, please share the info!)  On the lower right, check out this cool tylecodon bonsai.  I'm not sure what species this is--any guesses?

And last but not least, a really lovely leuchtenbergia principis, in all its sun-stressed glory.  Fun fact about this plant: it's the sole species in its genus!