One Last Look at the Yuccas
In West Texas and the Hill Country, Spring does bring on wildflowers, but it also blesses us with yucca blooms. Bear grass, they call it here, but yucca is what it is. I don’t know the exact variety, and there are many, but it grows wild here, and if left to its...
Moving Up to a Larger Container
Beware the perils of waiting too long to repot when your plant outgrows its container. For the last year or so, I would look at this gasteria Batesiana and think, I really need to repot that, and then do something else instead. This year I decided the time had...
Redesigning Wasted Space in the Garden
A spot in the cactus garden was going to waste. Years of falling leaves, dust settling from the road, and time in general had made what used to be a raised bed lined with rocks pretty sad and in need of an update. I wanted a place to put pots of succulents, so rather...
Another Reason I Like Cactus
As I mentioned on Facebook the other day, the cactus blooming season is upon us. All of the pictures I am about to share with you were taken on the same day, April 29th. I found one lovely surprise after another as I walked through my outdoor cactus garden. And the...
Cotyledon Orbiculata Has Unique Flowes
Aren’t these just the neatest little flowers? The plant, as you can see, is not anything special, but it also is not ugly. The flowers, on the other hand, are delightful and unusual. The blooms measure only a little more than an inch in length, but they are...
Get Yourself Some Rain Barrels
We added two new rain barrels for collecting rain water-yes it does occasionally rain here-and snow, which is supposed to hit tonight, so I thought I’d share my barrel system with you in case you’d like to try it yourself. Rain can be collected in...
Watch Out for Mealy Bugs
By mid to late winter the mealy bugs have decided to descend in full force on plants in the greenhouse. Lack of air circulation seems to be the prime factor with these pesky little bugs because this is when I always have the most trouble with them, when they...
Keeping Your Cactus Warm
When I started this, we had had below freezing weather for too many days in a row. I lost count, but suffice it say I have worn my long underwear under my jeans to stay warm in and out of the house. I probably don’t need them in the house, but it saves having to...
The Quintessential Fat Plant
The most impressive fat plants in my collection would be my pachypodium lamerei and pachypodium geayi, commonly known as Madagascar palms, since that is where these two pachypodiums occur in nature. P. lamerei has a wide, graceful leaf. This plant had...
More Fat Plants
As promised, the other fat plant, pachypodium baronii, that was due to bloom, did, and this is what it looks like. Similar to the pachypodium lealii saundersii, but a whiter flower and some difference in the spines. And you can see the thick body that qualifies...
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