Sotol Spikes
The lovely Mexican woody lily, Dasylirion berlandieri, is just finishing a bout of flowering. The flowers are magnets for both native bees as well as honeybees. Unlike their cousin, Agave, Dasylirion don’t die after flowering.
Klein’s Cylinder Pencil Cactus
I can’t remember when I first met Cylindropuntia kleiniae, but it was somewhere back in my early years, during a family cross country drive, designed to expose us kids to the entirety of the US. I fell in love with cactus, despite being repeatedly stabbed as I tried to rescue a pad to take home.
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Rock on with Aloe Cooperi
July has been a great month to enjoy the floral show of the most winter hardy member of the genus Aloe. Our plant of Aloe cooperi, below, is happy as can be, growing in half day sun in our crevice garden.
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Gardening without a Walker
The horticultural world just lost another stalwart with the passing of plantswoman, Sally Walker, 87, of Southwestern Native Seed. After departing her native England, by way of New Zealand, and later California, Sally and her husband Tim, settled in Arizona in the 1960s. After working for several renown nurseries in both the UK and US,
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Yucca Doo Vivero
It was great to spend several days last week walking through the nursery and gardens with our dear friends, Carl Schoenfeld and Wade Roitsch of the former Yucca Do Nursery. Wade is still gardening and plant exploring in Texas, while Carl has opened Yucca Doo Vivero at his home in Salta, Argentina. You can follow
Hardy Boyz
So often we think we know all about a plant, when we’ve only grown a single clone, and we all know what happens when we assume! A good example is the Southwest US native Agave parryi ssp. truncata, which is now grown around the world. 99.9% if the plants in commerce are a single clone,
Funky Toes – No Sign of Defeet
Agave x protamericana ‘Funky Toes’ is looking fabulous in the garden today, having sailed through our cold winter in tip top shape. This unique form of the well-known North American native agave is an introduction of the former Yucca Do Nursery, from one of their collections in Northern Mexico. In 2018, we found a streaked
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So Long Sotols…In the Spirit of Plant Extinction
We’ve long been enamored with the Southwest native genus of slow-growing woody lilies belonging to the genus, Dasylirion. Since the early 1990s, we’ve been growing these, trialing as many species as we could obtain to see how well they adapted to our climate here in the colder, wetter Southeast. So, far, we have grown 16
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Green Goblet
Looking great in the garden this week is Agave x pseudoferox ‘Green Goblet’. This 1996 introduction from the former Yucca Do Nursery is one they found in Mexico and brought back as a single pup. Our original plant flowered in 2011 after 11 years in the ground, so this specimen has re-grown from one of
Excelsior…Fit for a King
Here’s a new photo of Agave parryi ssp. huachucensis ‘Excelsior’ from our garden this week. We typically don’t have many variegated century plants that will survive our winters, but this is one of the exceptions. This superb clone was first introduced in 1967 from a small California nursery by the same name. Protection from excess
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