A little progress and a few lost causes

Given that the feeling of spring has been in the air for some time now, I've done remarkably little plant shopping and not a lot of planting either.  My focus has been on maintenance and weeding, more weeding and still more weeding.  However, earlier this week I finally hunkered down and transplanted a few agave pups that have been waiting for their forever home for months.

This is a wide shot of my northeast side garden area taken in early January.  The pots have been sitting there for months.

I ended up planting just the 2 'Blue Glow' Agave pups I harvested from their bloomed-out parent last September, and one still tiny Agave colorata pup I'd potted up in 2024.  I plan to add filler plants, Pelargoniums perhaps, to soften the look there.

Closeup of the 3 agaves.  The shape of the 'Blue Glow' in the middle concerns me a little but I'm hoping it loosens up now that it's in the ground.

I relocated the Agave geminiflora in a pot but it may not stay there

I'd planned to plant the large Agave 'Mateo' in the ground but it was badly root-bound and infested with ants so I gave up on that once I broke it out of its pot.  I saved 2 good-sized pups for placement elsewhere.

I've continued to my pruning efforts, although I'm by no means done there.  It's been my number two maintenance project after weeding.

Pruning the 'Wilson Wonder's Leucadendrons is a biannual task.  The photo on the left was taken in early January.  Its colorful bracts had faded and the stems were above the roofline before I trimmed it back, as shown on the right.  Bringing down its height and girth also required cutting back the Pittosporum tobira hedge next to it to allow me to reach the back of the Leucadendron.

I pruned the Senna bicapsularis back by a third and I was surprised how quickly and how well it's bounced back

Working on the ivy that takes off whenever I so much as blink feels pointless at times but things would be worse if I sloughed off that task entirely.  The back slope provides the biggest challenge as I'm not in control of the mass of ivy that spreads across the property line on our southeast side - there's no fence or other barrier there and the property line itself isn't clear.  In addition, the ground drops off sharply in some places, which isn't readily apparent because they're buried under ivy.

I didn't take a "before" photo of this area.  This photo was taken an hour or more after I cut back the ivy and grass weeds that covered the area in the foreground.  There's still a lot of work to be done to push the ivy back another foot or more closer to the property line, which I need to tackle before warmer temperatures bring out the fire ants.

The mass of ivy to the left of the area shown in the earlier photo (shown on the left in this collage) included woody branches I initially thought were leftovers of the dead Ceanothus I had removed in November.  As it turns out, those are trunks of ivy plants that have grown several feet tall.  I cut those back as shown in the photo on the right but, once again, more work is required. 

I recently spent hours working on another project that could very well be a lost cause too: the removal of a massive clump of Boston fern (Nephrolepsis exaltata) that's crept under the fence between us and our neighbor on our north side.  I made two runs at it before I was even partially satisfied.

The "before" photo is on the left and the "after" photo is on the right.  The bulbous roots of the Boston ferns are everywhere but I dug up as much of them out as I could.  Routine scrutiny will be required. 

The list of what may be other lost causes is growing too.

The lime tree is still producing fruit but it nonetheless looks sad - and I haven't even tried to remove the Boston ferns at its base.  I'm leaning in the direction of removing the tree next fall, in which case the ferns will come out with the tree.

It made no good sense planting this Grevillea lavandulacea 'Penola' between a fence and the narrow path that leads down our back slope in the first place back in 2011.  Although it's flowered well, it's become woody and rangy with lots of dead branches.  Grevilleas don't like being pruned to bare wood but I may give that a try to see if there's any hope of rejuvenating it.

This Leptospermum scoparium 'Pink Pearl'  looked awkward here even when it was backed by a fence.  Its trunk now leans like the Tower of Pisa (as a result of that fence), although it's blooming better than it did before.  I'll try reducing it by a foot in height but I suspect there are plants that would fit better into this spot.

This dwarf Japanese maple (Acer palmatum 'Mikawa Yatsubusa') isn't looking so good now that it's no longer protected from the sun and wind by the former fence.  I'll wait awhile to see how it looks a month or two from now.

I'm not the only one working on my garden either.  I watched two major projects in the works over the past week.

Our neighbors across the street had their back slope cleared of rosemary shrubs and replanted with other shrubs.  I think there's Coleonema 'Sunset Gold', Salvia leucantha and another shrub I can't identify in the mix but I haven't had the opportunity to ask them what they included.  The work took most of 2 weeks, interrupted at times by rain.

Work restarted across the canyon after a lengthy pause (since my September post) but it's still focused on that neighbor's sprawling patio.  The contractors resurfaced the stairs to match the adjacent walls and pillars.  It looks as though they may be installing a water feature too, as well as adding more metal pieces to the guardrails along the elevated walkway.  There's no evidence of new plant installations, though.  

That's in for me this week.  I plan to make another pass at the ivy on the back slope this weekend and hopefully prune my other 'Wilson's Wonder' Leucadendron, with more weeding thrown in of course.  Enjoy your weekend!

All material © 2012-2026 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

My Favorite Succulent Containers (at the moment)

We've had sunny days since Tuesday but the soil is still saturated, which limits what I can do right now.  I spent three hours working on the back slope earlier this week but, at the end of that period, I was covered in mud and had badly compressed the wet soil.  However, the Santa Ana winds kicked up yesterday, which should help the garden dry up quickly.  While I waited out that process, I spent some time admiring my succulent containers.  Many are in need of rehabs but I've highlighted some of my favorites.

This is currently my #1 favorite.  Planted last August, it's filled out quickly.  It includes Aeonium bramwellii 'Sunburst', Cotyledon pendens, Crassula swaziensis 'Variegata', and Kalanchoe marmorata.

Sitting next to the prior pot is this one containing a single plant, Echinopsis oxygona.  As I recall, it was given to me as a small specimen by a friend years ago but it now fills the space. 

The Aloe deltoidonta has occupied this pot for years too, accompanied by Cotyledon orbiculata.  I added cuttings of Graptoveria 'Fred Ives' later.

It's been at least a year since I last refreshed this circle pot on my back patio table.  I seldom water the small noID small Aloes and Crassula pubescens.  The pot itself is the star in this case.

I potted this one up sometime last year but the cat figure was a recent gift from a friend.  The pot, a prior gift, contains a noID Echeveria, what may be Graptoveria 'Lovely Rose', and cuttings of G. 'Fred Ives' and Crassula perforata.

This pot sits at the edge of one of my back borders.  It contains an Agave parryi truncata, Echeveria affinis 'Black Knight', and Portulacaria afra 'Variegata'.

Planted in 2024, this bowl-shaped terracotta pot seated atop a rusty metal support is my second most favorite.  It contain Crassula pendens, C. swaziensis 'Variegata, and what I think is Echeveria 'Violet Queen'.

I received a cutting of this plant from a friend years ago.  She thought it was some kind of Haworthia but I couldn't find anything that matched this in that genus.  The closest I could get is Haworthiopsis coarctata.  Whatever it is, it's been happy in this facsimile shell pot.

I replanted this small ceramic container yesterday with a Crassula alba 'Lotus Garnet', tucking in 2 Graptoveria 'Lovely Rose' stems that had jumped ship out of another pot

I've had these 2 pots containing Mangave 'Bad Hair Day' sitting on opposite sides of the front door for several years.  They make me smile every time I see them.  The one on the left has a few slightly reddish leaves.

This pot was a birthday present from a friend last year.  I'm guessing the plants are some kind of Echeveria.

This urn in front of the garage was looking especially photogenic.  I planted it up in 2024 with a Mangave 'Kaleidoscope' pup, Graptosedum 'California Sunset' cuttings, and a Cremosedum 'Little Gem'.

I planted this pot with an Agave 'Sun Glow' and cuttings of Sedum morganianum (aka burro's tail) in 2025

We inherited this ancient chiminea with the house and I wired its front grate with a variety of noID Tillandsias last year.  The air plants are doing exceptionally well there with virtually no support from me.

I planted a pup of Agave vilmoriana 'Variegata' in a pot at the base of a raised planter in my cutting garden after the mother plant bloomed out in 2023, adding cuttings of Aeonium haworthii 'Kiwi'.  The Agave's finally gained some size and I've had to cut the 'Kiwi' succulents back.

That's a wrap for my blog posts this week.  I hope to spend the bulk of the weekend working in the garden.  I hope you have plans to do something you enjoy as well.

All material © 2012-2026 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Recent garden edits

My sister-in-law was in town this week and I didn't have a lot of time to work in the garden, much less put together blog posts, but I made a few edits to my south-side garden last weekend I thought I'd share in this short post.

You may recall that we removed a number of agaves from the main area of the south-end garden earlier this year.  We took out the all-too-exuberant 'Blue Flame' Agaves that were overtaking the bed in stages in July (as shown here and here).  In September, we tackled removal of a large 'Blue Glow' Agave that had bloomed twice and was left looking worse for the wear (as shown here).  Those actions left some large holes and it's taken me awhile to decide how to fill them.  My efforts there are by not means done but there's been some progress.

I removed a small Agave titanota that'd been hidden under the 'Blue Flame' Agaves in this area and planted the 'Sun Glow' Agave I'd purchased months ago in the middle of the space.  I filled in around it with cuttings of Senecio mandraliscae (aka blue chalksticks) and Aeonium 'Sunburst'.  It's going to take some time before everything fills out.

I potted up the Agave titanota and 2 pups to use elsewhere or give away

I added soil and cleaned up the area that'd been occupied by the bloomed-out 'Blue Glow' Agave and added more cuttings of Aeonium 'Sunburst' there.  I'm tentatively planning to fill in a portion of the remaining blank space with a Pelargonium, possibly 'White Lady', which produces small white flowers and loves to spread itself about.

I tweaked two smaller beds nearby too.

The 'Mission to Mars' Mangave shown in the center of this photo had a smaller Mangave, which I can only guess was a pup, growing under its leaves on the right.  I neglected to take a before shot but, because it was getting quite large, I dug it up and replanted it in front of its parent.  There's an even smaller Mangave in the foreground on the right, which I think is 'Tooth Fairy'.

This is a closeup of the Mangave pup.  It has coloring similar to 'Mission to Mars' and I've no record of planting any other members of the species in this area.

I can't recall if I've shown this small bed adjacent to the catio before.  It originally was filled with a mass of Mexican feather grass (Nasella tenuissima) and self-seeded Daucus carota, which I removed in the interest of eliminating flammable material so close to the house.  I recently planted 'Bronze Blend' Dutch Iris bulbs in the foreground and also added more bromeliad divisions (Neoregelia 'Guinea' x 'Pepper').  I may add even more divisions of the same Neoregelia soon.

I still have work to do in the cutting garden but, as I got an early start this year and the weather isn't quite right to sow sweet peas or other seeds yet, that can wait another week or so.  Meanwhile I received the second of my recent bulb orders and they may be given priority.

100 more bulbs, not all of which I can't honestly claim I've identified spaces for

Although my garden feels short on flowers at the moment, I did get a surprise when I noticed a touch of bright pink in my front garden.

Protea 'Claire' in the front garden already has one good-sized flower open and I counted at least 6 more buds working to catch up.  Meanwhile, my Protea neriifolia 'Pink Ice', tucked into a shadier section of the north-side garden, has yet to show signs of any buds.

Best wishes for a good weekend.  Although I wasn't able to join a "No Kings" rally myself last Saturday, I was very impressed by the strength of the turnout, estimated at between 7 and 8.2 million peaceful protesters.  Sadly, the White House responded by releasing a pathetic and tawdry AI-generated video that brings shame on the presidential office.  In my opinion, every elected official that fails to note that disgrace isn't worth keeping in office.  As an independent voter, I'm disgusted to the point of nausea.

All material © 2012-2025 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Agave 'Blue Glow': Full of Surprises

I've grown a lot of 'Blue Glow' Agaves.  They're generally regarded as solitary plants, which means they don't usually produce pups or offsets.  To my recollection, I've previously had only one produce a pup after a lengthy confinement in a small pot.  Like most agaves, 'Blue Glow' is deemed to be monocarpic, which means it produces a single bloom stalk and subsequently dies.  I've had other agaves follow that routine but I'd never had a 'Blue Glow' bloom until 2023.  And even then, it defied its reputation by not dying.  I wasn't entirely surprised by this as a neighbor's plant also continued to live on after it'd bloomed as I described here in a 2022 post.  As mine didn't look too bad after that initial bloom stalk was removed, I left it in place and, in December 2024, it began to develop two more bloom stalks.  When those flopped over a few months ago, I harvested a handful of bulbils from the dying stalks and we cut them down.  By this time, summer was upon us and I didn't want to ask my husband for help in removing the plant so I left it in place until we had a brief stretch of cooler temperatures last weekend.  My husband did the lion's share of the work in removing it, getting stabbed from multiple directions in the process.

Photo of the agave in question in July.  Note the pups popping out from various angles.  I complicated the removal process by asking my husband to preserve those intact to the extent possible so I could try harvesting them.

My husband tackled the plant from below using an electrical saw, leaving the upper portion largely intact   

I initially couldn't get a grip on the individual pups to pull them apart from the larger clump and I almost gave up of the idea of harvesting them.  However, once I started twisting each pup's rosette in circles, one after another finally broke away.  I didn't retrieve all of them but I collected five good-sized rosettes that way.

The largest of the harvested rosettes is shown on the left and the smaller ones are shown on the right.  All had at least some attached roots.

I gave them a couple of days to dry out before I cleaned them up.

I cleaned them up around the base, removing dried and damaged leaves and giving the stems cleaner cuts.  This is what they looked like afterwards.  Many of the leaves were wavy, presumably because they grew cramped by the leaves of the mother plant.

I subsequently potted them up.

I lined up the pots in a mostly shady spot near my lath house for the time being

Closeups on the individual rosettes, shown clockwise from the largest to the smallest.  All are larger than most of the 'Blue Glow' Agaves I've seen at local garden centers in one-gallon pots for $30 to $35.

I'll give them time to establish healthy roots in the pots before deciding what to do with them.  Assuming they survive this transition, I may plant two or three elsewhere in my garden and give the others away.  I've already promised myself to give the plants a greater amount of space if I plant them out.  As their parent plant turned out to be a clumper rather than a solitary specimen, they may also require greater space as they mature.  I'm not yet sure what I'll do with the empty spots I have in the south-side succulent bed.  I'd originally planned to put the 'Sun Glow' Agave I put aside several months ago into the spot vacated by the 'Blue Glow' we've now removed but I'm not sure I want it so close to the mature plants I still have there.

The empty spot is backed by a Metrosideros 'Springfire', which is getting bigger every year, and surrounded by 2 other 'Blue Glows' with an Agave ovatifolia 'Vanzie' and an Agave 'Mediopicta Alba' nearby.  There's also another group of 3 'Blue Glows' just outside the frame of this photo on the right. 

I may use smaller succulents or even a small-flowered Pelargonium in the empty spot for a softer touch.  When the other agaves bloom and require removal, my husband would certainly appreciate room to maneuver when "we" tackle that chore.

Interestingly, although most online sources still declare that 'Blue Glow' Agaves are solitary plants, there are some that state otherwise.  The most comprehensive discussion I've found so far is one posted on Flora Grubb's site, which you can find here.  In short, Grubb contends that 'Blue Glow' Agaves remain solitary only until they bloom.

This is a wrap for my posts this week.  We're looking at a hot and sticky Florida-like weekend following a brief tropical storm's passage through here in the wee hours of Thursday morning.  Forecasts had called for a quarter of an inch of rain in my location but we got just 0.03/inch; however, the humidity level has soared.  High winds also took out over half the 'Benary's Giant Wine' Zinnias in my cutting garden, which was a surprise as those plants and flowers had looked indestructible but perhaps their sheer height was the issue.  Oh well, Mother Nature is nothing if not unpredictable. 

Have a good weekend.  My recommendation: limit your news consumption.

All material © 2012-2025 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Another Heatwave Alert

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times published an article predicting that the most significant heatwave of the summer is expected to arrive on Wednesday and hang on through Sunday.  While a local online source still suggests that my area will top out at 86F (30C) on Thursday, it became a little harder to believe that we could be that lucky when yesterday's temperature reached 87F after the day started out with a dense morning marine layer.  I spent most of yesterday morning weeding and watering and expect to get in a little more watering this morning.

However, I haven't entirely abandoned planting activity, although I've restricted most of that to succulents. 

I filled this large terracotta container with an assortment of succulents

The mix included: 5 Aeonium davidbramwellii 'Sunburst', 2 Cotyledon pendens, one Crassula swaziensis 'Variegata', and one Kalanchoe marmorata

In addition to succulents, I've given myself permission to replant a few containers with summer annuals.

I couldn't stand looking at this barrel any longer.  The foxglove in the middle never even tried to bloom and the 2 Cuphea 'Honeybells' were overgrown.  I cut back and replanted one of the Cupheas elsewhere.

Rudbeckias are effectively annuals in my climate but I enjoy them despite their short lives in my garden

In addition to Rudbeckia 'Juliana', I included 2 'Caramel' Petunias and 2 Achillea 'Terracotta'

I've also started to replant some of the areas I cleared in late spring and earlier this summer.

A large empty space was created when we removed a massive clump of 'Blue Flame' Agaves.  After cleaning up the area, I transplanted cuttings of Senecio mandraliscae (aka blue chalk sticks)  I'm not all that fond of the Senecio as the sticks flop about after awhile but they'll serve as a filler for now.

This Agave titanota was buried below the 'Blue Flame' Agaves for years.  It isn't in the best shape but I may give it more space by centering it next to the Senecio to see how it does, at least until I come up with something I like better to fill in the remaining empty space.

I finally got around to planting some of my Aeonium arboreum and A. haworthii 'Kiwi Verde' cuttings in the back border area formerly occupied by Nassella tenuissima (Mexican feather grass), which I removed due to its combustibility.  The succulents will take time to beef up but, based on past experience, at some point I'll be complaining that they've gotten too big.  In the meantime, they'll help keep the soil from eroding if/when we get rain again.  There's still more space to fill there but I'll look for inspiration when fall temperatures allow more options.

I came across these Catharanthus 'Peppermint White' at the garden center and could resist picking up a few to fill an empty space in my front garden.  Although they are a clear violation of my "no summer planting" rule, in my defense Catharanthus had previously proven itself to be remarkably drought tolerant.  Whether it can withstand a serious heatwave is another matter. 

I hope my dahlias make it through this new heatwave unscathed!  Here are photos of the newest blooms.

I included Dahlia 'La Luna' in my Bloom Day post but it wasn't fully open.  Now it is.  The first flowers have just the palest hint of yellow.  Last year, some developed more prominent yellow streaks but I haven't seen any sign of that yet.

Dahlia 'Blue Bell' has also opened more fully since my Bloom Day post

Dahlia 'Excentric', grown from a tuber saved from last year's crop, just produced its first flower in a barrel in partial shade

This is the first flower of Dahlia 'Fairway Spur', also a holdover from last year.  It was formerly one of my favorites but it's looking a little funky and as I recall it produced some deformed blooms like this last year.  I hesitated about planting the saved tuber this year but I had an open spot so I went ahead; however, I remain concerned that whatever caused last year's deformities may be present again.

I hope you're managing any summer stressors you're facing wherever you are.

All material © 2012-2025 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party