Don't fall for this gimmick!

This time of year, Home Depot can reveal some succulent and cactus treasures and other times, they'll shock you with horrible gimmicks like these below.

Behold The Kosmik cactus! A.K.A. Cacti that have been spray painted or dyed neon colors to fool the unsuspecting buyer! What a load of crap! I feel so bad for these little guys!

These "Kosmik" colors include like neon pink, aqua, neon yelow and electric blue. If you see these in person, look closely at the spines, you'll see the color has adhered to the white spines and has also saturated the green skin beneath. The tag even mentions that "new spines emerge as a glistening white or gleaming yellow" which clearly tells you that this color was merely spray painted on top.

It's horrible to think that they sprayed these little guys with chemicals. In this photo, it looks like some people bought them and check out the little balls of color left behind. It gives you an idea of how unnatural this collection is. Don't buy them and don't encourage this trick! So, what does a normal "thimble cactus" actually look like?

Like this. WHITE spines and if you treat them nice, they'll even have darling, little delicate flowers! While cactus are definitely exotic looking plants, these neon colors just don't exist in real life.

And while I'm on the subject, Home Depot is also known to sell cacti with glued on flowers. It looks like this:

The colors on the flower seem about right seem right. It even looks like what a cactus flower would do. At first, if you're not knowledgeable about cacti, you might think it's real (and hey, I've bought some before!) But on closer inspection. It's just a dyed, dry flower that has been HOT GLUED to the plant! After a while, the cactus will grow and the flower will fall off leaving you with an ugly glob of hard glue stuck between the spines. It will be unsightly and impossible to remove. Your poor plant will live with this glob for years. :(

What do cacti flowers ACTUALLY look like?

Cactus flowers emerge from a tubular stem that can be either green or the color of the petals. The flower itself can come in variety of shades and usually has a VERY silky feel to the touch. (Not dry and brittle like the fake flowers.) 

So, if you see a flower at Home Depot on your cactus, look carefully at the base. You can usually see the glue!

Don't pay extra for a gimmick. Don't encourage this foul business trick!

Best sand box ever! :)

We finally did it!  These photos were taken at the crack of noon.  My wife and I moved 15 tons of 3/8" pea gravel from our driveway into the backyard and it looks amazing.  I was so excited to see it today for the first time in day light that I didn't even bother to run around to trim off excess pieces of landscape fabric around some edges or tidy up the mounds of extra gravel before photographing.  What can I say.  I'm a gardener, not a perfectionist.  I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking.

My desert roses have been in bloom since early June, and they're still going.

Here's what it looked like before the metamorphosis.

Xeriscaping Ninjas

Xeri is Greek for dry. Xeriscaping refers to a method of landscape design that minimizes water use.

We decided that our main goal was to create a beautiful garden without using as much water. Saving water is saving money, and our local law doesn't let us water often enough to keep the grass consistently green anyways.

We are ninja because we work in the night. Our neighbors wake up and see something new every once in a while. We thought it was a more fun than being Gnomes anyway.

Our first landscaping call to adventure comes from the need to improve our front yard. During a big rain storm, one giant branch from our Maple tree fell on the garage roof and put a two feet wide hole through the shingles. After I patched the roof up we saw that the tree was hollowed out by a gigantic bee hive. We didn't want to maintain the giant maple so we hired professionals to remove it. Then it was time to do some landscaping!

Other than looking at our parent's homes for inspiration and ideas, I bought some books to learn about drought tolerant plants. My favorite three are Designing with Succulents and Succulent Container Gardens by Debra Lee Baldwin, and Desert Gardens by Gary Lyons. These books were essential to teaching me not only what the names of each plants were, but also how to care for them, and how to display them in a setting. In addition, we looked at everyone's yard that we drove past. We looked at how businesses and schools had their landscape designed and looked at their plant selections.

My wife bought us a one year family membership to the Huntington Botanical Gardens. The funny thing is that one of my friend's father is the current curator for their Desert Garden. This happens to be the most important Desert Garden in the world!

We visited there often and took lots of photos and notes. This place was our main source of inspiration for designing our own private desert garden in the front yard. Our next step was to make a list of plants that we absolutely loved and had to use. We tried to choose plants with different shapes, sizes, textures, and colors. My wife wanted a very vibrant and colorful landscape design and I agreed. So we decided to use orange and blue because we loved this set of complimentary colors. The other options were red and green, or yellow and purple. Our main blue plant is senecio mandraliscae (blue chalk sticks) which we decided to place in the front and contrast it against our main orange plant which was euphorbia tirucalli (sticks on fire), the smaller shrubby form that often shows more orange. The plan was to place this orange plant in the back. There were two other plants we immediately knew that we must have, the Krauter Vesuvius (purple leaf plum) and the manzanita native to our area of Southern California. Both are very drought tolerant once established in the ground. The other plants we chose were more flexible depending on our budget.
So off to the drawing board I went! Here's what I came up with.





The next stage is plant aquisition, materials, budgeting, and construction. We needed plants, edging, and gravel. I provided the labor. We were on a shoe-string budget so we had to be flexible when it came to the secondary plants choices in our drawn out plan. More on this later.

2011 Annual Plant Sale at the Huntington Library

Win and I joined the army of other plant enthusiasts Saturday morning for the Huntington Botanical Garden's Annual Plant Sale. It was ALARMING at how incredibly long that line becomes at 10:30 a.m.! (They don't kid around when they tell you to arrive as early as 8 a.m. if you REALLY want first dibs!)

The plant sale is set-up right at the entrance giving it perfect access to the parking lot. This makes toting your plants home alot easier. I found the event to be very well organized. They even set-up a "holding area" for non purchased plants in case you feel like visiting the main gardens before heading home at the end of the day.

It seemed alot smaller than I expected, but the selection was unbelievable. I do suggest doing research on what you really want for your home and garden prior to visiting. Dilly dally too much, and someone will definitely snatch up the good specimens! They had separated areas for plant types: cactus/succulent tables, herbs & edibles, bromeliads/air-plants/orchids, annuals, perennials, shrubs, etc. After getting the lay of the land, it was easy to navigate the floor.



Try not to freeze in shock upon entering. You might waste precious time!


Roses to whet your appetite. These are a HUGE seller. Judging by the color variations alone, I can't blame them.


Look at the head on this one. Lovely.


Azaleas in bloom. I had to resist bringing a gallon home.


Edibles and noms! I kill fragile, edible plants, so I stayed away. They did, however, offer "Chocolate Mint!" I carried this plant around for a while before I wistfully put it back.
In case you're hoping to go next year, here are a few tips:
1. Bring a cart! Don't have one? No worries! We saw wheelbarrows, library book carts, tea carts, radio flyers, a dolly with plastic bins bungee corded to it. ::eyebrow raised?:: Pretty much, if it's on wheels and you can cart away your purchases on it, it's A-OK! The only trick is maneuvering yourself around tables and plants while not running into people's ankles.
1.5. DOH! Forgot your cart? No worries! They have a stack of boxes at the entrance for your shopping needs. Great for toting around smaller plants.
2. They do take credit card, so don't fret if you couldn't make it to an ATM!
3. Not sure if you like that plant? Cart it around for a while and give it some thought. If you walk away from a plant, it might not be there a few minutes later! If you decide against a purchase, just go put it back where you found it. (All of the plants come from the Huntington! You can pick up a plant and visit a different table if necessary. There's only one check-out and exit area, anyway. So, don't think you look suspicious leaving the table with a plant in hand!)
4. Some of the table volunteers aren't plant experts! Ask for the curator who might be around (and available) to answer your questions.
5. Bring a snack and some water! If you plan on being die-hard to stand in line at 8 a.m. before walking around at the sale, chances are you'll get hungry and thirsty!
6. Don't underestimate the size of your vehicle! They sell everything from large golden barrel cactus to Japanese Red Maple trees! Make sure your vehicle has proper storage room for your taller or wider purchases.



What is up with the colors on this one? Fantastic! (Cleistocactus Ferrari)

Win and I did come home with new treasures, but that's a post for another day. :)