The UC Santa Cruz Arboretum and Botanic Garden... everything else

The night before our visit to the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum and Botanic Garden, we stayed at the Seacliff Inn, in Aptos, just 10 miles away (I want to say south, but the way the coast bends it actually ends up being east). Anyway, there were tree ferns...

I thought this meant I'd be seeing them at the UC Santa Cruz Botanic Garden. Nope. Not a single one. Dicksonia antarctica (which I think these are?) are from Australia, and there's an entire Australian section at the garden. Curious.

Also at the hotel, mounted staghorns under a roof overhang in the outdoor dining area.  At a distance I thought they looked fabulous.

Up close I realized they were fake.

To the garden now, and the area designated as the Succulent Garden...agaves, and aloes and yucca... oh my!

This area was very light on identification signage, which was fine. It was kind nice to just enjoy the plants without cataloguing their names.

A Dasylirion maybe? Perhaps D. wheeleri?

A gnarly old Kumara plicatilis (aka Aloe plicatilis).

Agave victoriae-reginae

Agave shawii

Agave macroacantha

From the Succulent Garden we could see the Future Garden exhibit. We didn't venture any closer since I wasn't sure this part of the garden was open, and I wanted to spend the time we had looking at plants, not worrying about the future.

Looking out at the ocean...

Blooming Mangave? Agave? Not sure.

Another Kumara plicatilis.

Venturing into the New Zealand Garden now...

Rhopalostylis sapida, I believe. The only palm native to mainland New Zealand.

Cordyline, with the remnants of a phormium bloom coming in from the right side.

Astelia! This was interesting, seeing them so overgrown and grass-like.

Interesting happenings off in the distance...

Suncatchers, by John Hylton (more info here).

Colorful cordylines in the distance.

And I'm wrapping up this week-long series with another suncatcher, or maybe sunbather is a better term?

I've long wanted to visit the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum and Botanic Garden and I'm so happy to have finally had the opportunity.

The Bit at the End

Enjoy this delicious blog post (from Panayoti Kelaidis director of outreach at the Denver Botanic Garden) chronicling Jon Kaplan's Berkeley, CA, garden; here. I have not been, but hope to visit sometime soon. If you've visited Dan Hinkley's Windcliff booth at Hortlandia the last couple of years then you may have met Jon, as he's driven up to help Dan sell plants.

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