Tour of my 2025 Garden, Part One

It's tour time! A look back at the 2025 version of my garden with photos taken on September 3rd. We start in the front garden, I'm standing on the public sidewalk, at the end of our driveway, looking to the northwest—our home faces east.

Two things come to mind looking at this photo 1) I took these pics before I gave up and dug out the dying Agave ovatifolia at the far left, 2) I need to stop thinking of the crows and go ahead and cut off that random branch of the Arctostaphylos x 'Austin Griffiths' that juts off to the left. The crows and scrub jays use it as a perch, they're so cute sitting there watching the world go by, but that branch is annoying!

I used to love to share the straight on view of the house but now that it's screened it off, well, not so much—nobody except the neighbors across the street see this angle anyway. The image at the top of this post is the real "arrival" shot.

The base of Arctostaphylos x 'Austin Griffiths' with an Agave parryi 'JC Raulston' and it's pups. I should note that the groundcover is Juniperus conferta 'Blue Pacific'. It has gotten very thick in places.

Arctostaphylos 'Monica' and more 'JC Raulston' as well as an Agave ovatifolia. The smokey haze of a shrub on the right is Corokia cotoneaster.

Fruit on the Corokia, it was covered in small yellow stars (blooms) earlier in the summer.

Another Agave parryi 'JC Raulston' as well as another Agave ovatifolia. These poor plants are stunted from lack of summer water and a little more shade than they would like.

Legs of my third Arctostaphylos, A. densiflora ‘Harmony’.

Now I've walked up the north side of our front garden (via the neighbor's driveway), and I'm looking at the front of the house.

Agave ovatifolia 'Frosty Blue', Yucca rostrata 'Sapphire Skies', and in between the agaves a volunteer Euphorbia rigida.

Citrus trifoliata (aka Poncirus trifoliata) across from the agaves. It's a spiky corridor...

Stepping further into the planting, and the view up the street. Yes the neighbor's lawns have gone dormant in our summer-dry climate. They're all green again now as I type, in January.

On the left side of the front steps.

A tall volunteer Tetrapanax papyrifer on the right (and a shorter one on the left), a Yucca rostrata in the container, two Agave parryi in the front, Agave 'Baccarat' behind them, and a small NoID agave on the front right.

Microcachrys tetragona, the creeping strawberry pine—a Tasmanian conifer in the podocarp family.

A pulled back shot.

On the right side of the steps, cozied up next to one of the Agave ovatifolia, are two dry-land ferns; Bommeria hispida and Pleopeltis lepidopteris 'Morro dos Conventos'. There's another of the Pleopeltis in a container behind the Agave parryi.

This is the view if you were standing on the front porch, with your back to the house. The V shape is an Edgeworthia chrysantha in a container, a gift from a friend who rooted a cutting from her plant.

The two Dasylirion wheeleri help to screen the small containers from view of people on the public sidewalk. I've always been nervous to put potted plants out where they're easily stolen (we get a lot of foot-traffic passing by) but slowly I've given in to my larger desire to see these plants from inside the house.

The fern is Pellaea atropurpurea (purple cliffbrake)

From a different angle...

Semponium ‘Sienna’—Semponium are a cross between Sempervivum and Aeonium—the hardiness of these plants hasn't been thoroughly tested, but I've left mine in the ground to do just that (these plus two other types of semponium), to see how they do. Not that this winter has really been a test, so far the coldest temperature we've seen here is 26F, and only very briefly.

Looking backwards as I walk down the sidewalk towards the driveway.

The graveled V between the sidewalk and the driveway is the newly changed up area (last spring) that I wrote about in this post. I am still fighting Yucca filamentosa sprouts, and expect that I will be for years to come, but I am happy I made the change.

That's a Edgeworthia chrysantha behind the Yucca rostrata.

The newly planted space is a mix of ferns and agaves. It's very sparingly planted by my standards, but I wanted to make it easy to pull (or spray, at this point I'm okay with a little chemical warfare) the yucca sprouts. I'm already scheming on planting more things this spring.

Moving a few feet towards the house, this is the land of Aloe aristata, and friends.

A look back out over the front garden...

And now we've walked up to the area at the end of the driveway; in front of the garage door, just outside the backdoor to the house, and at the entrance to the back garden. This is also my hottest, sunniest spot in the garden and where my crop tanks are located.

Sour gherkins, Melothria scabra. So good...

Physalis pruinosa 'Aunt Molly's', aka ground cherries. Delicious!

In addition to the edible crops and the stems grown for cutting, there are (obviously) many sun and heat-loving containers grouped in this area. 

Come back on Friday when we go through the agave-gate into the back garden...

The Bit at the End

Thanks to my friend Heather for sharing this horrid tale of Los Angeles area agaves being chopped and slashed. It's an agave lover's worst nightmare.

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An unplanned trip to California

We lost Andrew's mom on Christmas Eve. She wasn't sick, when she said goodnight to family after dinner there was no indication she wouldn't be joining them Christmas morning. It was a shock to say the least. Following our return from the Christmas trip to Spokane, Andrew drove down to Thousand Oaks, CA, to help settle the estate, I flew down a little over a week later for her funeral. We stayed there for a few days, and then took a rambling route driving home.

We stopped in Santa Barbara for a wander through Terra Sol...

Then drove up to Santa Cruz and the UCSC Arboretum and Botanic Garden, someplace I've long wanted to visit and was thrilled to finally get to see, although of course the reason for being able to visit tempered the mood.

The many South African Protea and Leucadendron were what I was most looking forward to. Like this stunning Leucadendron argenteum...

But the quantity and beauty of their many Australian Banksia are what I was most impressed by.

Banksia speciosa

Before we left Santa Cruz I wanted to get a better look at the city so we drove around a bit, as soon as I saw this I was transported back to 1987 and The Lost Boys. 

Serious déjà vu!

I had no idea the movie was filmed in Santa Cruz (fictionalized as Santa Carla) and was shocked at my immediate reaction. Who knew that movie was still floating around in my head?

Our next garden-related stop was the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek. Andrew had never been, and even though I was there last March I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to visit again.

Since Gerhard (and his garden) were on our way home we made a stop there too. The visit was all too short (just a couple of hours) but included lunch and a garden walkabout.

The blooms on Gerhard's many aloes were oh so close to opening...

There will be future posts on each of these stops (and a few other things), but for now there is a haul to share. You knew I'd be writing about my haul right?

Let's start in the center of the above photo, with the three agaves on the white plastic lid. Yes they're Agave americana, yes that species is basically a big spiky weed, but they aren't common up here in my part of the world. When I saw this clump growing next to a bonsai studio we stopped at (yes, there will be a post) I asked the gentleman we were talking with if I could take a couple. 

He managed to not laugh when he said to go ahead (what crazy person wants one of those!?!). Interestingly the ones on the edge were growing right up through the asphalt.

Luckily Andrew was up for the task of removal.

The plants in the plastic tub are an unknown Stapelia, I'm guessing either S. grandiflora or S. gigantea, they were my mother-in-law's. Shirley was not a plant lover, or someone that even particularly enjoyed being outside. I remember being surprised when I saw this plant at her place when we visited years back, I wish I would have asked why she chose it, it's not an especially "pretty" plant (but I love it).

She had two large containers of them, too large to haul all the way home and they were in kind of rough shape anyway. I cut off the parts that looked good (a few came with roots) and will pot them up. 

The saguaro can was also Shirley's, we aren't sure if it came with her from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico—where she lived before moving to Thousand Oaks—or if she acquired it in California.

Gerhard, being the generous soul he is, sent me on my way with three pups from his "nursery," a variegated Agave geminiflora...

Agave parrasana (this one will go in the ground in the spring).

And this gorgeous Hechtia 'Wildfire', a hybrid by Andy Siekkinen. It was potted when he handed it to me, but shortly after that it attached itself to Andrew's shirt and popped right out of it's pot.

Next up, this metal basket from Terra Sol. Perhaps the very same thing could have been purchased here in Portland, but I saw it, the price was good, and I was inspired...so it became mine. 

They had an interesting selection of accessories at Terra Sol. The chain hangers were tempting, as were the terracotta pots (one of them is the same style I purchased from Flora Grubb back in '24).

These baskets were actually larger than the one I chose, they had five different sizes to chose from.

Here's what inspired me to purchase the wire basket, a display just a few feet away. I stared long and hard at a 3-tier shelf that had been lined with moss (or a coir basket liner) and then planted up with bromeliads, ferns, succulents, and who knows what all.

I'm envisioning my wire basket lined with moss (green Oregon moss) and planted up with ferns and bromeliads. There will be ferns growing out the side of course, because that's the best part. Perhaps I'll ditch the bromeliads for something hardy, that way I could leave the planting out year-round. Hmmm, lots to think about.

Next up in the haul, and also from Terra Sol, Russelia equisetiformis 'Yellow'. I've keep the red one alive since June '24 and I've coveted the yellow one even longer.

From Waltzing Matilija Nursery, purchased at the Ruth Bancroft Garden, Banksia blechnifolia.

I've grown this before, and wanted to try another one, ever since seeing it growing happily in a container in Dana Cromie's garden in Vancouver, BC. Funny thing though, when I looked up my prior post(s) about growing it (to check the date, 2014) it turns out I've attempted to grow it twice before! Ugh. Poor thing, third time's the charm though, right?

Last up, Blechnum gibbum 'Silver Lady', a dwarf tree fern. Thanks to my friends at Little Prince of Oregon I already have a small one of these, but the opportunity to have a larger one with a bit of a trunk (and at bargain price from Armstrong Garden Center) was impossible to resist.  

So, that's it for now on the California trip, but there will be several future posts!

The Bit at the End

The UC Santa Cruz Arboretum does have a New Zealand collection, but honestly I found it a little underwhelming. For a better look at the county's flora I've signed up for Emily Joseph's webinar via the Hardy Fern Foundation: Aotearoa: A Horticultural Journey Into New Zealand’s Land of the Long White Cloud. It's on February 26th, but there will be a recording sent out that you can watch at your convenience, and you don't have to be a HFF member to sign up! (more info here)

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All material © 2009-2026 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.