My Favorite Plants
Cacti and succulents, herbs, native plants of the West.
Plants Currently in My Garden
My garden here in Palm Springs lives in a tropical desert and I strive to grow as wide a diversity of species as will tolerate our extreme summer heat. It was influenced by my mentor, Clark Moorten of Moorten Botanical Garden in town here. He is a collector of cacti and succulents. I maintain a huge collection of my own cacti and succulents, many rare and propagated from Clark's world class collection. But I also grow desert perennials in a cottage garden.
I love to garden, because....
Gardening and the plant kingdom roots us into the earth. Plants also define locale more than anything else, and they have history with every culture, linking me in my little piece of ground with humanity around the globe.
Biggest Gardening Challenge
Here in Palm Springs it is unquestionably the extreme desert heat which can reach 120 degrees in the summer but averages about 110 for July and August.
If I'm not gardening, I can be found:
Riding my quarter horse Sassy out into the wildlands of the desert outside town, whhere trails go on FOREVER. I also escape the heat by going horse camping in the mountains during the summer.
Other Hobbies
I have always been creative and though my time is split between garden, horse and work, when there is leftover time I love to create glass mosaics which adorn my garden.
Today begins my favorite holiday, not that of Halloween but a three day ritual celebration of the beloved who have passed away. It is a combination of ancient Aztec belief in the afterlife and Roman Catholic rites of All Saints and All Souls. It is believed that the veil separating life and death is temporarily drawn aside to allow the dead to visit the living for this brief time.
The first night the dead who passed the previous year are honored, the second night all those who died as babies or children, and finally the last night all the dead are honored.
Each family erects an altar in their home commemorating the deceased with Tagetes marigolds that are said to guide the wandering souls back home. The offrenda consists of anything the dead once loved such as special dishes,
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