Category: Events

presented by Kyle Johnson and Gerhard Bock

Want a climate-resilient, modern, water-wise succulent garden but don’t know where to start? Think you need to visit specialty nurseries to find plant material for your design? Think again!

Join us for an inspiring presentation and learn how to create a stunning landscape using affordable and accessible succulents from your local big-box store. We’ll demystify the process from start to finish, showing you how to:

• Choose the winners: Learn the secrets to spotting the best plants and which common varieties to look for.
• Design like a pro: Discover simple design principles for combining colors, textures, and shapes to create eye-catching arrangements in pots or garden beds. Think rocks!
• Be inspired: See inspiring examples of using big-box store succulents in the landscape.

Whether you’re a beginner or a budget-savvy gardener, you’ll leave with the confidence and knowledge to turn a simple shopping cart of plants into a showstopping, low-maintenance garden display.

SCSS members Kyle Johnson and Gerhard Bock have created spectacular succulent landscapes in their own gardens. Many plants are from low-cost sources like Lowe’s and The Home Depot. To see photos of both their gardens, visit Gerhard’s
blog, Succulents and More.

Disclaimer: Although this talk is on big-box plant acquisition, we highly recommend starting at your local nurseries, where your dollars will stay local, supporting your community and neighbors. Additionally, local nursery folks can help guide you in your plant selection.

presented by Ernesto Sandoval

Ernesto Sandoval has grown South African bulbs and geophytes for many years, both professionally and privately. He wants to share some of his experiences with this beautiful and diverse set of plants, particularly concerning propagation and cultivation. Mostly, through the use of gorgeous photos, he wants to convince us to grow more of these fascinating plants in our gardens with little effort (free winter rainfall) to bring a little more color into our gardens during the winter months!

Ernesto Sandoval has been pondering and seeking answers to the question of why plants grow and look the way they do for nearly 40 years. He regularly lectures to various Western Garden Clubs throughout the year. Desert plants are his particular passion. He describes himself as a “Jose of All Plants, Master of None” and loves learning from the experiences and passions of others and his own.

When he was about 13, he asked his dad why one tree was pruned a particular way and another tree another way. His dad answered bluntly, “Because that’s how you do it.” Since then he’s been learning and teaching himself the answers to those and many other questions by getting a degree at UC Davis in Botany and working from student weeder/waterer to Director over the last 30 years at the UC Davis Botanical Conservatory. He is now a Graduate Student getting his Masters in Horticulture and Agronomy at UC Davis with a focus on the propagation and cultivation of drought-adapted plants.

Ernesto will have bulbs from Barry Rice for sale, including Oxalis palmifrons, Nerine sarniensis, Ixia, Trachandra tortilis, Albuca spiralis, Lachenalia aloides var. quadricolor, Haemanthus coccineus and others, to name a few.

presented by Kyle Johnson and Gerhard Bock

Want a climate-resilient, modern, water-wise succulent garden but don’t know where to start? Think you need to visit specialty nurseries to find plant material for your design? Think again!

Join us for an inspiring presentation and learn how to create a stunning landscape using affordable and accessible succulents from your local big-box store. We’ll demystify the process from start to finish, showing you how to:

• Choose the winners: Learn the secrets to spotting the best plants and which common varieties to look for.
• Design like a pro: Discover simple design principles for combining colors, textures, and shapes to create eye-catching arrangements in pots or garden beds. Think rocks!
• Be inspired: See inspiring examples of using big-box store succulents in the landscape.

Whether you’re a beginner or a budget-savvy gardener, you’ll leave with the confidence and knowledge to turn a simple shopping cart of plants into a showstopping, low-maintenance garden display.

SCSS members Kyle Johnson and Gerhard Bock have created spectacular succulent landscapes in their own gardens. Many plants are from low-cost sources like Lowe’s and The Home Depot. To see photos of both their gardens, visit Gerhard’s
blog, Succulents and More.

Disclaimer: Although this talk is on big-box plant acquisition, we highly recommend starting at your local nurseries, where your dollars will stay local, supporting your community and neighbors. Additionally, local nursery folks can help guide you in your plant selection.