𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵

@davidleegardens

Plant grower & propagator • Digital Experience Builder Orchids • Succulents • Houseplants • Xeriscaping • Vegetables • Philosophy • History 📍Inland East Bay, CA • Zone 9b, hot-summer Mediterranean 🏳️‍🌈He/him (more or less💁‍♂️)

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𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· 22d

New seeds. I couldn’t help myself. 😅🌱

Four Everwilde Farms seed packets arranged in a 2×2 grid on a dark surface. The packets are for Desert Marigold (Baileya multiradiata), Oregon Sunshine (Eriophyllum lanatum), Creeping Thyme (Thymus serpyllum), and Eaton’s Penstemon (Penstemon eatonii). These are the latest additions to my growing seed collection. I’m especially looking forward to trying the drought-tolerant native wildflowers in some of the more natural areas of my garden, while the creeping thyme may become a low-growing groundcover in spots closer to the house.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· 23d

It never gets old waking up to another round of Echinopsis flowers. 🤍🌵 #BloomScrolling #PlantSky #Cactus

A cluster of five white flowers opens simultaneously on an Echinopsis cactus in a gravel garden. Layers of long, pointed petals surround pale yellow-green centers are light by morning light. Echinopsis flowers often open overnight and each bloom lasts only about a day, making mornings like this especially rewarding. Five flowers open at once create a wonderful display.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· 28d

Cleistocactus means ‘closed cactus,’ named for the long, tubular flowers common in the genus. Cleistocactus winteri puts on quite the show when those blooms finally open. 🌵🧡 #BloomScrolling

Close-up of an orange flower on Cleistocactus winteri (formerly Hildewintera aureispina). The flower emerges from a stem covered in golden spines, a feature reflected in its former species name, aureispina, meaning “golden-spined.” Like many species in the genus, its long tubular flowers are adapted for hummingbird pollination.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· 28d

Well… that’s one way to get my attention. 😳 I just found what looks like the biggest jumping spider I’ve ever seen, and it was holding a yellowjacket.

Two photos of a large black jumping spider on a variegated euphorbia. I first spotted it while looking out my window and had to go outside for a closer look. The spider appeared unusually large and was holding a freshly captured yellowjacket. The close-up shows its iridescent green chelicerae (mouthparts) and a white spot on its abdomen as it grips its prey.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jul 5

Closer view of flower clusters. The plant has been blooming for weeks.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jul 5

Little pink blooms on this friendship plant.

Photo shows Pilea involucrata, commonly called friendship plant, with deeply textured fuzzy green and dark bronze leaves. Tiny pale pink flower clusters bloom from the center against a softly blurred background.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jul 5

Adding these abominations to your #BloomScrolling

A grocery store flower display filled with bouquets of rainbow-dyed roses.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 29

Lots of flowers on this streptocarpus 💜

A blooming Streptocarpus with pale violet flowers and yellow throats in my plant room.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 29

Little 🐝🐝 in a 🌹

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 27

If it were me, I would cut around where you see the blue scribble. Then just remove the bottom yellowing leaves on the other stem (pink lines).

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 27

First pumpkin of the season: a Blue Jarrahdale that volunteered from last year’s planting.

Close-up photo of a Blue Jarrahdale pumpkin growing on the vine, resting on dry straw-like mulch beneath large green leaves. This is my first pumpkin of the season, and it appeared especially early because it was a volunteer seedling. It likely came from seeds I planted last year, with one seed remaining in the soil through last summer and over the winter before sprouting on its own early this spring.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 26

First tomatoes of the season! 🍅🍅🍅

Several red and green compari tomatoes in a green plastic tomato cage growing in my garden. These were the first to ripen.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 26

Remembering Alan Turing this Pride Month: a brilliant mathematician who helped defeat fascism and shape modern computing, then was persecuted by his own government for being gay. Pride is celebration, but it is also remembrance. 🏳️‍🌈

Black and white photo of Alan Turing where I think he looks quite fetching.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 26

A first-time bloom to brighten the timeline. Hope everyone is having a good Friday! 🌵

A seed-grown Lophophora williamsii in a small black pot, held among a collection of cacti. The round blue-green cactus has two pink flowers with yellow centers.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 25

This week I watched Storm Center (1956), starring Bette Davis as a librarian who refuses to remove a book about communism from the library. It’s interesting how often history repeats itself. I wish we were better at learning from the past and the lessons previous generations already learned.

Screenshot from the 1956 film Storm Center, starring Bette Davis as librarian Alicia Hull. She stands before the town library as it burns, while firefighters struggle to contain the blaze.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 25

Think pink!

Several large, vivid pink flowers open on an Echinopsis ‘Rainbow Bursts’ cactus in a sunny rock garden, surrounded other cacti, succulents, and stones.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 25

Apparently Gerbera daisies come in extra large now. #BloomScrolling

Two enormous, orange Gerbera daisy blooms, one resting against my open hand for scale.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 23

A satirical recreation of John William Waterhouse’s 1903 painting Echo and Narcissus, with Donald Trump portrayed as Narcissus gazing at his reflection.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 23

Close up

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 23

Quite the showstopper. And the flowers aren’t bad either. 😏

I stand beside a tall Mangave ‘Mission to Mars’ flower spike displayed in a vase, with clusters of small flowers rising above the foliage.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 23

A few blooms from the #cactus collection today. #PlantSky #BloomScrolling

A group of potted cacti from the genera Lophophora, Echinopsis, Astrophytum, and Matucana from my private collection. A large white Echinopsis flower rises above, while several round Lophophora cacti in a yellow planter have small pink flowers.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 22

Here are this years cactus and succulent seedlings 🌱

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 20

This is what a wild California native rose looks like. It’s remarkable how far centuries of plant breeding have taken the rose.

A pale pink flower of California wild rose, Rosa californica, held gently among its small serrated green leaves. The open flower has five petals and a prominent center of yellow stamens, with an older fading bloom beside it.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 17

Not every cactus needs spines to make an impression. This is the spineless form of Mammillaria polythele in bloom.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 16

The grafted cactus takes on some characteristics of the rootstock. Grafting a slow-growing cactus onto a fast-growing one can dramatically speed up its growth. These two are the same type and were started at the same time, but the ungrafted one is much smaller.

The cactus on the left is the cactus I shared earlier in the video. The flowers are now closed as the sun is going down. The cactus on the right in a black square pot is the same type of cactus that was started from seed at the same time as the grafted one, but this cactus that was growing on its own rootstock is significantly smaller than the grafted one. This is because the root stock is a much faster growing variety of cactus.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 16

I see it!

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 16

I’m not very experienced with grafting, but here’s a Gymnocalycium I successfully grafted onto a Pilosocereus a couple of years ago. I love the flowers.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 11

From the cactus garden today. 97°F / 36°C and still blooming.

A small Mammillaria cactus clump in my cactus garden, covered in golden spines with tiny pink flowers blooming around the stems. The plant is growing in gravel with rocks and other desert plants softly blurred behind it.

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞 🌵@davidleegardens· Jun 10

Here's the full plant. Dasylirion flower spikes can get quite tall, and this is the first time this one has bloomed.