The Answer Is Catalina

Catalina Island, with its 12 inches (30 cm) of rainfall annually is the location of the Wrigley Memorial and Botanical Garden. The island was mostly bought and owned by the chewing gum tycoon Wrigley, who even forced his Chicago Cubs into using the location for their spring baseball training.

With 20 (32 km) miles long by 8 miles wide (13 km) at the maximums, the island is 90% owned and managed by the Catalina Island Conservancy. This nonprofit was set up by the Wrigley family heirs to conserve and preserve the island. Most all is in a natural state, and access outside the town of Avalon is restricted -- like a futuristic scenario, you need a pass to get beyond the fence at the city limits.

Avalon is pedestrian friendly and very walkable (except when a cruise ship dumped its crowd of passengers one day), with the number of cars limited on the island. Most vehicles are golf carts and bicycles.

The garden was started by Ada Wrigley in 1935 as a personal garden containing exotic cactus. It was transformed into a botanical garden by a foundation in 1970 with an emphasis on succulents and cactus, and on the rare endangered plants endemic to Catalina and the other Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California.

Landscaping bedding plants in town done with succulents, agave, and a date palm or two

Dessert Spoon Dasylirion wheeleri

The Wrigley Memorial served as Mr. Wrigley's tomb until he was moved to Forest Lawn Cemetery

Catalina Island Ironwood tree endemic to the island

Closeup of the bark on the Catalina Island Ironwood

The 'Casino' theater, art deco interior with scenes of plants, animals, and activities of the island

Four keyboards on its great theater organ

An excursion trip to the island's interior brought this view looking toward the mainland

Guess Where This Place Is

A few days before an annual out of town convention gave an opportunity for late summer relaxing on a quick vacation near the convention town. Of course, a trip to the local botanical garden was something that I couldn't miss, but almost did. Succulents and cactus were not high on the priority list like snorkeling, kayaking, ghost walks, and hiking. But on the last day having checked off everything else, I headed to the botanical garden. Whoa! I was happily surprised with plants very new to me and weird - like two story high yuccas. Many reminded me of the landscape in the backgrounds of the Flintstones. Does anyone know where this place is? Go ahead and take a guess. No, it is not Bedrock. Let's try some large photos on the blog this time.

Opuntia streptacantha. I think I had one of these growing on my window sill in college, but not as a tree.

Aeonium arboreum. This could be the star of the latest Alien movie. Is this a plant?

Could this be a sunburned aloe?

Furcraea macdougalii. These poor souls from the agave family looked scared.

Dracaena draco. This is a dragon tree - no one can figure out why it's called that. :-)

Crassula falcata. One of the only flowering specimens in the garden.

Acacia decurrens or Green Wattle. Ah, finally. A tree with leaves. Leaves?

Sunburn anyone? A 5-foot tall (1.5 m) aloe can help.

And one last cactus, only 6-feet tall (1.8 m) because I believe it fell over.