Returning to La Conchita, California

When Gerhard and I attended the Bromeliad Summit back in 2019 we stayed at an Airbnb in a small community just south of Santa Barbara called La Conchita. We only had a brief chance to check out the area's gardens (my post here), but I remember it felt like a gardener's paradise and I vowed to return someday to see it all. I did just that last November...

La Conchita is a single exit, unincorporated community, off the US 101 as it hugs the California coastline—literally just a single exit, you have to be heading northbound to take it, there is no southbound exit. Back in 2005 there was a mudslide in the area that killed 10 people, it's been officially declared a geologic hazard area. As if that wasn't enough, fires have repeatedly threatened the area's homes. I think it takes a certain "devil-may-care" attitude to live here.

I drove up and down the ten avenues of La Conchita on the morning of November 20th, stopping to take photos whenever I saw something suitably planty. I would have loved to walk the streets but had to balance that desire against the time it would have taken and the other things further up the coast which I hoped to see that day—driving won.

I pulled over to get a better look at an interesting garden I'd spotted when I realized I'd parked next to a narrow sort of "guerrilla-garden" along a chain link fence at the northern edge of the community. This photo and the two above are of that space...

And here's the garden I'd spotted...

The plants are so abundant they're spilling over and out of the brick wall along the front of the property.

Looking into the small front garden...

And street-side...

Isn't this fantastic? Check out the tillandsia "dripping" off the roof.

Tillandsia are poised to take over the chain-link and bamboo gate as well.

This is best shot I got into the private garden area, yes, I would have loved to see more of this!

Love this plant and planter combination...

There was one on each side of the gate. The plant might be a sarcostemma, I bought an oddity last July at the Oregon Cactus & Succulent Society Show and Sale held at Portland Nursery and it was labeled as such. It looks very similar to these plants.

What an exuberant garden, I walked back to the car with a big smile on my face.

And of course I snapped a few more images of the guerrilla-garden, I bet the gardener responsible for the above garden had taken his or her talents, and extra plants, across the street.