Debra Lee Baldwin

Debra authored the Timber Press bestsellers, Designing with Succulents and Succulent Container Gardens. She is an award-winning garden-and-design writer with hundreds of articles and columns to her credit. Debra covered homes, gardens, architecture and interior design for the San Diego Union-Tribune for years, scouts for Sunset magazine, and contributes to all the major gardening magazines.

Her website is filled with plenty of gardening information and inspiration, and is an excellent source of information on succulents. Meet Debra in person when she’s in your area—see her Book Tour Schedule. She also has a new website that celebrates container gardening with succulents: www.succulentchic.net.

Join her at LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter @DebraLBaldwin.

That’s an Aloe cameronii rosette I’m holding. Right before I had this photo taken (by professional photographer Terri Rippee) I realized I needed a prop. Since we were doing the author shot for Succulent Container Gardens, I stopped by the garden to grab a succulent. I hesitated before yanking this particular aloe out of the ground; it was a cutting that had rooted nicely. But the color is spectacular—some aloes turn red in full sun, and Aloe cameronii is the best. Afterwards, I tucked it back into the garden, and it has looked the same ever since. Succulents are amazingly resilient. If only more were frost-tolerant! But that’s what inspired the new book—anyone, anywhere can grow these marvelous plants in containers, which can be overwintered indoors.

I love all kinds of plants, not just succulents, as well as touring gardens and taking photos. I sigh with delight whenever I see a flower I haven’t seen before. I become transported when I visit a well-designed landscape. One secret of happiness is to live fully in the present, and I am never more in the moment as when looking at a plant or garden with a camera. There’s something about framing a composition that is all-consuming. It’s creative and spontaneous. You never know when you’ll get lucky and the light will be magic.

My area—Southern California—is a region of infinite gardening possibilities. We really do live in paradise, wildfires and droughts notwithstanding. I tell friends, as we stroll through my never-flawless garden, that you can spend a month creating a perfect room in your house, from floor to ceiling, and if you close the door and come back six months later, that room will look the same. You can spend months making your garden perfect, and overnight—thanks to a windstorm or freeze or whatever—it’ll be a wreck. So, why do we bother? What is it that makes us wild about gardens and gardening? For the answer, all you have to do is look back through GGW postings, and surf the links to other gardening blogs.

It’s the beauty. It’s the creativity. It’s the joy of seeing something we ran across at a nursery grow, bloom and reproduce. Oh! Don’t you have to go outdoors, RIGHT NOW and see what’s going on in your garden?

I do. But I’ll be back soon.

– Debra Lee Baldwin

Debra’s Gardening Gone Wild photo essays include:

April Fool’s Garden photos

Nasturtium Nostalgia

Tiny Vases