Tree Aeonium doesn’t look like much in its summer dormancy

The lush, green of spring has officially left the building. In its place? Some of our absolute favorite succulents are starting to look, well… kind of haggard.

If you have Aeoniums (those gorgeous, rosette-forming beauties) sitting out in the full afternoon sun, you might be looking at them with a sense of creeping dread. Right now, many of them have probably dropped almost all their lower leaves, leaving nothing but long, bare, woody stems with a small, fist of red or purplish leaves clinging to the very tip.

Aeonium aroborium in its summer dormancy stage

Your first instinct might be to panic, grab the garden hose, and drown them in water to “save” them.

My advice? Drop the hose and step away from the plant. Let’s talk about why your succulents are actually acting brilliant right now.

The Summer Nap: Understanding Succulent Dormancy

Here’s the secret that big-box nurseries don’t always print on the plastic plant tags: many succulents don’t grow year-round. In fact, a huge portion of them do the exact opposite of what traditional garden plants do. They go completely dormant in the dead of summer.

Aeoniums, Dudleya (our beautiful California natives), Senecio (like Blue Chalksticks), and Cotyledon evolved in dry, quasi-desert climates with hot, bone-dry summers and cool, wet winters. When the temperature spikes in July, these plants hit the pause button.

To protect themselves from drying out, they pull off a pretty incredible survival trick:

1. They drop their lower leaves to reduce the surface area that loses water to evaporation.
2. They curl their remaining leaves inward into tight, dense cups to shield their growing core from the intense sun.
3. They slow their metabolism to a near-complete halt.

Those long, bare stems with the tiny red fists at the end? That isn’t a dying plant. That’s a healthy, highly adapted plant going into power-saver mode. The red color is actually a natural “sunscreen” (anthocyanin) the plant produces to protect itself from UV rays.

Aeonium in winter (L) versus summer (R)

The Golden Rule: Don’t Feed the Sleepers

Watering a dormant succulent is the gardening equivalent of dumping a bucket of ice water on someone while they are fast asleep. It doesn’t help them; it just shocks the system.

Because the plant’s roots have essentially gone to sleep for the season, they aren’t drinking. If you dump water into the soil right now, that moisture just sits there. Combined with hot summer soil, it’s the perfect breeding ground for fungal pathogens. You will literally cook and rot the roots.

The Summer Rule of Thumb: From July through September, let your Aeoniums and winter-growing succulents rest. Give them a splash of water maybe once every few weeks just to keep the soil from turning into literal concrete, but otherwise, leave them alone. They’ll wake up, open up, and explode with fresh green growth the second the weather cools down and the rains arrive in late autumn.

When It’s Actual Damage: Sunburn vs. Heat Stress

Now, there is a difference between a plant that is happily sleeping and one that is actively getting baked. Here is how to read your succulent’s body language right now:

Heat Stress (Totally Fine)

A jade plant changes leaf color to protect from the summer sun

• What it looks like: Deepening colors. Green echeverias turning bright pink on the edges; aeoniums turning dark burgundy or red; jade plants getting orange-red tips.
• The Verdict: This is normal and highly desirable! Stress colors are what make succulents so beautiful.

Actual Sunburn (Not Fine)

Sunburn on a jade plant with shriveling and black spots

• What it looks like: Permanent, beige, white, or black spots and scars across the leaves that face the afternoon sun. The tissue looks shriveled, papery, and dead.
• The Verdict: The sun is simply too intense for that specific spot.

The Quick Fix

If a succulent is getting genuinely sunburned, toss some shade cloth over it. If it’s in a pot, move it into the afternoon shadow of something else like a larger, heat-tolerant shrub. Don’t bother cutting off the sunburned leaves right now—they are acting as a shield for the leaves underneath. You can tidy them up in October.

The “Lemonading” Project: What to Do with Leggy Stems

If you absolutely can’t stand the look of those long, bare, woody stems, you don’t have to just live with them. You can use this time to plan a classic “garden lemonading” (as in “when life gives you lemons…”) project for when they wake up, or do a clean-up right now.

It’s easy to grow new plants from succulent cuttings

If you have a succulent that stretched out too much earlier in the spring and now just looks gangly, you can prune it and grow new ones:

1. Clip a Bit: Use a clean, sharp pair of pruners to snip the rosette off, leaving a few inches of stem attached to the head.
2. Let it Dry: Set that cutting aside in a dry, shady spot in your garage or porch. Leave it alone for a week or so. The cut end will dry out and grow a calloused “scab.” (If you stick a fresh, wet cut straight into soil, it will rot).
3. Replant: Once calloused, tuck the stem into a pot of dry, sandy succulent soil. Don’t water it until you see new roots start to form in a few weeks.
4. The Bonus: Leave the old, bare stem in the ground! More often than not, that “dead-looking” stick will start pushing out dozens of tiny, baby succulent “pups” along the sides by the time autumn hits.

The Takeaway: Live and Learn

Just about every expert gardener in the Southwest has accidentally killed a succulent by trying to “nurse it back to health” with a hose in July. If you’ve done that, don’t feel bad. It’s a rite of passage.

So, take a look at your yard this week with fresh eyes. Celebrate the weird, tight, woody little survivors. Wipe the dust off your sunglasses, pour yourself a cold drink, and give yourself (and your garden) permission to just chill out until fall.

Painted Abutilon in flower

Let’s be honest: trying to grow a lush, tropical sanctuary in San Diego (or anywhere in the dry southwest) can feel like a fool’s errand when the water bill hits. The conventional wisdom is we have two choices: a thirsty, high-maintenance jungle that wilts the moment the summer heat arrives, or a yard full of dry rocks and cactus.

But after a decade of trialing various unusual (and occasionally oddball) perennials at Sages Acre, I’ve found a number of plants that deliver a lush, tropical look without the tropical thirst. One of the real standouts is the Painted Abutilon (Abutilon pictum).

Now, if you search this plant on the Internet, most results will tell you the draw is the bell-shaped, deep veined orange flowers.

A closeup of the bell-shaped flower of the Painted Abutilon

Don’t get me wrong, they’re striking and definite hummingbird magnets. But the real magic is in the foliage. Thanks to a quirky, but harmless, virus the leaves look like they’ve been hand-splattered with bright yellow paint against a grass green. It’s an eye-catching look that delivers maximum tropical drama on a Mediterranean water budget. If you’re looking for that one plant to make your neighbors stop and ask, “What is that?”, then this is it.

A Decade in the Dirt: My Pro-Tips for Growing Painted Abutilon

Most descriptions of Abutilon pictum online say it’s a perennial shrub or a small tree. After more than 10 years of growing it here in Zone 9, I say it’s more of a “living stick with leaves” that needs a little growing guidance. Here is the “Sages Acre Method” for keeping that variegated foliage looking amazing rather than a mess.

The Secret to That Dappled Foliage: Mosaic Virus

The variegated yellow and green leaf of the painted Abutilon

In most plants, mosaic is a death sentence. But here it’s the designer that creates that stunning yellow-and-green marbled effect on the leaves. It’s an example of a “beneficial plant disease,” because it has the desirable effects of making beautiful mosaic patterns on affected leaves while having a negligible effect on plant growth, vigor, and flowering.

Pro Tip: The variegation shows best when the plant is “happy” but not ” fat and happy.” If you over-fertilize, the plant can produce “reversion” branches—shoots of pure green leaves that grow faster than the variegated ones.

If you’re soil is even modestly balanced, you don’t need to fertilize at all. Just mulch around he base every few months. If you do see a branch with solid green leaves, snip it so the plant puts its energy into making those sun-splattered leaves instead.

The “Goldilocks” Light Strategy

Inland, the painted Abutilon prefers dappled shade

Coastal (0–5 miles from the beach): Because of the frequent AM/PM cloud cover, you can get away with planting them full sun. Just know that if it gets too sunny for too long, the leaves might bleach out, turning sort of a sickly yellow-green. If they do, use some shade cloth or landscape fabric to give the plant a little afternoon shade until it recovers its bright colors.

Inland and Foothills: Here the Abutilon needs bright filtered shade. I’ve found that mine thrive best when it gets morning sun but gets the cover of the canopy of a taller plant or tree (yucca and tithonia in my case) by early afternoon. Too much shade, and the gold washes out; too much intense afternoon sun, and the leaves will “wilt-faint” and give the plant (and possibly you) a sad look.

Managing the “Leggy” Look

Without pruning, the painted Abutilon is leggy and stick-like

Left to its own devices, a Painted Abutilon will get tall and leggy, more like a teenager who hit a growth spurt than a perennial shrub.

The Fix: I pinch back the plant to 3-4 feet tall in early spring. Snipping the branches back just above a leaf node on the mains stems forces the plant to bush out with two new stems. Keep it up throughout the spring and you’ll have a nice, lush screen of gold-mottled leaves rather than a few lonely sticks reaching for the sky. (Although those look cool too.)

A Great Faux Tropical

A painted Abutilon (center) in the garden under a Cape Honeysuckle (upper right)

The Painted Abutilon is actually subtropical native to southern South America, which has a climate much like California’s. Unlike true tropicals that demand high humidity and constant water, the Painted Abutilon is surprisingly tough once its roots are established in the soil.

After the first two years here at the Acre, I stopped watering them regularly and switched to a deep-soak schedule just once a week (twice a week in the heat of summer). It didn’t skip a beat.

The one thing you should do, however, is give it a good layer of mulch. Not only does it provide a slow release source of nutrients, but it keeps the roots cool and the plant will handle the heat like a champ.

Best Companion Plants for Painted Abutilon

To really pull off the tropical look you can’t let the Painted Abutilon fly solo. It’s a team player. Because it thrives in that sweet spot of filtered light and moderate water, you can surround it with similarly inclined companions that amplify its “Golden Jungle” vibe.

Here are the pairings I’ve refined over the last decade at Sages Acre:

The “Tropical High-Rise” (Blooms & Height)

If you want your garden to be the neighborhood’s premier pollinator destination, lean into these three:

• Canna Lilies: Their broad, paddle-shaped leaves add to the a tropical look of the Abutilon, and the bright oranges/reds of the Canna flowers play off the painted orange Abutilon bells.
• Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia diversifolia): This is a beast of a plant that provides a massive wall of green and orange. It handles the sunnier “edges” of your Abutilon patch beautifully.
• Cape Honeysuckle: This is my favorite “hummingbird magnet” pairing. It’s tough as nails in dry conditions and provides a dense, dark green backdrop that makes the gold-mottled leaves of the Abutilon practically glow.

The “Jurassic Park” Aesthetic (Texture & Structure)

My succulent shade garden with a yucca tree at the center, a Painted Abutilon right

• Jade Plants & Yuccas: These bring a succulent element that screams “California,” but when tucked in behind Painted Abutilon to provide dappled shade, they take on a deep, forest-green hue that feels much more Hawaii than High Desert.
• Sago Palms: The stiff, feather-like fronds provide a structural “base” for the softer, leggy branches of the Abutilon.
• Sword fern: These low growing California natives give the ground a tropical jungle feel and fill in the space under the taller Abutilons and foundation plants.

The Result: You get a multi-layered, “Jurassic” feel that looks like it belongs in a rainforest, but survives on a San Diego watering schedule.

The Takeaway: Tropical Paradise Without the Regret

A small painted Abutilon in the early morning light

Painted Abutilon earns its place as a faux-tropical MVP because it loves Southern California. It delivers bold foliage, hummingbird traffic, and year-round presence without begging for water, humidity, or constant attention. It’s not pretending to be a rainforest plant, it’s translating the look into a language Zone 9 actually speaks.

Once you start thinking this way, the entire garden changes. Instead of asking, “Can I grow this here?” you start asking, “What gives me the look I want without the drama?” That’s where truly satisfying gardens are built—layer by layer, with plants that pull their weight.

If you’re intrigued by the idea of a lush, tropical-feeling garden that still plays nicely with Southern California’s realities, you’re in the right place. Explore our other Zone 9 and sub-tropical plant profiles, design strategies, and real-world growing experiments from Sages Acre.

The cheat codes are out there—you just have to know which ones actually work.

Painted Abutilon Info

The Great Pretender: Euphorbia lathyrus looks cool, but don’t let those geometric leaves fool you—it’s not the gopher-guard it claims to be

You walk out with your morning coffee, ready to admire a fresh row of young vegetables or see how your succulents are doing, only to find a fresh mound (or worse, mounds) of dirt where a plant used to be. It’s enough to make a mild-mannered gardener such as myself contemplate going all War Games on those underground rodents.

Years ago, I thought I’d found the ultimate “green” peace treaty. While searching the internet for organic ways to protect my beans and cabbage, I kept running into a recurring piece of advice: Plant Gopher Spurge (Euphorbia lathyrus)!

The pitch was perfect. “Experts” claimed this European native (and, admittedly, interesting plant) was a natural deterrent. The theory being, as a spurge, the sap is toxic, gophers would nibble it, meet their maker, and the rest of the colony would take the hint and move to the neighbor’s yard.

Well, I tried it. And today, I’m here to tell you: Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.

The Myth vs. The (Very Messy) Reality

I planted gopher spurge with high hopes. I imagined a leafy, sap-filled fortress protecting my precious vegetables. I even thought it might save my aloes and bananas, because yes, gophers eat those too.

Instead of a pest-free garden paradise, here’s what actually happened:

1. I learned gophers are smart miners. Turns out, gophers can burrow up to five feet deep. They didn’t look at my spurge and turn back; they simply tunneled under it. It was like building a picket fence to stop a subway train.

2. They developed a taste for it. I have the photos to prove it: some of my local Botta’s pocket gophers actually adapted to eat the “poisonous” plant. Apparently, my gophers didn’t read the manual on what’s supposed to kill them.

Exhibit A: So much for the “natural repellent” theory. This guy even left a mound net to the plant to gloat

3. The “Cure” became the Disease. Euphorbia lathyrus is a non-native, opportunistic grower. Within a couple of seasons, it stopped being a “deterrent” and started being an invasive weed. It began taking over segments of my yard, self-seeding with reckless abandon, and even giving my annual nemeses, horehound and mallow, a run for their money.

So, I didn’t solve my gopher problem. I just added a “weed-with-poisonous-sap” problem to my weekend to-do list.

The aftermath: Once gopher spurge goes to seed, it’s a permanent resident. I traded one gopher problem for a thousand weed problems

What Actually Works (The Ground Truth)

After years of trial, error, and many lost onions (onions!), I’ve realized that nature’s solutions are rarely as simple as planting one “magic” flower. If you want to keep your crops, you have to get real.

1. “Team Nature” (Predators)

If you want a truly organic solution, look to the sky and the grass. Hawks and owls are fantastic allies, though they’re a bit unreliable as a 24/7 security service.

Gopher snakes are the real MVPs. I know, I know—not everyone wants a slithering neighbor. But a gopher snake is a non-venomous, silent hunter that goes exactly where the gophers are.

Just a heads up: if you encourage both, be aware that the hawks will occasionally snack on your snakes. It’s a circle-of-life thing.

(Side note: My wife has dachshunds who also love to hunt gophers, but they’re more like using a bulldozer where a hand trowel will do.)

2. Physical Barriers

If you’re planting something high-value, like a fruit tree or a prize succulent, wire root cages are your only true insurance policy. Stainless steel or galvanized mesh prevents the gopher from reaching the root ball in the first place. It’s a bit of extra work at planting time, but it’s a lot less work than replacing a dead tree.

3. The Old Reliable: Traps

When the predators aren’t keeping up and the barriers aren’t enough, I’ve found that high-quality gopher traps are the most effective, poison-free way to manage a population. It’s not the most glamorous part of gardening, but it’s honest work that actually yields results. I prefer the “Black Hole”-style gopher trap, but “in-hole” style traps work too.

A Final Note to the Spurge Lovers

Now, if you genuinely like the way Gopher Spurge looks, by all means, plant it as a specimen!

It has a unique, geometric structure that looks great in a Mediterranean or xeric landscape. But treat it like a temperamental guest: keep an eye on it. If you let it go to seed, be prepared to spend the next three years pulling up its offspring.

In the end, gardening in the Southwest is a lesson in humility. The gophers were here first, and they’re very good at what they do. But take it from me: save your money on the “magic” plants and invest in a good pair of gloves and some sturdy wire mesh. Your plants will thank you.

Italian frying peppers in green and yellow

Also known as the Friggitello, Friariello, and various names like Corno, and Italian Sweet Pepper (so many names…), whatever you call the Italian frying pepper, they are elongated peppers anywhere from 3 to 7 inches that vary in color from green to yellow or red depending on the specific variety you grow.

Color aside, they are all known for their lack of heat and thick walls that allow them to keep their sweet pepper flavor and a little crunch even when they’ve been fried.

The variety I grew (simply labeled “Italian Frying Pepper”) proved to be a real standout among all the peppers this year. Not just for flavor or yield, but for the length of time they produced peppers. I started harvesting them in mid-August and as of right now (mid-December) they are still producing! So, if you’re in a warmer winter USDA hardiness zone like zone 9 where I am, this one might be a good addition to your garden next year.

Read on for everything you need to know.

Italian Frying Pepper Plant Basics

Italian frying peppers are on the larger, longer time-to-harvest end of sweet peppers. The seed packet listed 75 days to harvest, but I found it to be closer to 90 days. I planted the seeds in the greenhouse in early May, and transplanted them into the garden on May 30. First harvest was on August 17th, almost 80 days later.

The Italian frying pepper plant is tall and leggy, but still growing strong in December

The mature plants are 3 to 3½ feet tall and rather leggy compared to other sweet pepper varieties. The leaves are also larger than other pepper plants. As a result, I found these peppers required a little more water and leg room than some of the other sweet pepper varieties, but not so much that I felt like I had to take special steps. I was able to grow 6 plants comfortably in a 4 ft x 6 ft raised bed. I probably could have crowded two more plants in there, but I’m glad I didn’t because they seemed to enjoy spreading out with the extra room.

Once they started flowering in late July, they didn’t let up. By late August, with all six plants in production, we were harvesting 12 – 18 peppers a week, each 6-7 inches long and 1-½ – 2 inches wide. As we harvested from the older portions of the plants, they continued with new growth, producing flowers and fruit at each leaf node along the way.

After they reached around 18-inches high, they benefited from support. Without it, the peppers farther away from the main stem would get heavy and pull the plant down to the soil where bugs would nibble on the ends of the immature peppers.

It’s December and this plant is still growing peppers

In late summer the fruits were susceptible to sun scald, but the large leaves typically offered enough shade to keep the sunburn to a minimum. A couple at the south end of the bed had to be shaded with a bit of shade cloth, but once the season rolled on and the sun wasn’t quite as intense, they didn’t need any cover at all.

Diseases and Pests

These Italian frying peppers are heirlooms rather than hybrids, so they are particularly hardy compared to some of the other varieties. I had no major problems other than the usual Argentine black ants farming aphids on them. Even though I was never able to completely eliminate them, a little organic soap-and-oil spray was enough to keep the buggers in check. By the time late October/ early November rolled around Mother Nature’s cooler weather and rains eliminated what remained of the pest problem for me.

Some pest damage on the leaves; not as pretty and green as they were a couple of months ago, but still producing fruit

Italian Frying Peppers Produce for a Long Time

Speaking of Mother Nature, perhaps what is most remarkable about these peppers is that they didn’t stop growing and flowering once we got into autumn. Even with the shorter days and chillier nights, they kept right on growing. Even with a rather rainy and cool November, these plants kept right on flowering and fruiting. As I mentioned above, it’s mid-December now and, even though they’ve dropped a few leaves and the fruits are slightly smaller, these plants are still producing. That’s 117 days of continuous production!

More importantly, they’re still flowering at this late date, so, unless we get a hard frost, they’ll probably still be fruiting right into the new year—maybe longer.

Still producing flowers in December!

Hefty Crop Yields

As I mentioned above, my six plants collectively produced a dozen or more fruits each week, each weighing 2-3 ounces, or roughly equivalent to 2-3 pounds of fruit per week. Even though the fruit became slightly smaller as the season went on, we’re still in the range of 1½-2 pounds of peppers per week. So at 17 weeks of production, we’ve harvested somewhere between 35 and 40 pounds of peppers from just six plants.

Six plants kicking out 6-7 pounds of peppers each isn’t too shabby if you ask me.

Milder Flavor Than Other Sweet Peppers

These peppers are pretty mildly flavored with zero heat and just a touch of green, peppery bitterness. We let some of them hang on the plants long enough to go from green to yellow to see if they sweetened any further, but didn’t find them any tastier. Also, once picked, the yellow ones started to go south very quickly, so we stuck to harvesting them when they were green with maybe just a touch of yellow at the shoulder.

Italian frying peppers (top right) with some of this year’s other sweet peppers

I can understand why these peppers are used for frying because, while they’re flavor is on the mild end compared to other sweet peppers like bell and “lunch box” minis, they really shine when grilled or fried with a bit of olive oil and garlic. The fruit remains a bit firm rather than going limp, and the thick walls release their sugars, giving them a really savory-sweet flavor with a bit of crunch.

We also found these peppers hold up really well when pickled either by themselves or in a giardiniera. They remain firm and flavorful, making them great snackers alone or as part of a charcuterie board.

Sage’s Conclusion

Italian frying peppers were a definite stand out this year. Even though they were several weeks longer to harvest, their yield and length of production far exceeded any of the other peppers in the garden. They all gave up for the season back in October, but these guys are still going strong just a couple of weeks before Christmas. And while the fresh flavor isn’t quite as pronounced as it is in some of the bell / cubanelle varieties, they are quite delicious fried, grilled, and pickled.

Personally, I give them a 5 out of 5 stars and plan on growing them again next year. Given that they’re still going strong now leading into winter, it might be these same plants next year!

If you’re a zone 9 gardener like I am, these are a great choice for a full season pepper. If you’re in a colder zone, the long time-to-harvest means you’ll probably want to get them started indoors about 8 weeks before you transplant them outside, but I bet they’ll still be a great choice.

A tall, sun-loving, low-water sage with lime green calyxes and deep blue-violet flowers in the late summer and autumn

Limelight Mexican sage in Bloom in early autumn

Native to Central Mexico, the plant is found at elevations as high as 8,000 feet in the southern tropical areas. Further to the north in the sub-tropical regions, it can be found in semi-arid areas at the edge of forests anywhere from 800 feet and higher.

Limelight will grow to be 7-9 feet tall and equally wide

A fast grower, given plenty of sun, it can go from a mere 6 inches in early spring to over 7 feet tall and equally wide by late summer. Limelight is a semi-hardy perennial that will keep its leaves throughout the winter in USDA plant hardiness zones 9 and higher. In colder zones like 7 and 8, it will still survive the winter, but will drop most or all of its leaves. Giving it protection from wind and snow will help it recover more quickly in the spring.

If you’re in regions 6 and below, you can grow Salvia Mexicana as an annual and replace it with fresh plants in spring (it propagates very easily).

Sun & Water

As a sub-tropical that thrives in high country and arid regions, it does best in full sun with well-drained soil. While young the plant needs regular water, but once established, needs it only occasionally. Here in inland San Diego County, I water it once a week in the dry season (summer and early autumn), and not at all in the winter and spring when it’s cooler and wetter.

Soil & Fertilizer

As for soil and fertilizer, none of the Salvia Mexicanas, including Limelight, are picky; any generally balanced, well-drained soil is fine. In fact, if the soil is too rich, it will stay shrubby and flower less. I find a 1”-2” blanket of composted mulch applied in winter is more than enough to get them through the whole year.

Pruning

Like all salvias, Limelight benefits from pruning. Once the plant is done blooming for the year, the flower calyxes will die back to the leaf branch. I find that trimming the plant three to four leaf branches below the calyx (around 12”-16” below) keeps the plant from becoming leggy and gives it a good start in spring.

Propagation

Limelight propagates very easily. Simply take a few cuttings and place them in water in a sunny area in your house. In 6 – 8 weeks when they have good root growth, transplant them into pots. By the time spring rolls around you’ll have fresh plants ready to go.

Pollinators and Pests

This plant is a pollinator magnet. In full bloom, butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds will flock to it in such volumes that the plant almost seems to hum.

Pollinators love Limelight’s flowers

As for pests, in normal, arid conditions like we have in the southwest, very few pests bother with it. But if you’re in a wetter, more humid climate (or you’re growing them in a greenhouse) you may have trouble with whiteflies and aphids. As these sages are adapted to dry conditions and secrete an oil that naturally repels these insects, drip watering rather than sprinkling keeps the leaves dry and lets the plant use its natural defenses to limit the bugs. If pests do get out of control, a little soap spray is usually more than enough to keep them in check.

Summary

Limelight Mexican Sage is a fast-growing perennial that will add a lot of color to your late summer and autumn gardens. It likes full sun, doesn’t need much water, and pollinators love the flowers. It can get quite tall making it a great, low maintenance plant for the back of garden beds or at the edge of tree lines.