How does an empty lot become a succulent forest? An elderly lady spent 40 years

In California, USA, the weather is hot and dry all year round, and the sunlight is so glaring you can barely open your eyes. Deserts are everywhere here, and it is almost impossible to see a trace of green.

But in the small town of Walnut Creek, a "green oasis" is hidden away, and everywhere here are tall cacti and colorful succulents.

This oasis is the Ruth Bancroft Garden. In a world full of yellow sand, a succulent forest full of greenery suddenly appears, making people mistake it for a fairyland.

This succulent garden covers more than 10,000 sq m and is planted with more than 2,000 kinds of succulents, such as cacti of different shapes, succulents, palm trees and so on.

Other people's succulents - even just their flowers are bigger than our succulents!

Such a spectacular cactus forest - Huahua also wants to go in and experience it!

I have seen a peacock spreading its tail, but Huahua bets you have never seen a succulent spreading its tail!

The owner of this spectacular succulent garden is the 109-year-old Mrs. Ruth Bancroft (who passed away in November 2017). To create this oasis in the desert, she spent 40 years.

Ruth loved flowers and plants since she was a child, but her connection with succulents began in the 1950s. At that time she bought the first pot of succulents in her life, and from then on she became obsessed with succulents, unable to stop.

(The descendant of Ruth's first succulent)

At first, the succulents she bought were placed in the greenhouse and toilet around the house. Later, she bought more and more succulents, and there was no room for them at home. In 1971, her husband gave her three acres of land at home to grow succulents.

Looking at the empty land, Ruth, nearly 70 years old, came up with the idea of building a desert succulent garden. She wanted to try to create a green miracle on this barren land.

From early morning to sunset, she spent nearly 10 hours every day in this yard, planning and designing, planting and watering, almost all of it done by herself.

But things did not always go smoothly. In the second year of building it, Ruth's garden encountered its biggest difficulty. That winter was unusually cold, and some of the delicate succulents in the garden were almost all frozen to death.

But she did not give up, and instead started over in the spring. To prevent the succulents from being frozen to death again, she asked someone to customize frost-proof wooden boxes, and later built a dedicated greenhouse.

Because she did not understand the habits of all succulents, before planting each new variety she had to leaf through many books. After planting, she would also take notes every day, recording the growth of the succulents.

Ruth studied architecture in university, and in the process of building the succulent garden, the knowledge she had learned also played a considerable role.

In order to break up the flat landscape in the garden and make it more layered, she added some undulating mounds of soil in the garden.

Planting only succulents would inevitably make the garden look monotonous, so she built a central pond in the garden.

She just did not expect that this pond would later become a habitat for birds.

She also had her own ideas about succulent planting combinations. Some brightly colored, smaller succulents were laid along both sides of the gravel path, while larger succulents were planted on higher slopes, arranged in a well-balanced way.

Later, Ruth's garden attracted the attention of relevant organizations in the United States. Because its desert garden idea was highly instructive, in 1989 Ruth's garden became the first private garden in the United States protected by a garden organization.

In 2011, it was also evaluated by Pacific Horticulture magazine as "the most significant private garden on the West Coast of the United States."

Ruth herself had not expected that a small idea at the beginning would have such a great social impact.

In addition to being open for tourists to visit, this place has also become a wedding mecca, and more and more young couples choose to come here to take wedding photos. The succulent garden is full of romance~

Mrs. Ruth gave the whole of the latter half of her life to this succulent garden. In the last few years of her life, she could not stay in the garden every day, but whenever she had the chance, she would go around the garden.

There is an old saying in China,

"Since ancient times, few people live to seventy,"

and in her seventies,

Ruth created a succulent garden admired by the world.

As long as you have a garden dream,

it is never too late!

Has your garden dream come true?

?