By Glenda Winders | SDUN Book Critic

Debra Lee Baldwin, the country’s undisputed authority on designing with succulent plants, credits Mission Hills and other Uptown areas with giving her career its roots. In her early days as a freelance writer she went there to look for story ideas to pitch to the editors of such publications as The San Diego Union-Tribune and Sunset magazine.

“I’d cruise neighborhoods to see what people had done with succulents,” she said during a recent interview with Uptown News. “I’d take pictures and then send the owners a card asking for permission to use the photo.”

Her fascination with plants that store water in fleshy leaves and stems to survive drought had grown, in part, out of Southern California lifestyle trends. She recalled that her parents had planted succulents in the 1950s and ‘60s before sprinkling systems became widespread.

“In the ‘70s and ‘80s, once automatic irrigation became available, tropicals and fussy pseudo English flower gardens swept the scene,” she said. “Then in the ‘90s and after the turn of the century, gardeners were tired of all that work and they wanted to travel more. They wanted easy-care plants that wouldn’t miss them when they were away.”

Drought conditions gave Southern Californians a compelling reason to get rid of their lawns, and they were also experiencing a new appreciation of the geometric forms and shapes succulents provided. And they were beginning to realize that foliage was an important component of their gardens.

“A garden that emphasizes primarily flowers is ephemeral,” Baldwin said. “Flowers flash and fade, but foliage lasts. That’s the backbone of a garden.”

The evolution of her own Escondido garden was another factor in narrowing her focus as a writer. As she covered garden shows, interviewed landscapers and learned everything she could from local nurserymen, her taste progressed from splashy flowers to roses and finally to succulents. Today giant agaves and aloes are the centerpieces of a garden that has been featured in Sunset, Better Homes and Gardens, and San Diego Home/Garden Lifestyle.

“If you have succulents, you have great definition all year round,” she said. “Without these behemoths, my garden would look like a salad.”

Decorative containers filled with every variety of succulent imaginable adorn the deck outside the home she shares with engineer husband Jeff Walz.

“Anywhere you live you can have a garden like this,” she said, picking up a bowl filled with plants to prove her point. “When the weather turns inclement, you just bring it in.”

When she submitted more story ideas about succulents than Sunset magazine could use, gardening editor Kathy Brenzel suggested she use the material and photos she had gathered to create a book. The result was “Designing With Succulents,” published by Timber Press in 2007.

Thanks in part to Baldwin’s network of garden writers and designers across the country, her first effort became a best seller in gardening circles. Then, after the publisher scheduled her to speak about succulents in rainy Portland, Ore., she got the idea for her next project. Just recently released, “Succulent Container Gardens” is an encyclopedic guide to pairing plants with containers to create designs that range from tabletop gardens, wall pots and miniature landscapes to topiaries and wreaths. In this second book Baldwin explains how to choose and care for plants and offers clever ways to present them. She suggests thrift stores and construction sites as possible places for finding such unusual containers as corrugated metal pipe, antique wagons, old baking tins and toolboxes.

She also demonstrates how to select pots that mimic the plants’ colors and textures, how to tuck cuttings into stone fences or seashells, and how to use the design principles of contrast and repetition for dramatic effect. An entire section deals with the issue of topdressing—finishing off an arrangement with pebbles, crushed glass or marbles for a polished look.

The tone of “Succulent Container Gardens” is as warm as its pages are lush and beautiful. Baldwin obviously takes her subject seriously, but her enthusiasm makes it accessible to readers who will want to duplicate the designs she offers or create new ones of their own. Many of the arrangements she photographed for the book are in San Diego, some in the Uptown neighborhoods that initially piqued her interest.

In addition to writing books, Baldwin also blogs at gardeninggonewild.com with other prominent garden writers, and her YouTube video, “How to Plant a Succulent Container Garden,” can be accessed through her website, debraleebaldwin.com. Books ordered through the site come with an autographed bookplate that features her original watercolors of succulent plants. Coffee mugs, mousepads and other items featuring her artwork are also available, as are her photographs.

“Succulent Container Gardening” is now also a best seller, and Baldwin’s expertise has earned her an enviable niche in the pantheon of horticultural writers. In fact, her publisher has given her license to assign common names to plants whose labels were previously only in Latin. Thanks to her, Agave Americana Mediopicta Alba now goes by the much simpler Tuxedo Agave.

“My audience is fascinated by succulents but not responsive to polysyllabic words,” she said.

Baldwin is also much in demand as a speaker. On Jan. 26, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. she’ll give a presentation titled “Container Succulent Gardens: Their Creation and Design” to the Mission Hills Garden Club at the Mission Hills First Church of Christ, 4070 Jackdaw. No reservations are necessary. The event is free to members and $10 for the general public.

After that she’ll speak about “Art and the Garden” at the San Diego Botanical Garden on Feb. 12, and she’ll be at the Spring Home and Garden Show at the Del Mar Fairgrounds March 4-6. In April she’ll speak at the Cactus and Succulent Society of America meeting in San Diego. Then she’s headed for San Francisco, Sacramento and Charleston, S.C. When she’s in town, she invites garden groups to join her at Oasis Water Efficient Gardens in Escondido for design help and instruction.

“My eventual goal is to be a little old crone hunched over a keyboard tippety-tapping away,” she said. “I’ll be exchanging e-mails with people all over the world who have contacted me with questions about succulents and doing presentations to garden clubs via Skype.”

CORRECTION: Please note that the original Jan. 21 printed version of this article incorrectly stated that “Terri Ripley” took the photo of the author, Debra Lee Baldwin (shown above). Please note, the correct photo credit should go to Woodside Images.