A Revisit: Newport Beach Civic Center Succulent Garden

I first visited this garden in 2014 and at the time wondered how the garden would hold up. 2014:

 2018:  this same Channel Island Oak(?) (Q. tomentella) looks more established, if not ridiculously happy--three of the last four have been drought years, after all:

Now it's 2018, and we finally managed a return visit.  Some plants are gone.  In 2014 there was a group of fabulous Alcantareas, an enormous species of Bromeliad, that are now almost gone--two survive.
2014:

 They are being replaced by Agaves:
2018:  the two surviving Alcantareas are to the right of the two blue Agaves:

An entire row of Aloe thraskiis plus a lone Aloe vaombe have vanished.  
2018:  they were along this wall:

2014: sigh

 2014:  the black arrow indicates Aloe vaombe;  white, the thraskiis

Two surviving Alcantheas; no more thraskiis or vaombe.  I assume the Alcantheas bloomed and died without offsets, but what happened to the Aloes?  Rot? 

The sculptures are better than they were in 2014.  The 2014 ones were mostly not so great. 
2014: 

 There are at least a couple better ones now.  This wind sculpture spinning in the breeze was fun.
And it reminds me of a tree Aloe.  Note the Drimis at its base:

 Nice little Streamline Moderne detail on the wind-catchers:

According to a pamphlet, this sculpture called "No Swimming" made its debut at the 2008 Burning Man festival:

 Giant shark fin must have looked cool in the desert.  It looks cool here, too:

 There are many more Agave americanas.  No surprise--they offset like weeds here.  Surprise--the maintenance crew has kept up on removing offsets, and the many more have been added mostly in neat rows, maintaining and adding to the original design.  
2014:

2018:

 They like the chopped-base look.  I guess it does make offset-removal a lot easier:

 More and more Agave americanas.  The palms to the left of the white sail-like structure are male Date palms, Phoenix dactylifera.  They are shorter and stouter than female Date palms and produce no fruit to fall and rot on the sidewalks.  

 Most of the plants have grown very slowly.  This is good, actually, because it better preserves the original design for a longer period of time. 
Blogger reflection: 

 The lovely gravel mulch looks as clean as it did in 2014, which is remarkable.  How do they do that? 

 2018

 2018.  Silver Torch, Cleistocactus strausii

 2018 Agave shawii is doing well:

 2018:  The Dracena dracos have grown taller

Across the street from the Civic Center you can see what has been the typical landscaping in the area for decades.  Lawn, clipped shrubs, and Ficus trees are water and gasoline-powered-clipper intensive:

 Agave parryi truncata have a different, more open look when grown in shade near the coast:

 This might be Puya venusta

 A trio of Dracena dracos growing in a meadow of Carex gracilis(?) 

 I liked the shadows cast

 We walked around to the back of the building.  There's a Torrey Pine grove by the Deliveries entrance.  Torrey Pines, Pinus torreyana, are a critically endangered California native species in the wild.   

Around back is a very fine city library.  A small crowd was waiting for it to open:

 The Bismarkia noblis are larger, and as they get larger they get more spectacular.  Not as large as the specimens at the LA Arboretum:

 Looking very pretty in a mild coastal location, with Dioon spinulosum in a sea of Kalanchoe pumila and Chamaerops humilis (green version)

 All in all, the maintenance has been far above average for a public city garden.  Some losses of choicer plants, but overall the garden is doing well.