South Coast Cactus & Succulent Society Show & Sale

I didn't make it to last year's local Cactus & Succulent Society show and sale but I made a point of getting there last weekend.  Like the 2022 sale, it was held in a nearby art center only fifteen minutes away.  It's a smaller venue than the local botanic garden provided in the prepandemic days.  Based on my earlier photographic record, there were fewer show tables and seemingly less sale plants.

I arrived about an hour after opening on the first day of the sale when rain was in the forecast so it wasn't as crowded as these events usually are

 

I gave the show tables most of my attention.  The light inside the art center's exhibit space was dicey and I had repeated problems focusing my camera so I only took closeup shots of selected plants.

Show table 1 (the tables weren't numbered but I've done so to keep them straight)

Closeup of 2 plants from that first table, Mammillaria formosa (left) and Melocactus conoides (right).  The Mamillaria looks like a fancy decorated cake to me.

Show table 2

Clockwise from upper left are closeups of: Aloe dorotheae, Dyckia 'White Whiskers', Euphorbia andpria, Euphorbia canariensis, crested Euphorbia lactea, Euphorbia stellata, and Rubutia tiraquensis

Show table 3

L-R: hybrid Dyckia, Machairophyllum albidum, and noID Fockea

Show table 4

Closeups from upper left: crested Aeonium 'Sunburst', Cotyledon pendens, Graptopetalum mendozae, and Pachypodium breviraule

I also took photos of some of the plant sale tables.

One vendor's display from multiple angles

Another vendor's display, including a Trichocereus in flower (lower left)

Colorful Aeoniums and Echeverias (left), crested Euphorbia grandidens and Melocactus matanzanus (middle, IDs are guesses), and a variety of other cacti (right).  I didn't process what I assume was an Agave 'Sunglow' in the background in the third photo until I reviewed my photos.  Everything on this sale table had looked pricey but I may have caved for that one if I'd been more attentive.

Snippets of 2 more sale displays

There were also pots for sale.  As I've lost some of my favorite pots to clumsy critters in recent years, I'm always looking for more; however, the pots were generally on the expensive side so I passed and put my money into plants.

Beautiful pots by succulent collector Jim Gardner 

Pots for sale by other vendors

I laughed at the saying on this planted pot but didn't check its price.  If that "5" on the tag, meant $5 I blundered in leaving it behind even though I'm unsure what the plant was.  It looked like a Clivia to me but that isn't what the tag suggests.

I took home just four plants.

Clockwise from the upper left: crested Aeonium 'Sunburst', hybrid Aloe sinkatana x jacunda, Crassula streyi, and Pelargonium carnosum

One plant's in a pot but all four found homes in my renovated succulent bed, which I'll show sometime soon.  I'm still doing some tweaking there.

Best wishes for a wonderful spring weekend!

All material © 2012-2024 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Puttering about

I've been busy for the past week cutting plants back, tidying things up, and even doing a little planting.  Between taking down the dead Auranticarpa rhombifolia and my end-of-summer pruning activities, we filled all three of our green recycling bins so I felt compelled to take a little break until the waste material is collected on Thursday.  In the meantime, I repotted some succulents and gave myself time off to check out a houseplant sale at the local botanic garden.

These are the spiffed up containers arranged outside the back door

The green pot contains Aeonium 'Jolly Green' and Graptosedum 'Vera Higgins'.  The tall blue pot holds Mangave 'Black Magic' and the small pot holds a Faucaria tigrina.

The green pot shown here is one I planted a couple of weeks ago with a Crassula, Echeveria, Kalanchoe, and a small Sedum.  The wide blue pot containing Aeonium 'Sunburst' and a variety of other succulents is still in need of sprucing up.  I can't remember the name of the Aloe in the Talavera-style pot.

I just upgraded Mangave 'Praying Hands' (left) to a larger pot.  Behind it is Mangave 'Aztec King' and on the right is Mangave 'Falling Waters'.

 

I also did a little cleanup in one area of the "bromeliad bed" in the front garden.  Only one section of the bed actually contains bromeliads.  The other two sections are filled with succulents.

I cleaned out most of the leaves that were covering this section.  In addition to assorted Echeverias, it contains Aeonium 'Lily Pad', Crassula orbicularis var rosularis, and several Haworthia cymbiformis.

The translucent leaves of Haworthia cymbiformis are tougher than they look, at least when provided adequate shade

 

Yesterday morning I took a drive over to the local botanic garden to check out the house plant sale they'd advertised on Instagram.  It looked impressive in the video they'd posted but sadly it was underwhelming when I visited in person.

To be fair, they may have sold out a lot of items following the video I saw late last week but the pickings were pretty slim at the time of my visit.  The woman manning the plant stand said she expected another shipment of plants later in the afternoon.

I took home just this unlabeled Vriesea (maybe Vriesea splendens)

 

After spending all of ten minutes in the plant sale area, I took a walk through the garden.  Here are some of the highlights from the Desert Garden area:

Like this Alluaudia humbertii, a lot of succulents were looking healthy and happy, presumably plumped up by the rain delivered by Tropical Storm Hilary last month

Cyphostemma juttae, aka Nambian grape (It's grapes are NOT edible as they're poisonous.)

The leaf-less Drimia maritima flowers were in full bloom

Two interesting Mammillaria clumps

Pedilanthus bracteatus, aka tall slipper plant, looking better than any others I've ever seen

I've seen Pseudobombax ellipticum 'Alba' (aka shaving brush tree) in bloom many times but I can't remember ever seeing it fully leafed out like this

 

Just outside the Desert Garden, I also saw something I'd never noticed before:

There's a mass of what I assume are Epiphyllums (orchid cacti) climbing up this tall palm tree.  It'll be an interesting sight when those plants bloom.

 

I'll be back to pruning later this week.  I really should get to work on the back slope but I misjudged the activity level among the fire ants earlier this week and have already accumulated almost a dozen bites.  I'm inclined to wait until the temperatures fall into the 60sF and the ants become less active.  The alternative is to hose myself down with insect repellent and put on the equivalent of a hazard suit.

All material © 2012-2023 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

SCBG's plant sale returns

A friend and I turned up at South Coast Botanic Garden on Saturday morning to attend the garden's first plant sale since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.  On this occasion, the event was held in the upper meadow area, which is near the garden's entrance.  Although we arrived just 45 minutes after the sale opened, there were already people wheeling carts of plants to their cars but at least we had no problem with parking, which has been an issue in prior years.

View of the plant sale area from the entrance to the upper meadow just off the main promenade

The sale plants were widely spaced so there wasn't any of the elbow-to-elbow contact I've experienced at previous sales.  There were also a lot more plants in very large pots (with prices that matched their size).

In prior years, I'd say that the the majority of plants were propagated onsite by SCBG volunteers but the propagation team hasn't been reassembled since the volunteers were furloughed back in 2020.  I'm assuming that these "homegrown" plants were donated by volunteers doing their propagating at home.

There were plenty of succulents, many also in large pots.  As I generally prefer to buy plants in small pots (one-gallon or less), this was something of a disappointment.  The prices were lower than one would pay at local garden centers but not by a large margin.

They had a range of shrubs not commonly found in local garden centers, including Banksia, Cussonia, and Hakea.  I might have caved and taken home a Hakea laurina as I've been looking for that plant for ages but they were all gone!

There was a good supply of large Tillandsias, most unlabeled, but the prices on those ranged from $90-$100 and even my 10% SCBG member discount wouldn't have taken the sting out of that

I've always had a bit of a fascination with Deuterocohnia brevifolia but $25 for a very slow-growing plant in a small pot had me taking a pass

As my friend hadn't seen the garden's topiary menagerie exhibit, we made the rounds of the displays.  In the process we found the one display I missed on my prior visit.

The "Swarm of Butterflies" was of course located near the butterfly exhibit

My friend liked the flamingo display best.  I noted that a couple more flamingos had gotten names (in exchange for a donation to the garden) since my prior visit.  This one stood out.

We stopped by my local garden center to kill some time before heading to an early lunch at a nearby restaurant.  All in all, it was a pleasant day, warm but not broiling.  And I brought home four new plants, all of which I've already tucked into place.

I picked up 3 Mangave 'Pineapple Express', which I've planted in a relatively dry section of my back garden.  Although it's only mid-May, my garden is already very dry and plants in many areas are struggling so you can expect to see me planting more and more succulents.

I repotted the small Lepismium cruciforme, an epiphytic cactus, and I've added it to my lath house.  It's related to Rhipsalis and apparently appreciates protection from hot afternoon sun.

An SCBG representative told us that the garden plans to hold another plant sale in the fall.  I look forward to it but I hope they'll bring in a larger variety of plants in smaller sizes.  Some of my best plant "experiments" have been specimens I've picked up through SCBG sales but I'm unlikely to invest in large plants I've had no prior experience growing.  Experiments are best started small.

All material © 2012-2022 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

There's always room for one more (succulent) plant

This week, the Metropolitan Water District  of Southern California (MWD) announced that, effective June 1st, it will limit outside irrigation to once a week in large sections of its service area.  The action affects six million people in portions of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Ventura Counties.  Due to historically low reservoir levels and a shrunken snowpack state water officials have dramatically reduced the amount of water the State Water Project will provide to the MWD.  The goal is to cut water use by 35%.  Failure to reach that goal could result in further water restrictions.

My own area is not part of the MWD.  Under the latest guidelines issued by our water company, we're restricted to irrigating outdoor areas two days a week on a prescribed schedule.  Hand-watering is permitted outside that schedule subject to additional requirements.  I've limited irrigation to twice a week since former Governor Brown first implemented drought-related restrictions in 2015 so the new rules don't represent a material change for me at present; however, I've no illusions about the likelihood that we'll be impacted to a greater extent in the future.

Outside of my small cutting garden, I use mostly drought-tolerant plants but it's questionable whether all of them could get by on once a week irrigation regimen given our increasingly pathetic rainfall (7.9 inches or 200 mm since the start of the current "water year" on October 1, 2021).  I've been steadily increasing the proportion of my garden planted in succulents and I'm anticipating that this trend will continue.

Lucky for me then that the South Coast Cactus & Succulent Society (SCC&SS) held its annual show and sale last weekend.  Having missed the show during the last two years of the pandemic, I made a point of attending.

This years show was held at the Palos Verdes Art Center

The space wasn't as large as that provided by the hall at the South Coast Botanic Garden previously used by the SCC&SS as a venue for these events but it was far sleeker.  There were fewer vendors by my assessment but still plenty of choices in terms of plants.

Some sellers specialized in selected genera while others offered a broad spectrum of plants

There were at least 3 parties selling pots

I focused most my attention on the show plants (not for sale).   There were fewer show tables on this occasion but whether that was due to the event's smaller space or the pandemic's impact on the show's contributors, I can't say.  Here's a summary showing each of the 4 show tables and the specimens that drew my attention:

First show table (shown in the order I approached them)

Clockwise from the upper left: Aeonium 'Sunburst' (crest form), Euphorbia bussei var kibwezinsis (crest form), Euphorbia pseudocactus hybrid, and Sedum frutescens

Second show table

Clockwise from the upper left: Aloe dorotheae, Euphorbia lactea (crest form), noID (a Euphorbia I think), Fockea edulis, Pachyodium bispinosum x succulentum, and Pachypodium rosulatum

Third show table

Clockwise from the top: Cleistocactus auriespinus (crest form), Gasteria hybrid, Gasteria obtusa, Haworthii cooperi var truncata, and Mammillaria spinosissima var rubrispina

Fourth show table

Clockwise from the upper left: Agave applanata 'Cream Spike', Gastrolea 'Grey Ice', Mammillaria pringlei, Copiapoa krainziana, and Kroeneinia grusonii

Of course, I didn't leave empty-handed but, as I parked a distance away because the parking lot was full when I arrived, I restricted my purchases to items I could easily carry.

New-to-me Dyckia choristaminea and Dyckia 'Tarzan'

That's it for me this week.  Best wishes for pleasant weather and a fruitful weekend in the garden.

All material © 2012-2022 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party