NEW THIS MONTH
JULY
I hope you had a nice holiday weekend, we did! A day off on a Sunday?
What an unusual thing! But we are back now and better than, well just
as good as yesterday. We have made some big changes behind the scenes in
where and how we grow our plants for you – we are moving a lot of our
parent cactus and succulents to San Anselmo where we will be better able
to take timely cuttings and grow new plants for all your plant needs.
We do this for you! We have added a new Houseplant growing house too, so
that will be nice and warm, and a little bit more moist than most of
our grow spaces. By next month we should have our first crop of in-house
grown Alocasias. Calatheas are doing well, more Carnivorous plants
coming…
We no longer require masks in our stores for those who are fully vaccinated. Enjoy your vaccinated life!
LOCAL DELIVERIES
Our online store is here. Delivering throughout the areas near to our 2 stores, and SF.
Deliveries are usually in 1-3 days but may take up to 1 week, Monday
thru Friday. We will call to let you know when we will be by before we
come.
List of the communities in the Bay Area we deliver to is here.
Pickup in store
Our new online shop
also has a way when you are checking out to click Pickup in Store, and
then you can pick it up in store, especially useful for everyone who are
outside our local delivery zones but still want to shop online and come
in to our store.
Cactus Jungle, Berkeley
1509 4th Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 558-8650
Current Hours: Open Wed-Sun 9:30-5
Cactus Jungle, Marin and
Ross Valley Nursery
130 Sir Francis Drake Blvd
San Anselmo, CA 94960
(415) 870-9930
Current Hours: Open Wed-Sun 9:30-5
SUCCULENT
Aeonium atropurpureum is one of the classic original rosette
succulents that are spectacular in Mediterranean climates like ours
since they come from the Mediterranean climate of Mediterranean Europe.
Of course, that will mean they are winter growers, and shrink up to much
smaller rosettes in summer. You can water them, but they will still
want to almost go dormant.
Aeonium “Salad Bowl” is a very green leafy plant, also winter growing, also Mediterranean climate etc… but green, very green.
It’s our latest crop of the very popular Agave “Snow Glow”. So
popular that we cannot keep up with demand. We always try to grow
everything everyone wants in enough quantity to make everyone happy, but
that’s not really true – we try to grow only enough to make us a
profit. We’re a business! But we do have other agaves and mangaves you
can see there too, so if we run out of one, we’ll always have another.
Echeveria “Blue Prince” is a blue variety of the old standby Black
Prince Echeveria. Except it’s not, this cultivar is not grown from the
Black Prince at all, it’s not even closely related! False Advertising, I
shout out. But it does have that dark glaucus rosette thing going for
it.
Echeveria “Cubic Frost” are huge, oversized, ready to be planted. Big folded leaves, big color.
Echeveria “Royal Hercules” rounds out our Echeveria selection today,
and it too is a glaucus rosette. Are you wondering yet what that means?
It’s used in botanical language to mean blue. That’s it! Blue! It can
also be part of a plant name, indicating, what was that? Blue! Mostly a
pale greyish-blue, but also sometimes a pale greenish-blue too.
It turns out I have one more Echeveria for you today, Echeveria
“White Rose” which seems like it should be a cante cultivar, but this is
not. Someone swooped in and stole the name for something else. It seems
wrong, but it is legal. Go figure! The Supreme Court has more important
matters to worry about, like how to disenfranchise as many POC as
possible while seeming to be protecting rights. Hah!
Graptoverias have been very popular this year, and we have had many,
this one is named Graptoveria “Olivia”. Others have other names. If you
are an Olivia or know one, then think about this, this may have been
named after you. Spooky!
We’ve been growing and selling this Haworthia attenuata for many
years, and you can tell from the name of the picture file,
haworthia_attenuata11. I have photographed this for the monthly emails
now 11 times! First one was back in 2009, most recent prior was 2019.
That’s a lot of these cute little stripey succulents.
Jovibarba hirta “Hedgehog” is closely related to the Hens and Chicks
(Sempervivum), not to the Hedgehog cactus (Echinocereus). But it has
it’s own common name, Beard of Jupiter. Don’t ask me why, please don’t
go there.
Lithops are small, and are now in stock. Very low water, South African, rock-colored, also known as Living Stones.
Mangave “Bloodspot” was featured last month too, but now we have more
sizes! More crops! More bloody intergenic hybrids for everyone. This is
a 2g crop, last month we featured a 7g crop, plus we also have 4″ and
maybe a couple 1g’s left too. Every size!
Mangave “Pineapple Express” is just the finishing touch you needed
for that corner of the garden that has been quiet for too long. Check
it.
Moonstones! So nice. Pachyphytum oviferum.
Sansevieria “Fernwood Mikado” are weird. We got these in and they are
clumps of individual spears of S. Fernwood, and they put them all
together to looko like something else. But they are very productive, and
you can see lots of new growth coming up. So you will be able to see
what they really look like, not this weird amalgamation. Educational!
Senecio rowleyanus “Variegata” used to be very rare, this variegated string of pearls, but it’s now less rare.
CACTUS
Goldie Rita is the yellowest of the yellow flowered prickly pears.
Opuntia santa-rita “Goldie Rita”. The pads will turn purple generally in
winter from the cold. If they are green now that’s because it’s not
cold out, notwithstanding Berkeley fog and cool summer mornings. It’s
not cold enough.
Here’s a new one for us, Corryocactus erectus, the Red Hot Chili
Pepper Cactus. Erect stems, sprawling forms, bright red chili-peppers on
the ends. Fun times! Be the life of the party!
OK, I know you also wanted a flower picture, the so-called chili
peppers, so you get 2 pictures of this one cactus today. Fuzzy stems,
red flowers, the combo is unbeatable. OK, so not very chili-pepper like.
The shape, the color, the texture, the flavor, not the same!
For some reason I have always separated out the “Rare” plants from
the “Cactus” in these emails, but sometimes it is hard to know why, one
or another small plant may be more or less rare, but this one is a
cactus after all too. We have 2 of the blooming Hedgehog Cacti today, so
this one goes here, the other down there. Echinocereus reichebachii is
less rare anyway. Feathery spine groupings…
Opuntia robusta is always among our most popular of the bluish
round-pads prickly-pear cactus. Lizards find them popular too for
catching some rays while hanging out in the desert, or your garden.
RARE PLANTS
And here you go, your “Rare” Hedgehog cactus, Echinocereus laui. It
really is more rare! Also has beautiful flowers, but in the meantime we
can swoon over those colorful stems with the reddish spines on top.
And now we get to the not-just-rare but also the difficult-to-grow
(rot-prone) and crazy-beautiful-weird-flowers. Edithcolea grandis, the
Persian Carpet Flower. Check out my picture of the flower here.
Euphorbia meloformis is not as desired by the collectors as it’s
cousin E. obesa, but it is also round and has chevron markings and
stripes and can be collected for all these reasons, plus those bloom
spikes! Like the antlers on a buck.
Now this one is a special Pachypodium-like Euphorbia, Euphorbia
pachypodioides. (Is there a Euphorbia-like Pachypodium? Yes! Guess the
name. No, just kidding. But there are a number of species with the name
euphorbioides so there’s that to look forward to another month.)
Melocactus azureus will form a large cephalium on top, hence the
common name Turk’s Cap. I don’t know what any of that means either, but
it makes me sound sophisticated.
HOUSEPLANTS
Maranta “Green” is a very nice Prayer Plant houseplant, but they may
have already sold out – the photo was taken last week, but this email is
this week. I wonder?!? But I like the picture so I included it anyway.
If you click, maybe there is stock, maybe not. Have I enticed you to
click through yet? How about now?
Peperomia asperula is also a rare plant, but not today, not right
now. I’m here in the houseplant section and this beautiful window-leafed
succulent houseplant is sitting right here too and that’s enough for
me. To the Houseplants!
Ferns. We grow ferns too! Pteris ensiformis is the Black Lace Fern.
Since it’s a fern it’s a pretty good bet for your low-light locations.
Oops, I meant Silver Lace Fern, where was my mind?
PERENNIALS AND SHRUBS
California native Yarrow come in White flowers, so this white
flowered one is a native flowered one, what was I saying? Achillea
millefolium “Lost Coast” is a cultivar originally found on the Lost
Coast of Northern California. If you don’t know where that is, look it
up, I won’t help you find it.
Anigozanthos “Cape Red Lead” is the brightest of the red Kangaroo Paws. We have other colors available too, if you ask.
Ceanothus “Diamond Heights” is a low growing California Lilac shrub
with the craziest variegated leaves, very rare and unusual, we only have
a few at our Berkeley store.
Spurges have been in short supply this year – did you notice that 2
years ago it was the Kangaroo Paws that were low? Well this year it’s
the spurges. Here have a spurge: Euphorbia amygdaloides v. robbiae. Low
growing with sulfury chartreusey flowers (cyathium)
Pincushion Flowers are all the rage, generally Australian, and very
colorful, they are low water and low-care, low fertilizer, but they do
like it when you pet them. Leucadendron “Red Gem”
Leucadendron “Wilson’s Wonder” is even more red than Red Gem. All are
part of the Protea Family, Proteaceae. Did I get those last e’s and a’s
in the right order? It can be confusing. …aceae, and don’t get me
started on the …oideae’s. These are more botanical jokes, so you can
ignore me if my years of botanical jokes in these emails haven’t gotten
through to you yet. Enjoy!
Also in the Protea Family, we are fully stocked on Proteas and
Banksias, and here we have Protea “Liebencherry” which is the very
cherry red blooming selection. I don’t have a flower picture for you,
but if you google it they’re out there.’
Salvia “Killer Cranberry” has red flowers. It comes from the
cranberry bogs on Cape Cod where 70% of the cranberries in the world
come from, and so they named this for those bogs. And yet it is not a
bog sage! There are bog sages, but this is a drought-tolerant sage.
Also, not from MA, it’s from TX. I think they misnamed it then.
Sollya heterophylla “Monterey Sapphire” has some very blue flowers.
Known as a Bluebell Creeper because the flowers are, well you know,
blue. And bell-shaped. And the plant creeps along low to the ground. Now
look what you made me do, explain the obvious to you. Bluebell creeper!
Blue! Bell! Creep! Er!
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