New Cactus, Succulents and Houseplants for the SF Bay Area

New and Featured Cactus, Succulents, and Houseplants for the SF Bay Area

March means more Rain

It seems like we are not getting a break from the rains this month. We have had some very dry winters and a couple regular winters, but nothing like this very wet winter in a very long time.

Many of you will have questions about plants you have that are not fairing well after this much weather, both the wet and the freezing cold and the hail too, don’t forget the hail. My answer will be something along the lines of, This happens. You may be able to use Infuse on some to help them survive, or Bushdoctor Boomerang to help them come out of their issues come spring.

But for many of you, you might find yourself in a beautiful garden but pulling some poor performers (dead plants) out and replacing them with some more cold-hardy succulents. And you may ask yourself, “How did these plants get here?” not realizing that you planted them during drought conditions, but now it may stop making sense. You are all different generations so you may not know if I’m just another talking head, but you can ask yourself, “This is not my beautiful garden.” How did we get here? It’s just once in a lifetime, water flowing underground.

Peter

LOCAL DELIVERIES

Our online store is here. Delivering to areas near to our 2 stores, and to 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 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, or if you just prefer to avoid people that works too.

Cactus Jungle, Berkeley
1509 4th Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 558-8650

Hours:
Tue-Sun 9:30a – 5p
Closed Mondays

 

Ross Valley Nursery and
Cactus Jungle, Marin
130 Sir Francis Drake Blvd
San Anselmo, CA 94960
(415) 870-9930

Hours:
Wed-Sun 10a – 5p
Closed Mon-Tue

 

SUCCULENTS

Aeonium “Schwartzkopf” featured again? I’ve featured this classic black succulent 16 times in total, over the years, same as it ever was. That’s 16 times in 21 years of business, so on average, that’s .95 times per year. Less than once per year! I’m sure you appreciate me holding off for another year at least for the next time we feature them. These are 2g plants, but we do have other sizes as well. Winter growing, so plant them any time now!

I think it’s pretty mean of the botanists to name this one Agave horrida. Sure, it’s vicious looking, mean and nasty, huge marginal spines and all. But horrible? Horrific? Horror-show-quality? No. Well, now that I think of it, it will generate some nightmares of your plants coming inside at night to…. They are a pretty small agave growing only to about 18″ across. That’s not too scary.

Aloe hemmingii comes to us from Jeremiah at the Ruth Bancroft Gardens, though he says it’s a hybrid. But I can’t tell the difference from the species, so we may be labeling it with the species name. If Jeremiah reads this email and tells me what the other aloe in the hybrid is I may choose to change the labels. But until then we stick with it.

Jeremiah also grew us this small crop of thick and juicy 1g Aloe maculatas. Thanks, Jeremiah!

We’ve been growing the winter-blooming Safari series of aloes ourselves, and here we feature Aloe “Safari Sunrise” as a late winter bloomer.

Crassula “Green Pagoda” is a very tight stacked succulent. Most of the crassulas that stack this tight are rare and expensive, at least twice what we are charging for this one. It’s such a deal! A steal at twice the price!

Crassula perforata is the classic, the classic, the classic type of stacked, a standard stacked, a crassula at our standard succulent prices. Easy on the eyes; easy on the wallet. It will grow on you.

Dyckia platyphylla has been sold at Cactus Jungle for a number of years now, but this is the first time I’m featuring it here in an email? It’s because bromeliads are not that popular so I don’t feel the need to advertise them. You know that is what this email is all about, advertising. I’m copywriting the sales copy! Read my words and buy buy buy. Click those links.

Echeveria setosa v. deminuta is a small and fuzzy succulent that we first grew, sold and featured here 12 years ago back when Rikki was store manager at the Berkeley store. I still remember those blue pots!

Euphorbia mammillaris f. variegata is a white corncob, unlike the species which is a green corncob and which we also have in stock. The common name is Ghost Corncob Plant. I just made that up, but it fits, same as it ever was, same as it ever was.

I don’t know why Hap grows these, they’re not attractive when they’re 1g size like this. But they do grow up nice and big. And they have bulbiles. Oh, yeah, that’s why we grow them. Furcreae foetida.

Haworthia reinwardtii is the best of the Haworthias that have been moved to the newer genus of Haworthiopsis. Don’t get me started on splitting Haworthia and Aloe genuses or g-d forbid I talk about when they decided to move Sansevieria into Dracaena.

Hoya australis are huge! Easy to grow, easy to get to flower in a few years. Vining succulents are fun!

Hoya carnosa is the old style classic vining succulent with various cultivars. We’ve got a lot of new Hoyas this month, 2 here in the succulent section, and 2 further down in the rare plant section. Thick leaves.

Orbea variegata has large and variable splotchy purplish-burgundy carrion flowers. I wonder if “splotchy” is a technical botanical term. Is it from the latin? According to Merriam Websters the Etymology is, “perhaps blend of spot and blotch” and the first known use is, “Noun, 1601”. Now we have to look up the derivation of Spot and Blotch to really be sure we understand this well.

Oscularia deltoides again and again, always with the magenta iceplant. They are one of our best sellers so we can keep growing more and more and never run out of customers to buy them. Why!?!

Sempervivum “Pacific Blue Ice” is purple, I don’t know who thinks this is blue. I checked in my Photoshop to match the color to the color wheel and it’s definitely purple. Or more like magenta I guess. Colors are hard.

Sedum adolphii is a yellowish-orange rosette forming hardy trailing stonecrop from Mexico. The plants in these emails get added out of order, and I get tired when typing this much. This is the last plant I am adding today and I am tired. No more jokes. I’m going to go watch an episode of The Good Place on Netflix to relax.

CACTUS

Echinopsis pachanoi “Big Bob” is not a name I can find anywhere. This plant came to us off the back of a truck and we were promised it was a cultivar named “Big Bob” but I’m suspicious of the sourcing. We grew them this big, but we are not cultivating them so I am not adding this name to our online encyclopedia. If we were growing more I would, but we’re not, so get them while you can. If we change our minds and grow more I’ll let you know and add it to the site. Also, this photo has been photoshopped to crop out another cactus that was in the way and you can tell by the pot you see on the left side not being quite right. I’m very embarrassed. (I’m shy).

Echinopsis tacaquirensis ssp. taquimbalensis is a thick cylindrical cactus from Bolivia. Interesting spines! You know you can expect the most interesting new plants from your local Cactus Jungle.

Ferocactus histrix is, if I may quote Anderson’s The Cactus Family, “Usually solitary, depressed globose to short cylindrical, to 1.1m high but often less, to 80cm in diameter, with large, depressed, woolly stem tips.” Wow these emails could be very dry indeed if I were more interested in writing about the botany of cactus. I mean, I do have a special interest in the botany of cactus, but I think you’re probably more interested in a lighter writing style with more jokes and it’s my job to deliver what you want to you, in your email, filled with run-on sentences that go nowhere. Humor!

Another small cactus, Mammillaria crinita is going to have a crown of pink flowers in a couple months.

On the other hand, Mammillaria mammillaris, say whut? Prominent tubercles with only five radial spines make for a plant so crazy and fun I like to call it the Disco Ball of cacti. Uh, OK, sorry about that. Maybe instead we can discuss why cactus are featured prominently in K-dramas recently?

Tephrocactus articulatus is my best picture this month, really captures the personality of the cactus. I have a new camera (thanks, Dad!) and I’m working hard to figure it out, but it is very different, and so much better. I love it!

RARE PLANTS

Euphorbia bubalina has small new fresh leaves, but the stem is already thick and adorable. This one is pretty easy to grow, I recommend it!

Hoya krohniana is a silvery succulent with stunning little round fuzzy creamy yellow flowers. Button-like comes to mind as a descriptor.

The round leaves of Hoya obovata are what makes this one stand out from the pack.

One of my favorite cactus is back! Matucana madisoniorum is native to Peru where it is now very rare in habitat since so many have stolen them from nature. Ours are all seed grown.

Orbea distincta have stunning shooting-star flowers. Grow them to see for yourself! No fair peeking on google. In the meantime these horned stems are pretty interesting too.

Orbeathus hardyi also has stunning star-shaped flowers. So cute. So face-hugger adorable. You’ll want to place them on your bedside and fall asleep with them right by your face.

Peperomia incana is fuzzy, felt-like, and round-leafed. Comes from Brazil. Or as I like to call it, Brasil.

Stenocactus costatus is also called the Brain Cactus and it is going fast, it’s so very popular right now. Our crop may only last through the end of the month before you ravenous hordes have reduced our stocks to vaporware.

HOUSEPLANTS AND PERENNIALS

Aglaonema “Siam” is not your grandmother’s Chinese Evergreen houseplant, no it is very splotchy green and red, very modern and delightful. It’s nothing like those older Aglaonema types. Though I can see it now, like it’s a painting from the 16th century painted in the style of Sub-Imperial Mughal. See also here. Art history lesson complete! My emails are so instructive.

OK, OK, but hear me out, with this Calathea “Beauty Star” as a matched pair with the Aglaonema. So nice! Your house will never be the same. Or you may say to yourself, “My God, what have I done?”

Hyacinth “Blue Pearl” and “Pink Pearl” are spring bulbs or late winter bulbs, I don’t know, all I know is they’re letting the days go by and blooming right now.

I think this one sold, Protea “Brenda”, and we may be completely out of Proteas now, but I took a picture in time so you get the picture, if not the plant. But maybe we still have one or two left! The website says we have one left when I type this. Who knows? It could be yours!

POTS AND GIFTS

It’s a lot of the new indoor pots! We have a lot. This is the Marin shelf, but they’re also all in Berkeley so you don’t have to choose, you can go where you want when you want. Is that a hedgehog pot I see?

Lyrics are from Once in a LIfetime by Talking Heads, Remain in Light