Sustainable Gardening for the San Francisco Bay Area
Cactus Jungle is a Bay Area nursery, growing our own Cactus and Succulents and California Native Plants in Berkeley and the local Bay Area.
Organic Products
We here at Cactus Jungle believe that good sustainable practices are based in all of us making our own informed choices. We are not a certified organic nursery, because we do not believe that the certification process benefits small local growers when giant agribusiness controls the certification process and are able to get highly processed and energy-intensive products certified.
Our choices are based in 3 areas:
PRODUCTS
We grow all our own cactus and succulents, including parent stock and seed source plants, and California natives using 100% natural or organic fertilizers and nutrients, and mostly organic pest control. Occasionally we choose pest-control products that have lower toxicity to humans and the environment than alternatives that are certified organic.
We use the fertilizers that we offer for sale, available for anyone to see and purchase for their own use.
LOW ENERGY USE
We grow all our hardy plants outside in the Bay Area, under natural sunlight. There is no additional energy usage whatsoever. The few plants we grow that aren’t hardy are grown in greenhouses with minimal energy and lighting in winter, and none the rest of the year. Our plants are healthier because they are grown slow, outside in natural conditions.
As a local grower in the Bay Area, the potted plants are not being trucked in from other parts of the country.
We do not use perlite, an energy-intensive product produced in a blast furnace, in any of our soil mixes. We use only natural California lava and pumice.
GREENHOUSE GASSES
Our custom soil blends do not use any forest or peat products, and are not releasing locked-up carbon into the environment.
Our low-energy practices help to lower the carbon footprint of our gardens.
We are a farm in the city. We have replaced hardscape industrial land with green planted materials, helping to cool the urban environment and replacing a source of carbon released into the environment with a new carbon sink.
You can ask us questions about our choices, and how they might relate to your priorities.
Sustainable Practices
GROWN LOCALLY – All our cactus and succulents are locally grown in clay and rice-hull where available.
Terra Cotta breathes, comes from the earth and will return to the earth. Cactus and succulents grow better in terra cotta.
SOIL MIXES – All our plants are potted in our own custom soil mix, which uses the highest quality and longest lasting 100% organic materials, including our own blend of organic slow release fertilizers with all the natural micronutrients that plants need to thrive. We are peat-free.
FERTILIZERS – We offer 100% natural and organic fertilizers, nutrients and pest control.
LOW WATER – All our plants are climate appropriate and low-water in the Bay Area without chemicals or additives.
OUTDOORS – Our cactus and succulents and California natives are locally grown outdoors in Berkeley and the Bay Area; grown slow and natural for your garden without hardening off.
