2025 San Francisco Succulent Expo recap

This past weekend was the much anticipated 2025 San Francisco Succulent Expo hosted by the San Francisco Succulent and Cactus Society (SFSCS). With 40 vendors selling plants and pottery, this was the biggest succulent-themed event we’re likely to see all year in Northern California. I was there on Friday and Saturday, and while I don’t have exact numbers, attendance was good, the excitement was high, and people seemed to be buying. I definitely did.

This post is about the action on the sales floor. I’ll have a separate post highlighting my favorite plants entered in the show.

Friday afternoon shortly after the sale opened to SFSCS members (the event was open to the public on Saturday and Sunday)

Lots to see and buy

Plants sold by Brian Kemble and Walker Young (in their professional lives, curator and garden director of the Ruth Bancroft Garden)

This vendor name made me laugh

My friend Justin Thiel‘s table. He was selling everything from aeoniums to mesembs, including his own aloe and mangave hybrids.

Here are the plant groups I gravitated towards:

Agaves

As always, my first pass around the sales floor was focused on finding all the agaves for sale. And as always, there were comparatively few. Agaves just aren’t very popular. Maybe because they’re primarily seen as landscaping plants? Only a few species (like Agave titanota/oteroi) are sought after by collectors.

Agave hybrids created by Brian Kemble

Three different forms of Agave oteroi. I bought the first one, blemishes and all (price was great).

I appreciate this vendor’s honesty: “Difficult to grow”

Agave victoriae-reginae ‘White Rhino’ used to be rare and expensive. Now that it’s in tissue culture, prices have come down significantly.

Not everybody likes ‘White Rhino’, but I do, especially larger specimens

Aloes

What I said about agaves holds true for aloes as well. The fantasy aloes — the dwarfy ones with colorful textured leaves — were fairly well represented because people like them as windowsill plants. Larger ones not so much.

Aloe inermis, a toothless species from Yemen, is very rare in cultivation. It grows to 2 ft. so it would make a good landscape plant.

Other vendors had small specimens of Aloe castilloniae, but none were as impressive as this

Aloe erinacea is the ‘White Rhino’ of aloes: once rare and expensive, now affordable thanks to tissue culture

This 4½ ft. Aloidendron dichotomum (aka Aloe dichotoma) turned heads. Not cheap at $250, but this plant is 10+ years old.

Most people know what a fan aloe looks like (once Aloe plicatilis, now Kumara plicatilis). But did you know that it has a sibling, Kumara haemanthifolia? It’s virtually unknown in cultivation, and I had never seen one in person before. To my amazement, renowned grower Martin Grantham had one for display (not for sale).

Kumara haemanthifolia is found in a few inaccessible mountain peaks in South Africa where it’s cool and moist. It’s notoriously difficult in cultivation because of its very specific climate needs. I was told that the spiral aloe (Aloe polyphylla), which has similar requirements, is easy in comparison (I’ve managed to kill each and every spiral aloe I ever tried).

Gasterias

Gasterias really jumped out at me this year. These aloe relatives are generally small and tolerate a fair amount of shade. Larger species and hybrids can go in the ground in our climate.

Gasteria huttoniae is one of the larger species and makes a good landscape plant for a shadier spot

Gasteria excelsa grows in sun or shade (I have two in pots)

Gasteria ‘White Japan Hybrid’ × obtusifolia, one of my purchases

Soft-leaved succulents

Next to cacti, soft-leaved succulents – anything without teeth, spines, or prickles – were probably the best represented plant group. Clearly, there is a lot of demand for succulents that can’t hurt you. The fact that they’re often very colorful, easy to grow, and generally suited for cultivation in containers adds to their attraction. I actually ended up buying a few echeverias myself.

This vendor had a huge selection of Asian imports...

...including rare variegates

I noticed the brilliantly colored flowers of this echeveria from halfway across the room. No ID, I forgot to make a note of the label.

Aeoniums are becoming more popular, no doubt driven by the ever expanding number of colorful hybrids

Any crested plant is sought after – clearly reflected in the price, like in the case of this crested Aeonium ‘Pink Witch’ (itself a fairly expensive hybrid)

Delosperma sphalmanthoides was a surprise. This is a dwarf mat-forming ice plant with outstanding cold hardiness (down to zone 5).

Echeveria colorata isn’t named Mexican giant for nothing – it really is a large plant, and a stunning one, too

Cacti

To nobody’s surprise, cacti were everywhere. Just walking around, I’d say half the plants on the sales floor were cacti. There were some specimens for use in landscaping, but most are there to be pampered in pots.

Choice collector plants do come with a steep price tag

The ruby rainbow cactus (Echinocereus rigidissimus var. rubrospinus) is quite common – I have several in the ground. What surprised me was seeing these flowers wide open. Typically you need strong light for that to happen, and the lighting inside the hall wasn’t all that bright.

Melocactus are fairly ordinary-looking until they begin to develop their almost comical cephalium. Easy to see why their common name is Pope’s head cactus.

Gymnocalycium mihanovichii comes in surprising colors, the result of genetic mutations enhanced through selective breeding. Plants lacking chlorophyll entirely, like the moon cactus, are grafted onto green root stock. I had a yellow moon cactus when I was a child, and it led me to where I am now. (This is a very interesting article about the history of the moon cactus.)

Prince would have liked these

Bromeliads and more

The Bromeliad Society of San Francisco and several bromeliad vendors had their own sales tables. I enjoyed looking at all their plants – so many tempting beauties, but too expensive to use as guinea pigs in my garden. There are never a lot of terrestrial bromeliads, but I was glad to see a few.

Neoregelias in a range of colors

I heard the siren’s song of Tillandsia xerographica, but I resisted, seeing how I’ve killed every one I’ve ever had (three or four)

Hechtia pretiosa was a surprise find on Brian Kemble’s and Walker Young’s table

If I lived in a completely frost-free climate, I’d have a variety of orthophytums. Unfortunately, these spiky beauties from Brazil don’t like the cold at all.

The same goes for hohenbergias. I do have a couple that have made it through the winter in the greenhouse, but I’ll never be able to plant these out in the garden.

Staghorn ferns seem to be having a moment. Or maybe it’s just me finally noticing them.

Oddities

I’m always on the lookout for oddities. I’m not necessarily interested in buying them, but I’m forever fascinated by the weird and the wonderful.

Pinguiculas, or butterworts, are small carnivorous plants. As one person told me, they’re excellent at trapping fruit flies. Maybe I should have gotten one for the kitchen!

Euphorbia obesa, aka the baseball plant. Like many weirdos, it’s a euphorbia.

Yes, this is a live plant, and no, it’s not a slime mold. It’s a Pseudolithos migiurtinus, a stapeliad from Somalia.

This was the strangest plant I saw. Myrmecodia platytyrea, an ant plant (myrmecophyte) from Queensland, Australia. I don’t want to go into any great detail here, but these are fascinating plants that have developed a mutually beneficial relationship with ants (here’s a short article from Kew Gardens). They grow epiphytically in shady, wet situations.

Pottery

There were six pottery vendors. I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at pottery because I didn’t want to be tempted, but here are a couple of photos.

Richard Rowe (I have a few smaller pots from him and like them a lot)

Wall sconces by landscaper designer Michelle Derviss

Michelle’s designs are inspired by splitting seeds, empty fruit pods, and the bodies of beetles

My haul

If you worried that I walked away empty-handed, you needn’t have. My initial intention was to be selective and frugal, but that went out of the window quickly. I didn’t go overboard, but I didn’t hold back either.

7 agaves, 1 mangave, 2 aloes, 1 gasteria, 3 echeverias

Mangave ‘Bloodlines’, a sport of ‘Bloodspot’ where the purple pigmentation has migrated to the leaf edge

A Mexican giant (Echeveria colorata) and an Echeveria carnicolor × diffractens hybrid from Brian and Walker, and an Echeveria minima hybrid to go with the three others I already have. They form beautiful dense clumps in the ground.

Aloe pachydactylos (hybrid) from Brian and Walker

Even though it pretty much looks like pure Aloe pachydactylos, Walker said it’s most likely a hybrid because it’s much easier to grow than the species. I’m a sucker for aloes with purple leaves and dark red teeth.

Here’s a list of what I bought. It’s as much for my own benefit because I will refer back to it at some point.

1. Agave oteroi
2. Agave ovatifolia × parrasana
3. Agave parrasana × parry var. truncata
4. Agave potrerana × polianthiflora
5. Agave titanota (Rancho Tambor)
6. Agave utahensis var. eborispina
7. Agave victoriae-reginae
8. Aloe pachydactylos hybrid
9. Aristaloe aristata ‘Magic’
10. Echeveria carnicolor × diffractens
11. Echeveria colorata
12. Echeveria minima hybrid
13. Gasteria ‘White Japan Hybrid’ × obtusifolia
14. Mangave ‘Bloodlines’

Check back in a few days for photos of some of the show plants.

© Gerhard Bock, 2025. All rights reserved. To receive all new posts by email, please subscribe here.