Dry Oasis Plants in Half Moon Bay, CA: aloes and agaves, oh yeah!

Located in Half Moon Bay on the California coast south of San Francisco, Dry Oasis Plants is a small nursery focusing on plants suited for dry gardens and xeriscaping, offering everything from small 4-inch pots to 15-gallon architectural specimens. Their primary specialties include aloes and agaves as well as cacti and other succulents. Operating out of a nearly 14,000-square-foot space in a greenhouse complex off Highway 1, the nursery provides high-quality plant material for both individual enthusiasts and landscape professionals.

Hans Brough

Dry Oasis Plants is the brainchild of Hans Brough. He graduated from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo with a degree in Landscape Architecture but worked as a web designer and software engineer for many years while collecting and growing succulents in his private garden. In 2023, he moved into a greenhouse that had originally been a hydroponic lettuce-growing facility. In this blog post, he describes the labor-intensive process of dismantling the old hydroponic infrastructure — miles of PVC pipes, pumps, sand, and filters. Operating on a lean budget, he built nursery tables using found materials around the property, such as leftover dimensional lumber and Styrofoam “lettuce rafts” for lightweight tabletops, as well as inexpensive plastic crates to elevate plants. His biggest operational constraints are finding enough unused tabletops and free pallets. He prefers to scrounge for these materials so he can allocate his budget to buying more plants rather than expensive lumber.

When Hans expects customers, he sets out a sign in front of the entrance to his greenhouse. Otherwise customers wouldn’t know which space is his.

One notable feature is Dry Oasis’ selection of plants from San Marcos Growers (SMG). Hans has been purchasing stock from SMG over the last year with an eye towards continuing to propagate some of the aloes and agaves only SMG carried. Now that SMG has closed for good, it is up to growers like Hans to carry the torch so the legacy of San Marcos lives on.

A while ago, Hans invited me to visit, and last weekend, Kyle and I finally had time to make the 100-mile drive to Half Moon Bay. I’d heard wonderful things from my friends Michele and Tracy (both have been to Dry Oasis Plants several times), so my expectations were high. I’m very happy to report that seeing Hans’ operation in person was even more impressive than I had thought.

The greenhouse is one big open space with thousands of plants on tables and on the floor. As I mentioned earlier, Hans has everything from small plants in 4" pots to landscape-sized specimens for instant impact. The plants are beautifully grown and look clean and healthy.

Aloidendron barberae in the foreground, behind them Aloe lukeana, and beyond them several open-pollinated Aloe pretoriensis

Aloidendron ‘Hercules’

Aloe ‘Cynthia Giddy’, a great hybrid for landscaping

20-gallon Aloe tongaensis ‘Medusa’

Aloe vaombe

Aloe vaombe closeup

Aloe lolwensis

Aloe ‘David’s Delight’

Aloe rupestris

Aloe kedongensis

Hans propagates plants himself through seeds and cuttings, and he buys tissue-culture liners from Rancho Tissue Technologies. There were countless trays of small aloes and other succulents:

Aloe marlothii liners still in the tray in which they were delivered. Typically, there are 72 cells per tray.

Here’s an example of a tissue-culture liner, or plug — essentially a baby plant. Hans grows them on until they’re large enough to sell, initially in 4" pots and then in progressively larger containers. (Photo by Hans Brough.)

Dyckia liners

Aloe ‘Wahoo’ on the left

Aloe ‘Wahoo’

Aloe ‘Wahoo’

Very few aloes form bulbils on their flower stalk — plantlets that are genetic clones of the mother plant. The aptly named Aloe bulbillifera is an exception. These baby plants can be popped off when they’re a little bigger and planted in soil. They root willingly.

Many aloes change color when stressed, either because of sun exposure, cold, or lack of water. This is Aloe elgonica in between green and red — I’ve never seen this pattern before.

Hans’ primary focus is aloes, but there was a good selection of agaves, too. Here are some of them:

Agave ‘Little Shark’

Agave ‘Green Glow’ (a green version of ‘Blue Glow’)

Agave filifera

Seed-grown Agave xylonacantha with quite a bit of variability

The teeth look formidable, but they’re fairly dull and harmless

Agave ellemeetiana ‘Satina’

Agave bovicornuta (front) and variegated Agave mitis (celsii)

Variegated Agave mitis (celsii) babies forming a dense tapestry — a sight you don’t get to see very often

Seeds from Agave angustifolia (see here)

Some cactus cuttings, too

But back to aloes because there were more aloes than anything else:

Aloidendron dichotomum (formerly known as Aloe dichotoma)

Aloe labworana

I already have three labworana, but these were so pretty, I was tempted to get another one. Because why not. But ultimately sanity prevailed.

Aloe comptonii looking plump and happy

Aloe dorotheae ‘Crimson’. These are tissue cultured, i.e. genetically identical, and yet their coloration varies from light green to dark red.

As I said earlier, Hans’ greenhouse was spotless and the plants were happy and healthy. That’s quite a feat, considering there are many thousands of plants and the entire operation is run by just two people: Hans and his wife, with occasional help from their kids. And taking care of the greenhouse isn’t the only task: There’s the website to maintain, sales calls to be made, new plants to be bought, and customer orders to be filled and shipped.

When people visit my garden, I often get asked which nurseries in our area have a good selection of the kinds of succulents I have in the ground — plants suitable for landscaping, not precious collector plants to be kept in pots. My answer is often received with disappointment because there really aren’t many such places in Northern California. The nursery at the Ruth Bancroft Garden has the largest selection; local garden centers usually only have a limited range. That’s why I’m happy to say that after seeing Hans’ operation — how extensive the inventory is, how clean the greenhouse is, and how well cared for the plants are — I can whole-heartedly recommend Dry Oasis Plants.

Check out the Dry Oasis Plants website. Smaller plants can be shipped (see here how they package their plants) or they can be picked up at the greenhouse (as documented by fellow blogger Tracy Rinella in this post). Many plants are available in larger sizes — 2, 3, 5, or even 15 gallons; these need to be picked up in person.

Fortunately, Half Moon Bay is easy to get to: 45 minutes from San Francisco and from San Jose, 2 hours from Sacramento. And it’s a beautiful place to visit. The town itself is a throwback to the California beach towns of decades past, there are great beaches (and world-class surfing), plenty of restaurants and shops, and, most importantly (haha) several other nurseries north of downtown right on Highway 92. That makes Half Moon Bay a perfect destination for a weekend outing.

My haul was very modest, but that's all I have room for at the moment. There'll be more trips to Dry Oasis in my near future.

Aloe dorotheae, Agave filifera, Aloe vaotsanda, Aloe ‘Wahoo’, and Aloe comptonii

Note that Dry Oasis Plants doesn’t have fixed hours so you need to make an appointment.

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