Insanely wonderful weekend in Santa Barbara

I just got back from a long weekend in Santa Barbara, one of the top two aloe destinations in California (the other being San Diego). As you may remember, I did the same trip in 2024 and 2025. This time, my frequent partner-in-crime Kyle was able to come along. Sharing an experience like this with a great friend and fellow plant nerd makes it all the more memorable.

We even had some beach time...

...and a margarita or two

This post is just a quick summary of the places we visited; there’ll be more detailed posts in the coming weeks.

San Marcos Growers

Over the past 46 years, San Marcos Growers (SMG) has given California gardeners more cool plants than any other grower. As a wholesale operation, it wasn’t open the public, but many retail nurseries up and down the state (and even beyond) carried their plants. As I mentioned before, SMG officially closed its gates on December 23, 2025, but there are still quite a few plants available for purchase. In the coming years, 1,500 housing units will be built on the nursery grounds to help meet the acute housing shortage in Santa Barbara County.

We hung out for a few hours with Randy Baldwin, SMG’s long-time general manager, and aloe and agave whiz Nick Deinhart who came down from San Luis Obispo for the day.

Seeing SMG for the last time was bittersweet: bitter because the plant world is immeasurably poorer without them, and sweet because Kyle and I got to buy a few more plants that will carry on SMG’s legacy in our gardens.

There’s still a good selection of succulents left...

...but most of the nursery grounds looked like this

Kyle hauling our plants

Our haul

SMG haul loaded into my van

Krock Nursery

Our second stop was at Tony and Holly Krock’s nursery. I’ve blogged about the Krocks before (February 2024 | April 2024) and it was good to catch up. They’ve been busy creating a demonstration garden next to their greenhouse and it looks fantastic already. In a year or two, it’ll be a real destination.

Tony and Holly Krock

The Krocks’ demonstration garden in the making

Taft Gardens

I was blown away by the aloe spectacle at Taft Gardens last year, so my expectations were high. I’m happy to report that this year’s flower show did not disappoint. The aloe garden was started in the late 1980s so there are hundreds of mature specimens, some approaching 20 feet in height.

Taft Gardens continues to be one of the best kept secrets in California. Even people in Santa Barbara, just 45 minutes away, went huh? when we told them that we were going there.

So many mature aloes

Aloe ferox

Kyle next to an 18-foot Aloe marlothii

The cactus garden is small but beautiful in its own right

Aloes in Wonderland

I’ve raved about Aloes in Wonderland before (April 2019 | February 2024 | February 2025), and Jeff Chemnick’s garden plus nursery continues to be the top aloe destination in all of California. Every plant is for sale: you pick and you dig, or you hire Jeff’s crew to do the digging for you. Jeff gave us an in-depth personal tour — a very special treat.

A sea of flowering aloes

So many things to look at, it’s overwhelming

Unnamed aloe hybrid

Agave franzosinii, too

Cold Spring Aloes

Our final destination was Cold Springs Aloes, Tom Cole‘s nursery and garden in Montecito. Tom is a humanitarian aid worker who has lived and worked in sub-Saharan Africa for over 30 years. He has formally described several new aloe and sansevieria species and authored a book on the aloes of Uganda. His personal collection comprises about 250 species, predominantly from East Africa, all grown from habitat seed. I was able to buy two rare species, Aloe percrassa and Aloe allochroa.

The nursery is chock full of aloes

Duo of Aloidendron barberae

Aloe volkensii ssp. multicaulis

Tom with offsets from the Aloe excelsa that sparked his love of aloes many years ago

Plant haul

I usually come home with a pretty decent haul. With Kyle along, this year’s haul was twice as big. We’d taken my Honda Odyssey van, so we had plenty of space — and we managed to fill every square inch.

Our haul the evening before we headed home

Mostly aloes and agaves, with a few dyckias, hechtias, and other succulents thrown in for good measure

The bulk of our haul came from San Marcos Growers

Below is a list of plants Kyle and I brought home from Santa Barbara. I post these lists more for myself than for the public because I refer to them quite often to figure out what plant in my garden came from where.

Genus	Species	Kyle or Gerhard	Source
Aechmea	recurvata	K + G	San Marcos Growers
Aeonium	‘Super Bang’	K + G	Terra Sol
Agave	attenuata ‘Variegata’	G	Tony Krock
Agave	desmetiana ‘Galactic Traveller’	G	San Marcos Growers
Agave	horrida	K	San Marcos Growers
Agave	margaritae	K	Tony Krock
Agave	oteroi ‘Filigree Devil’	K + G	San Marcos Growers
Agave	oteroi ‘Filigree’	K + G	San Marcos Growers
Agave	parrasana ‘Sea Star’	K	San Marcos Growers
Agave	toumeyana var. bella	K + G	San Marcos Growers
Agave	weberi striated	K + G	Tony Krock
Aloe	‘Chico Banana’	K	San Marcos Growers
Aloe	‘Tropic World’	K	San Marcos Growers
Aloe	‘Viper’	G	San Marcos Growers
Aloe	(cameronii x aculeata) x marlothii ‘Utrecht’	K + G	Nick Deinhart
Aloe	[(globuligemma x mawii) x microstigma] x marlothii	K	Nick Deinhart
Aloe	aculeata	K	Tony Krock
Aloe	allochroa	K + G	Tom Cole
Aloe	bussei	K	Tom Cole
Aloe	dawei	K + G	Taft Gardens
Aloe	lukeana	K	Tom Cole
Aloe	millotii	K	San Marcos Growers
Aloe	pearsonii	K	Tony Krock
Aloe	percrassa	G	Tom Cole
Aloe	schoelleri	K + G	Nick Deinhart
Aloe	scobinifolia	K	San Marcos Growers
Aloe	x spinosissima (SMG form?)	K	San Marcos Growers
Aloe	ankoberensis	K	Tom Cole
Babiana	stricta	K + G	Taft Gardens
Centaurothamnus	maximus	K + G	San Marcos Growers
Cleistocactus	strausii	K	Tony Krock
Dyckia	floribunda ‘La Rioja’	K	San Marcos Growers
Dyckia	platyphylla	K	San Marcos Growers
Echeveria	cante	K + G	Taft Gardens
Fouquieria	purpusii	G	Tony Krock
Hechtia	‘Silver Tongue Devil’	G	Jeff Chemnick
Hechtia	lanata	K	Tony Krock
Kalanchoe	tomentosa ‘Chocolate Soldier’	K	Taft Gardens
Leucadendron	‘Afterburner’	G	Seaside Gardens

Look for detailed posts starting later this week.

© Gerhard Bock, 2026. All rights reserved. To receive all new posts by email, please subscribe here.