Succulents and More™

On my Santa Barbara trip last week , I bought some plants from Nick Deinhart , including this spectacular Mangave ‘Bloodspot’ × Agave ‘Blue Glow’ cross for my friend Kyle: Mangave ‘Bloodspot’ × Agave ‘Blue Glow’ when I picked it up from Nick Deinhart I loaded my new plants into the car on Friday afternoon when it was about 60°F and sunny. I spent the night in Pismo Beach , less than a mile from the ocean. Overnight, it cooled off to the mid-50s, and it was overcast and somewhat damp when I left on Saturday morning on my drive home. The weather remained cool and overcast for the next hour before the fog lifted and the sun came out. For the remainder of the trip, it was bright and sunny, the temperature climbing into the low 80s by mid-afternoon. I arrived home at around 3 p.m. I had the air conditioning in the car set to 68°F the entire time, except for two quick bathroom breaks when the engine was off, and the air in the car heated up into the 80s. I unloaded the plants right after I g...

When I was in Santa Barbara recently, Tony Krock of Krock Nursery gave me a demonstration of how he cores and cuts agaves for propagation. Both methods may seem radical at first glance, but they’re highly effective in promoting the formation of pups. For professional growers like Tony, this is the fastest way to propagate rare plants for the collector’s market. In fact, it’s the only way for solitary agaves that normally don’t offset at all. I filmed Tony’s demonstration and posted the video on YouTube: The video is 13+ minutes long; I highly recommend you watch it in its entirety if you’re interested in finding out how Tony does it. If you don’t have 13+ minutes to watch the video right now, here are the main steps: Coring For smaller agaves with a fairly narrow center, coring is a better technique than trying to cut the plant in half. Coring is quick and easy: Step 1: Reach all the way down into the center of the plant and snap off the cone of leaves with your hand. Step 2: Usin...

The November 2023 meeting of the Sacramento Cactus and Succulent Society (SCSS) was all about making succulent wreaths. Members brought in a large variety of succulent cuttings, mostly things like crassulas, aeoniums, as well as echeverias, graptopetalums, sedums, and hybrids thereof. However, my eyes immediately went to this: Somebody brought the flower stalk of an octopus agave ( Agave vilmoriniana ) laden with bulbils! Almost all agave species are monocarpic, i.e., they flower once and then die. To reproduce, they employ various strategies. This includes making offsets, setting seeds, or producing bulbils – plantlets emerging on the flower stalk. Pollinated flowers can turn into seeds or bulbils; sometimes you find some of each on the same inflorescence. A few agave species produce bulbils as a matter of course, others do so only when the inflorescence becomes damaged. Genetically, bulbils are 100% identical to the mother plant. In reproductive (and practical) terms, they’re a mu...

A special highlight of my San Diego trip in February  was a return visit to Hidden Agave Ranch . This 7½ acre hillside property north of Escondido is the home of agave wizard Jeremy Spath. Jeremy wears many hats: He owns a landscape design company, Water's Path; keeps sheep and alpacas for wool production (his wife, Grace,  sells  fiber products from their animals); and works on the cutting edge of agave breeding and hybridization. This includes operating his own tissue-culture lab in an outbuilding on his property. Jeremy next to an Agave ovatifolia. Photo copyright © 2022 by Jeremy Spath. Looking like the quintessential Southern California beach dude, Jeremy radiates energy and never seems to stand still. Even with a crazy schedule, he finds time for regular trips to Mexico to study agaves in habitat. He typically flies out of Tijuana International Airport, which offers cheap flights to all major cities in Mexico. Jeremy says you can fly to Oaxaca and back for as little...