The Cactus Years

The Cactus & Succulent Years
1984 to 1998
(Click on Image to Enlarge)

It all started some time in 1984. Sue had always liked cacti and succulents, so we went out and bought a dishgarden with cactus and succulents. Little did we know that cactus and succulents had different watering requirements, so we were either overwatering the cactus or underwatering the succulents. Needless to say, the plants weren't doing well. After reading up on the plants, we decided to take them out of the dishgarden and put them in individual pots. They thrived. We bought a few more plants at our local nursery, and soon ran out of room on the windowsill. So I built a little outdoor shelter and a shelf for the patio (shown below).

One day I saw an ad in the newspaper about the Carmichael Cactus and Succulent Society, so I called and spoke with Pearl Lemkuil. Since we were unable to attend the daytime meetings in Carmichael, Pearl suggested the Sacramento Cactus and Succulent Society. We joined the Sacramento club in March 1986. That opened up a whole new world for us, exposing us to exotic cactus and succulents you can't get at your local nursery. We soon learned where all the nurseries were that specialized in cactus and succulents, and our collection started to grow.

In September 1986, we bought our first house. Winter was approaching, so I built a 12' X 12' greenhouse (shown below) to shelter them and to control their environment. This also gave us a lot more room for plants. A portable heater was used in the winter to benefit the more tender plants such as the Melocactus, Euphorbias, and Pachypodiums, and ventilation was assisted by a thermostatically controlled exhaust fan.

Over the years, we traveled all over California collecting our favorite plants. Sue's favorites were the Mammillarias, and mine were the Ariocarpus. All 3 of our boys had their collection of plants as well. Matt's favorite was a Cleistocactus Strausii, and Chris' favorite was Astrophytum Myriostigma. Chris also enjoyed watching seeds sprout in his Cactus Egg. Nathan wasn't real crazy about them, especially after he fell back and landed on a cactus at a young age and had to have the spines pulled out of his butt. Sue enjoyed working on her computer, so she cataloged all of our plants showing their botanical name, origin, date of purchase, and how much we paid for them. I enjoyed growing cacti from seed, and photography was a hobby of mine so I took lots of pictures. We ended up collecting well over 300 plants. Every year we showed our plants at the Sacramento Cactus and Succulent Society's annual show in May, and our plants received many awards. We were even featured in the local newspapers a few times (click here to see the articles). We also showed our plants at the big cactus and succulent show in San Francisco one year.

In August 1998, we sold our house in South Natomas, and it was going to be several months before our new home in Elk Grove would be built. So we decided to move into an apartment and to sell all of our plants. We still have a few potted cacti and succulents on our front porch, and I hope to start growing and collecting cactus and succulents when we retire and move to Texas.