The plant of the month is supposed to be one of the plants in the succulent garden at Cal State Bakersfield. So, I’ll say that Echinocereus coccineus, pictured above, is that plant. An easy to care for, moderately sized clumping plant that can take full sun and winter cold and will reward you in the spring with plenty of red flowers. No collection would be complete without at least one of these spectacular plants.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I’d like to talk about the rest of the plants in the garden. The Cal State succulent garden was started about 6 years ago (the earliest reference I could quickly find was from the May 2001 Cactus Patch in which the first large cacti were moved to the ESA that April ). And though six years may seem like a long time, it was slow getting started and it has just been the last three years that work has been steady. In this time we have planted nearly 200 plants.

You will find at least 7 types of agave, from the giant Agave americana to the small A. victoria-regina. We lost a few during last winter’s harsh freeze but the remainder are looking good and will be focal points when they bloom. Though we have about 10 aloes, there are so many more nice ones that we should try to acquire for the garden (especially the larger, trunked species). Our large cacti are impressive, we have tall saguaro and Trichocereus and smaller, but still good sized Cereus. Barrel cacti are well represented with one very large Ferocactus wislizenii and some nice Golden Barrels along with a compliment of more than a dozen smaller, different species of Ferocactus and Echinocactus.

The mesembs are getting established (we hope) with about 40 species in the ground including Cheiridopsis, Glottiphyllum, Faucaria, Mestoklema, Nananthus, Pleiospilos, Ruschia, and Trichodiadema. They have been a little harder to grow than the other plants, but we’ll keep trying. We also have a few crassula, Dudleya, Ponytail Palm, Callibanus, Cotyledon, Gasteria, Turbinicarpus, and Epithelantha that we are trying to grow.

There are many cacti that gives us wonderful flowers. The Echinopsis are the showiest and the Echinocereus aren’t far behind. We could certainly use more of both (no white, please!). The opuntia, more than 15 of them, are quite showy, but may get to be a size problem as they grow.

We have plenty of new plants that haven’t been tested out through a full year, including Astrophytum, Anacampseros, Denmoza, Escobaria, Myrtillocactus, and Pachycereus. The garden also includes some non-succulents like the pink and red Fairy-Dusters, Queensland Bottle Trees, Desert Willow, Desert Lavender, Ephedra, and Ocotillo. It is hoped that these will provide some shade for the more sun-tender plants.

I know that many of you don’t get the chance to come out and see the garden except during our annual meeting here. I hope you take the time to look around the garden and talk to others (especially the club officers) about what you think we should do in the garden for the future.