The 2005 CSSA Show & Sale
and the Huntington Gardens
by Stephen Cooley

The annual CSSA Show & Sale was held this 4th of July weekend at the Huntington Library and Gardens. Maynard and I went down once again to see all the plants (that includes those in the show, for sale, and in the garden). While there, we ran into some other BCSS members: Steve Crippen, Gwen Barnes, Vonne Zdenek, Mickey McGuire, Frank Melvin, and of course Woody Minnich was there showing and selling plants.

The first thing we did was peruse the many tables of plants and pots for sale. It was our impression that this year’s sale plants were conspicuously missing a lot of cacti and they seemed to be mostly composed of the more common species/hybrids. Both Maynard and I came home without purchasing a plant (I did buy two nice pots from Joe Wujick).

The show also was a bit of a disappointment, it seemed to be small compared to other years. None of the tables were crowded with show plants. In previous years the inside was filled with succulents and caudiciforms and the outside patio was filled with Cacti. The patio was not used this year. Could the three day weekend be to blame? Still, the plants were spectacular and many of the ‘big name’ owners were represented.

The Huntington garden was as impressive as always. After lunch, we walked around and stumbled upon three large Bottle Trees (Brachychton rupestris) in the Australian section. A small one of these has been planted in the Succulent Garden at Cal State. After wandering through the Australian, Subtropical and Jungle sections we found ourselves at the bottom of the desert garden.

If any of you reading this have not been to the Huntington desert garden then you should go! You won’t soon forget it.

Since my last visit some new trails have been opened up, making it a bit longer of a walk, but definitely worth it. Once again we marveled at all the huge specimens of cacti and succulents – even though they were the same ones we marveled at the last time we were here.

We finished our tour by discovering two trees that were hiding in plain sight. They stand alone in a grassy area just inside the entrance to the garden and look like two very large Cow-Itch trees (Lagunaria – I know that most of you don’t recognize Lagunaria, but that’s what it looked like to me. I guess they might be mistaken for Alder trees as well). A few large balls at the tips of the high branches attracted my attention and when we walked over to read the sign we found that the tree was Agathis robusta, a very odd conifer from Australia. The large balls were cones, not looking quite like pine cones, but cones all the same.