Inter-City Show Pictures

The 30th Inter-City Cactus and Succulent Show was held at the Los Angeles County Arboretum in August.  I entered about 30 plants. There wer over 1200 entered, filling 110 tables. Here are a few of the ones I thought best.

Aytes Hall at 7:30 on the Wednesday before the show.

The show room at 3:30 in the afternoon. 

And on Thursday evening, just prior to the big rush, and the last minute I had time to photograph the show.  More pictures on Facebook by lots of others and show videos on You Tube

Astrophytum asterias V type crest

Astrophytum Onzuka crest

Cereus jamacaru monstrose (a seed grown plant)

Cleistocactus winterii variegated crest

Coryphanta radians 

Espostoa ritteri crest

Ficus palmeri

Fockea edulis (another seed grown plant)

 Haageocereus lanugispinus crest

 Kleinia abyssinica var hildebrandtii

 Mammillaria crucigera

 Mammillaria herreae

Mammillaria lloydii

 Mammillaria tescopacensis v rubraflora

Pelecyphora strobiliformis

Cactus and Succulent Society Show Plants

This is the 50th anniversary Cactus and Succulent Society Show, held at the Huntington Library and Botanic Garden in San Marino, CA.

I will be entering and selling both plants and pots.

I'm entering 15 or so plants.  I'm never sure of the exact number until the morning when I have to put them into the car.  Some come out, others go in.

Turbinicarpus knuthianus 

It is in a 14 inch Erika van Auker pot and is barely movable.

 Astrophytum myriostigma (Tulense)

Grown from seed.  It gradually outgrew all of my cold frames.  It is in one of my pots.

Astrophytum myriostigma 'Onzuka' crest

Another in one of my pots.  An old crest from Miles Anderson.

Cereus jamacaru crest

A seed grown plant from CSSA Seed bank seed. The batch of seeds produced several monstrose seedlings, this being the best by far.  It is in one of my pots.

 

Cleistocactus winterii variegated crest with variegated semi-normals

Another Miles Anderson crest in one of my pots.  It never wins, the judges rightfully mark it down because of the brown areas.  It's such a wonderful weird plant I enter it anyway, just to watch people try to figure out what it is.  Lots of photos taken of this.

Cochimea pondii

Again in one of my pots.  I don't use my pots as often as appearing in this blog.

Coryphantha radians

Potted in a wonderful Evelynn Stevens pot.  I'm afraid it will outgrow this in the next year.

 

Eriosyce species.

This is in a Joe Wujick Pot.  I'm not sure of the species.  I have flower pictures, but they don't match or even come close to any reference. 

The picture of the unknown Eriosyce.

Eriosyce bulbocalyx

An old plant, originally from Rene Caro, and growing steadily.  It is ready for a bigger pot.  Currently in one of my own.

Espostoa ritteri crest

An old Miles Anderson crest in a wonderful Joe Wujick pot. The secret to growing large crests like this is to immediately get them out of the undersized pots they come in, and put them into something large. 

Gymnocalycium tudae (marsoneri ssp megatae)

I believe this is a Joe Wujcik pot.

Mammillaria chionocephala

It one of my early pots.  It really should go into something nicer.  Maybe next year.

Mammillaria crucigera

When young this is painfully slow.  When old it is too.  In a great Joe Wujcik pot.

Mammillaria lloydii

In one of my early attempts at pottery.  It looks better in person than in this picture, but this needs repotting as well.

Mytillocalycium 'Pollop'

Around for quite awhile.  This is beginning to show its age.  It's still a wonderful plant.  In one of my pots.

Oxbow

It's been awhile.

Pictures from Oxbow, Lesotho are below.
 

We drove from the New Oxbow Lodge to Two Gun Pass.  The spring  had been dry, so there weren't as many flowers as we hoped, we were limited to just a few million to choose from.  Although the spring had been dry, it was raining nearly every afternoon on the trip and flooding was a problem.  Here we are lightening the bus as it is guided through a wash.

Just ahead of the bus were massive Heliochrysums and a fantastic waterfall.

The bus took us to Two Gun pass, a little over 9000 feet altitude.  A scenic place with views for miles in all directions.  We were dropped off at 10 in the morning, while the bus went to be refueled, with the nearest gas station 60 km away.  It would only take two hours, so we left rain clothing and lunches on the bus.. 

Lots of pans with small succulents (Crassula setulosa above) and opportunistic bulbs.  With near daily rain, these do well in spite of the poor soil.

A nearby geranium, probably Geranium multisectum.

Even more interesting is Aster ericifolious, a nearly succulent member of the family

Romulea thodei was a small, sparsely distributed species.  Only a few were found, spaced fairly far apart.

Moraea alpina was also found at the top of Two Gun Pass, often just a few feet from Romuleas and Crassulas.  Heliochrysums were everywhere.

This is the enemy.  They are brought here for summer grazing and eat everything except Helichrysums and a few other shrubs..  All land is owned by the King, and used by everyone resulting in significant over grazing.

This photo was taken at 1:00.  A thunderstorm was coming, the bus hadn't arrived, we were at 9000 feet and were the tallest things for 30 miles.  We started a long walk back to the New Oxbow Lodge, hurrying to try and beat the rain, but stopping every hundred feet to photograph a new plant.

Nearer to Oxbow lodge, on a hill where sheep and goats could not comfortably graze was Delosperma nubigenum.

While looking for the Delospermas, we came upon two wonderful plants.

Eucomis nana

Eucomis schijffii

While on the hill, this fantastic Zantedeschia aethiopica.  The bus eventually made it back and we were on to central Lesotho the next day.

Drakensberg Adventure Part 1 Witsieshoek and Sentential Peak

Drakensberg Adventure Part 1

The lack of posts and lack of pots here and on the Skyviewsucculents.com page are due to a trip to the Drakensberg mountains.  This is the first part of the adventure.  The trip was led by Guillermo Rivera and Panayoti Kelaidis, with a group coming mostly from Denver, but also California, Washington D.C., Boston and Idaho.  It was a wonderful set of people to share a bus and a horticultural explorations with.  The rest of this blog is a few scenery pictures, but mostly the wonderful flora.

 Witshieshoek grassland, looking south into Lesotho.

Eucomis humilis at Witshieshoek  (Not so sure about the purple one in the middle)  We were thrilled to find all the bulbs, many of them Eucomis and Brunsvigia, on the hills around Witsieshoek.  Some of the Brunsvigia were in seed, but the flowers were all spent.  This was made up for the next day, when we were a few hundred feet higher.

The Drakensbergs are in the summer rainfall region, with hundreds of waterfalls.

The next morning was a trek to Sentenial Peak.  Already on the trail and photographing plants.  The trail zig zags up the slope.  The top is at 9500', the trails starts over 8000'.  I didn't make it to the top, stopping somewhere near the top of the first set of large rocks.

Moraea vigilans  plentiful on the early part of the trail.

Hesperantha baurii ssp baurii were everywhere.

Dierama robusta were plentiful, but moving so much in the wind, that it was nearly impossible to photograph.  This is summer, I was wearing a t-shirt, a sweatshirt and a windbreaker.

Eucomis bicolor, by the hundreds.

More Eucomis, mostly humilis this time, looking North into South Africa.

Eucomis and Galtonia

The cliffs held caves with hidden wonders.

That little white spot just to the right of center in the darkest patch of rock.

Clearly Streptocarpus

Streptocarpus pentherianus

Amazing steep slopes, all covered with bulbs and miniature shrubs.

This is the home of Agapanthus campanulatus, appearing in many shades of blue from powder blue to dark almost purple clones.

Gernanium magniflorum, one of several species present. 

Brunsvigia natalensis growing in grass.

Another clone

And another.

I began to appreciate Berkheya in this part of the trip, finding it more and more interesting as the trip progressed.  Helichrysums were well represented here as well, and even more so later in the trip.