Aloes, aloes, aloes at UC Davis Botanical Conservatory pre-sale

Plant sale season is kicking into high gear. If you live on the Central Coast, the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum is having their fall plant sale on Saturday, October 14. For more info, visit their web site.

Much closer to home, the UC Davis Arboretum will kick off their fall sales tomorrow, Saturday, October 7 (9:00-11:00 for members, 11:00-1:00 for the public). There will also be a sale on Saturday, October 21 and a public clearance sale on Saturday, November 4. For more information and to download the inventory for each sale, visit their web site.

This morning, the UC Davis Botanical Conservatory, an “interactive and multi-sensory museum containing a large diversity of live specimens relied on for teaching or research purposes,” had their pre-sale. The tables were well stocked with succulents, carnivorous plants, houseplants, and the usual quirky assortment of oddities. The prices were great, too: $10 for 3 $4 plants, $20 for 7.

The Botanical Conservatory will have tables at all the UC Davis Arboretum plant sales, so if you missed today’s pre-sale, visit them at any of the Arboretum plant sales. Their tables are usually in the back, at the far end of the nursery. Ernesto Sandoval and Marlene Simon will be on hand to answer all your questions.

Above is my haul from this morning’s Botanical Conservatory pre-sale.

All 7 aloes were just $20.

Two of them are straight species, like Aloe peglerae and Aloe castanea. The others are hybrids I had never seen before: Aloe marlothii × vryheidensis, Aloe comosa × distans, Aloe littoralis × africana, Aloe littoralis × Gasteria acinacifolia (which would make it a ×Gasteraloe) and Aloe aculeata × cryptopoda.

Some of these hybrids have parents that are quite compatible (Aloe littoralis and Aloe africana, for example, are both tall single-stemmed species). Others are a bit more out there: Aloe comosa, for instance, is a single-stemmed species that can reach 6 ft. while Aloe distans is small sprawling aloe with rosettes that rarely exceed 5 in. in diameter.

I have no immediate plans for these babies. They’ll live in pots for a year or two, and the most promising candidates will then get planted out.