Heavy-duty plant-shopping → trunk full of plants

On Saturday, I made the 50-minute drive to Walnut Creek to attend two morning events at the Ruth Bancroft Garden. The first was a 7:30 am sunrise photography session followed by a 10:00 am class on proteaceae (shrubs like grevilleas, banksias, leucospermums, leucadendrons, etc.) where, among other things, I got to demonstrate how to plant a groundcover banskia and I learned that I wasn’t adding enough sulphur to our alkaline soil to make it more acidic. (And that coffee grounds as a mulch are good because they attract earthworms.)

I’ll have a separate post with my best images from the sunrise photography session. Today I want to show you my plant haul. I still can’t believe I came home with as many new plants as I did. Serendipity or insanity? Something it’s a fine line!

Rewind a couple of months. I was asked if I was interested in going in on a group buy of cycads from a seller in San Diego County. If several of us ordered together, we’d get a significant price break and access to some unusual material. Of course I said yes.

A few weeks after that, I had the opportunity to order some plants from San Marcos Growers through another friend who has a landscape design business. I didn’t have room for larger succulents but I did find a few things I hadn’t been able to get on my December trip to Southern California. Those plants were ready for pickup, too.

In addition, I grabbed a few things at the Ruth Bancroft Garden nursery (which is open in spite of the ongoing visitor center construction), and then Ryan Penn, the RBG’s horticulturist, took me over to the Markham Nature Park & Arboretum in nearby Concord where he runs the nursery. Markham’s nursery was both larger than I had expected and exquisitely stocked with all kinds of goodies ranging from California natives, to succulents, to South African and Australian shrubs—many of them grown by Ryan and all of them for sale at bargain prices. I couldn’t believe I had never been there! The Markham nursery is open every Tuesday from 9:00 am to noon, and six times a year on the weekend for special plant sales. If you’re ever in the area on a Tuesday morning head on over there and stock up! Or make plans to attend one of their 2018 sales (April 14, May 5, May 6, June 16, September 15, October 20, and October 21).

My final stop was at my friend Troy’s plant lot in Martinez. Troy used to be the nursery manager at the Ruth Bancroft Garden and now runs Gondwana Flora, a landscape design and build company focused on regionally appropriate low-water gardens. Troy was the one who had kindly ordered some plants from San Marcos Growers for me. I had a wonderful time catching up, and I ended up getting a few extra plants in addition to what I had ordered.

This is what our minivan looked like at the end of the day:

The numbers in the photos correspond to the plant list at the end of this post. I decided to label everything because in a few years I may need a reminder where I got want.

There’s a wild mix of everything from cactus (Opuntia sulphurea, hands-down my favorite prickly pear) and succulents (a few terrestrial bromeliads [dyckia, hechtia], another dudleya) to cycads to South African shrubs and perennials to Australian shrubs and even a small Australian tree (zig-zag wattle aka Acacia merinthophora). A real grab bag of plants!

#1 in the photo below is the zig-zag wattle (Acacia merinthophora), a small Australian tree with an airy structure and long phyllodes (flattened leaf stalks that perform the functions of a traditional leaf, especially photosynthesis). It is covered with flower buds, some of which have started to open.

Here they are, all lined up for a formal group shot:

I can’t get enough of this Opuntia sulphurea!

I’m very excited about these new additions. I surprised myself today by getting all of them into the ground except for the two cycads and the Hechtia ‘Silver Star’. I’m still looking for the best spots for these three.

Here is a list of everything I got yesterday. As I mentioned, the numbers below match the numbers in the photos above.

⏵ACACIA
➊ Acacia merinthophora (Markham Nature Park & Arboretum)

⏵CYCADS
➋ Dioon argenteum (Ice Blue Cycads)
➌ Encephalartos munchii × chimanimaniensis × eugene-maraisii (KWPalmsAndCycads.com)

⏵PROTEACEAE
➍ Banksia petiolaris (Markham Nature Park & Arboretum)
➎ Dryandra (Banksia) nivea (Markham Nature Park & Arboretum)

⏵PERENNIALS
➏ Dorycnium hirsutum (Ruth Bancroft Garden)
➐ Lillium humboldtii (Markham Nature Park & Arboretum)

⏵SHRUBS
➑ Asteriscus sericeus (Gondwana Flora)
➒ Eriogonum arborescens (Markham Nature Park & Arboretum)
➓ Psoralea pinnata (Gondwana Flora)
⓫ Kunzea or Chamelaucium sp. (Markham Nature Park & Arboretum)

⏵SUCCULENTS
⓬ Deuterocohnia lorentziana (Gondwana Flora)
⓬ Dudlea cymosa ‘Giant Red’ (Ruth Bancroft Garden)
⓭ Dyckia choristaminea (Gondwana Flora)
⓮ Hechtia ‘Silver Star’ (Hechtia argentea x H. marnier-lapostollei) (Gondwana Flora)
⓯ Opuntia sulphurea (Gondwana Flora)