This past weekend I drove up to Los Angeles to visit the 31st Annual Inter-City Cactus and Succulent Show and Sale that took place at the Los Angeles Arboretum. LA traffic never makes things easy, so a 3-hour drive turned into 4 that Friday. The show was well worth the drive, however.
The Inter-City Cactus and Succulent Show and Sale is billed as “one of the premier horticultural shows of the year, and provides an important educational component for both the Cactus and Succulent Societies of Southern California and the Los Angeles Arboretum.” There are many Cactus and Succulent Society plant shows throughout California, but I have been told from many succulent lovers that this is the show to attend.
Before you can get into the doors of the show you first need to get by the Cactus Police.
Once inside, it is a plant lover’s dream come true. Tables upon tables of beautifully grown cactus and succulents. My only beef? The lighting was terrible.
View of the Best-in-show Table.
From the Best-in-show table I wanted to start off the individual plant pictures with my overall favorite from the entire show. It was truly an amazing specimen. But first let me explain how the plants are judged. Condition of plant counts for 60 percent. Size and degree of maturity is valued at 15 percent. Staging and presentation is worth 20 percent, and nomenclature closes out the 100-point total with 5 percent value. Believe it or not, I actually found a few plants incorrectly labeled or the species names spelled wrong. So I get the 5 percent for nomenclature. Staging as part of the scoring can lead to some debate. Some shows place a smaller value here while others won’t count staging at all. The purists believe it needs to be about the plant, not the expensive pot you place it in. While there were some amazing pots to accompany the beautiful plants at the show, you will see from the photos below that I focused on the plants.
My vote for best plant of the show went to this perfectly grown Tephrocactus geometricus.
Each time I visit a cactus and succulent show I find that my main interests change. I can usually tell when I get home and look at all the pictures I took to see where I was most focused. For this show I hung around the Mammillaria table a lot. Many of these Mammillaria shown below are not rare at all. Some can even be found at Home Depot. While rarity is the most important thing to many cactus and succulent collectors, to me it is the individual beauty of a perfectly grown specimen that will always take precedence. The Mammillaria table had unbelievable examples of this.
Mammillaria hererrae.
Mammillaria magnimamma.
Mammillaria elongata.
Mammillaria sphaerica.
Mammillaria albilanata ssp. tegelbergiana.
Mammillaria plumosa.
This is another form of Mammillaria plumosa. Hard to believe they are the same species.
Mammillaria hahniana.
Mammillaria geminispina var. leucocentra.
Mammillaria geminispina var. geminispina.
One of my favorites of the show: Mammillaria lloydii.
Once a Mammillaria, this is now the only plant in its own genus. Mammilloydia candida.
Most likely my overall favorite genus of Cacti is Copiapoa. Plants like this Copiapoa hypogea are the reason why.
“Best Chilean Cactus” award winner went to this Copiapoa cinerea.
Copiapoa dealbata var. longispina.
Copiapoa eremophila.
Continuing with more plants from the Cactus tables.
Uebelmannia pectinifera.
Trichocereus tarijensis.
Parodia magnifica.
Parodia scopa.
Not sure which species of Melocactus this was.
Matucana pujupati.
Gymnocalycium bodenbenderianum.
Sulcorebutia rauschii f. violacidermis.
Ortegocactus macdougallii.
Epithelantha chihuahuensis.
Echinocactus grusonii var. inermis.
Echinofossulucactus crispatus var. longispinus.
Coleocephalocereus aureus.
Cylindropuntia tunicata.
Tephrocactus aoracanthus.
Escobaria tuberculosa.
Astrophytum was well represented. These were my favorites. First up the overall winner in that category. Sadly, I forgot to write down the species.
Astrophytum myriostigma cv. fukuryu.
Astrophytum myriostigma.
Astrophytum ornatum.
Nicely grown and staged Ariocarpus fissuratus ssp. lloydii.
I didn’t take many photos from the Aloe table this show. I would have added a few more but the pictures turned out poorly. This Aloe ‘Inflamed’ was the champion in its category.
Close Aloe cousin, Haworthia attenuata.
Anyone that follows my blog knows that I am a big fan of the smaller agaves. Especially the variegated ones. The 2016 Inter-City Cactus and Succulent Show had a few great ones.
Agave ‘Ikari Raijin Nishiki.’
Agave potatorum ‘Mediopicta.’
Agave titanota ‘Medial Variegata.’
Agave victoriae-reginae ‘White Rhino.’
Multi-head Agave albopilosa.
It would be really close, but if I had to pick my second favorite plant of the entire show behind the Tephrocactus geometricus, I think I would have to select this Agave ‘Tuxedo Mask’. Absolutely stunning.
Now for the oddballs.
Curari namaquensis. “Best Open Succulent” at the show.
Another nice Curari namaquensis.
Cyphostemma seitziana.
Fockea edulis.
This is an old Adenia glauca.
Adenium swazicum.
Pelargonium mirabilis is actualy in the Geranium family. This plant will leaf out when not dormant.
Euphorbia bongolavensis.
Ibervillea lindheimeri.
Opercularia decaryi.
Dorstenia gigas.
Another Dorstenia gigas.
Euphorbia buruana x grandicornis.
The next two are not true succulents but still worth showing. Both can become massive trees when planted in the ground. Pseudobombax ellipticum.
Beaucarnea recurvata.
After spending close to 2 hours admiring and photographing the plants in the show, I made my way back outside to check in on the sale. It had gotten very busy. There was a lot of elbowing for space and I found myself being pushed out of the way a few times while trying to get some pictures.
I was glad I did my shopping Friday when the crowds were much smaller. I waited in line maybe 5 minutes the day prior. I asked someone how long they had been in line to check out and they guessed 45 minutes.
This lady has done this before.
I easily could have added another 100 or so photos to this blog post but I had to stop somewhere. It was very difficult to whittle down the pictures to begin with and I still ended up with too many for a post. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the 2016 Inter-City Cactus and Succulent Show and Sale and look forward to attending again next year.
Amazingly well grown and photographed plants. Most of my cactus/succulents look horrible by comparison. Oddly enough, I think my Mammilliara and Aloe species get too much sun and look pretty beat up during summer. Such is life.
Thanks Adam. I have been growing more Mammilliara lately and found out most really do like some protection from full sun too.
Len,
Are you going again this year?
Btw, I added some drip lines to my cactus/succulent bed. It has made an enormous difference in the health of various plants. Mammillaria included. They are getting fertigation too.
Adam
Not this year as I will be gone that weekend. You going? Got to get to your place to check it out. Sounds like you have a great garden.
Not sure if I will make it or not.
Hopefully, one day, my garden will be great. It is still really young. It has a long way to go as Palm Tree Jim can probably atest.
The Dorstenia gigas is actually cold tolerant and handles winter rains well…just never in clay soils.
Also- people should know that many of those plants are staged temporarily for the show,by having roots trimmed so as too stuff in very small pots..when the show is over? back to grow out pots.
I also find Len,it gets old to keep some of them very small as years go by.The lack of change and all that. My. P.bombax was going to be a Bonsai,etc..well,its about 5′ in a large clay pot with a base about 10″ wide. and its more fun for me to see it grow every year. Plus it still keeps the swollen base.
C&S sales are the best times to get the hard to find. I still kick myself on putting down a 16″ red trunked Bursera after I had it in my hand!..what it would be now years later..sigh.
Most excellent post, thank you. I took over 300 photos but missed a lot of the gems you posted. When it starts getting crowded, we flee. We went Sunday morning and the sale was considerably shopped-out, but there was no line when I purchased (early).
My favorite of the show was ‘Tuxedo Mask’. The Tephrocactus has won at many shows since at least 2011 and it gets better and better. I also admired the Euphorbia abdelkurii on the trophy table, and the enormous variegated Agave bracteosa.
You were fast to get a post up on the show. Like you I hadn’t seen Agave ‘Tuxedo Mask’ before so when I Googled it your picture came up. The Agave bracteosa was very nice but not sure how it beat the ‘Tuxedo Mask’. But I am biased towards those type agaves.
By the way I like that you did yours into two post. You captured a lot that I missed or got terrible photos of. That was my first Inter-City show so it was interesting to read the lighting is actually better now.
when and where is this plant show. I would love to attend. I have a export desert and related business in Old Mexico. San Miguel de Allende.
joseph Smith
San Diego. Two different times. A winter show and summer show. The post has details in it.