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This Month's Program

“FOG”“FOG”the Deserts of Baja, Chili and Namibia

Paul Klaassen @ St Paul's Episcopal Church

6 PM

Monthly Meeting

Tuesday, February 10th

at

6:30 PM Dinner @ 5:30

THE NEWSLETTER OF THE BAKERSFIELD CACTUS & SUCCULENT SOCIETY

Volume 18 February 2015 Number 2

The Cactus PatchOpuntia basilaris var. treleasei

Meet the SpeakerMeet the Speaker

Dinner @ 5:30 PMDinner @ 5:30 PM

Panda PalacePanda Palace118 Oak St.118 Oak St.

The Cactus PatchVolume 18 Number 2

February 2015The Cactus Patch is the official publication of the Bakersfield

Cactus & Succulent Society of Bakersfield, California

Membership in the Bakersfield Cactus & Succulent Society costs$20 per year for an individual and $25 a year for a family.

Visit Us On the Web!www.BakersfieldCactus.org

My presentation is a talk entitled FOG. This was commissioned forthe 2014 Convention of the Australian C&S Society, last October. Itlooks at Fog Deserts visited in Chile, Baja California and Namibia and at the succulent plants, including cacti, that grow there. The range of plants shown makes for a varied presentation – something for everyone

Born in the Netherlands, Paul won his first cactus show at school in 1959. His Opa (Grandad) gave him his first subscription to Succulenta, the Dutch C&S Society, as abirthday present in 1963 – he had been a member himself since 1933 but WWII had destroyed his collection.

He moved with his family from the Netherlands to Denmark where his collection continued to grow, under artificial lights. He remembers: “In 1967 we moved to England, supposedly just for two years. I still live there today. As I discovered girls, Irish Guinness and rock ‘n’ roll, my cactus collection went

downhill, but a beaten up Ferocactus histrix somehow followed mearound as I got married and moved around, from Surrey to Bristol and back to Dorking in Surrey, growing my own family. A move in1988 gave me my own study, with my own windowsill for the lonely F. histrix. It was soon joined by many other cacti.”

Paul joined the British Cactus & Succulent Society (BCSS) and notlong after found himself in the role of Secretary of BCSS Crawley Branch before moving on to Wiltshire in 2003, living some 5 km from iconic Stonehenge. A house move now also included a collection of 3,500 cacti – quite a challenge!

More at https://pkcactus.wordpress.com/about/

~3~

February 10February 10thth MEETING MEETING

CONTACT INFORMATION

President: Frank Drake pancho0831@yahoo.comMembership: Maynard Moe lmmoe44@gmail.comNewsletter: Polly Hargreaves pollypearl@hotmail.comWebsite: Stephen Cooley thecactuspatch@bak.rr.com

John Matthews gave a very interesting talk/demonstration at our meeting

Here he is at theHere he is at theDesert Forum at theDesert Forum at theHuntington GardenHuntington Gardenscouting out morescouting out moreHaworthias!Haworthias!

He brought lots of He brought lots of Haworthias to Haworthias to fill our collections!fill our collections!

~4~

Polly brought Haworthia truncata as an example of a “windowed” Haworthia. She described the leaves as looking like someone had run a lawn mower across the top of the plant.

Richard Amaya brought a Christmas cactus (of the “Zygocactus” form with toothed edges). It had lovely pink and white flowers.

I brought a planter with mounds of two types of Haworthias to show what some call Haworthia and Haworthioides.

Visit Us On the Web!www.BakersfieldCactus.org

~5~

President’s CornerHello, everyone. I am Frank Drake, your newly elected President. My fellow Board Members for the upcoming year are:

Vice President: Jill Brennan. One of Jill's duties will be to co-ordinate speakers at the monthly Meetings.

Treasurer: Maynard Moe. Maynard keeps track of our finances and memberships.

Secretary: Anne Lee

Newsletter: Polly Hargreaves

I believe the Board brings a great mix of experienced and new members.

A special Event Committee was created at the first board meeting. The co-chairs are Sidney Kelley and Paulette Drake . They will bebringing ideas for activities and events to the membership in the future.

Our first members meeting January 13th went well. We had a goodturnout, but I would always like to see more members participate.

The presentation by John Matthews on Haworthias was very good. It was also unique because John brought numerous live plants to touch and see plus a generous inventory to sell to members present.

In my mind, the best part of the meeting is meeting with, asking questions and the personal inter-play between the members. Normally if you have a question about the care or identification of your plant, someone there will have an answer or at least an educated guess.

January 25th a few of us met with Stephen Cooley at the club’s Cactus and Succulent Garden located at CSUB. It was a cold foggy day but Bruce, Polly, Sidney and I, with Stephen’s guidance,managed to put a dent in the weed pulling. Stephen will be co-coordinating more “days at the garden” in the future. Hopefully with better weather we will have a better turnout.

See you February 10th 6:30, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. Feel Free to bring plants for the bragging table or to contribute to the

raffle. ~6~

SPECIAL EVENTS COMMITTEE

Sidney Kelley and Paulette Drake: co-chairpersons

At the last meeting we presented the idea of a bus tour to Poots Nursery near Ripon, California. Due to a lack of response we are going to arrange a road trip instead. A road trip is a group of interested members meeting at a designated time and place and caravan to a selected location.

At this time we are considering a road trip to Poots nursery sometime in the spring. Poots nursery is one of the larger cactus and succulent gardens in California. It has 30 different families of plants and approximately 200,000 plants on the premises. We will be getting back to the membership with specific times and dates. We will attempt to notify you at the monthly meeting, newsletter orby face book.

We are also looking for members who would like to open their home to a garden tour.

Please contact us if you are interested in the road trip or giving a garden tour or have any other suggestions for a special event.(Sidney Kelley: 831-8488Paulette Drake: 399-0831)

Sidney Kelley will be holding a Hypertufa workshop at her home. This is a process of making planter pots by draping materialsoaked in a wet mortar mixture over various forms to create unusual and decorative pots. It is messy and great fun. Wear old clothes. All materials will be supplied Note: Sidney’s back yard collection of cactus and succulents is amazing.

• Location: sbkelley@bak.rr.com

• Time: 1-3 pm

• Date: February 21st

~7~

The Succulent Gardenat Cal State

WEEDS

Sunday the 25th's weeding workday wascold, wet and foggy. Still, Sidney, Polly,Bruce, Frank and myself braved the weather for a morning of weeding. By the end of our short stay we had made a respectable dent in the weeds. But, it still was only a dent and more work is needed.

Our next weeding day will be Sunday, February 15th from 9AM to 12 noon. Bring hand weeders, knee pads, gloves, perhaps a hula hoe. Watch for reminders at the next meeting and on the website.

I went back out to the garden on Friday the 30th and took a more detailed look at what was growing weed-wise. The foxtail grass is very high, over a foot in most places. The mustard and filaree also are quite large. They have been growing by leaps and bounds withthe wet, warm weather. Thankfully they have not yet set seed (though the filaree has started).

Other weedy things of note: There is quite a bit of Crassula connata which is a miniature native annual succulent. It grows in the winter in wet areas and is quite common if you look for it. Another annual succulent native is red maids, Calandrinia ciliata, which shows upevery year in a few places.

Some non-native succulent 'weeds' are Mesembryanthemum, Cleretum, and Dorotheanthus. Mesembryanthemum is impressive

for the sheer size of the leaves.

~8~

Dorotheanthus is much smaller with gorgeous flowers (you can even buy seeds of it at the local store as 'Livingstone Daisy'). Cleretum is very weedy, but looks just like Dorotheanthus until you see the unimpressive small yellow flowers. Many perennial mesemb seedlings from several different plants have begun to sprout, but in my experience few of these will survive the summer.

Several wildflowers are coming up aswell including African Daisies,California poppies, Lupines, Gilia,Clarkia, Baby Blue Eyes and a patch ofDesert Candle I planted this year. ADesert Mallow (Sphaeralcea) whichbloomed all summer has scattered itsseeds and it seems they have allsprouted. Some of these wildflowerswill have to be thinned, it is after all asucculent garden.

I hope that we can have a work day every month out at the garden, though perhaps it should be more of a“come and enjoy the garden” day. You don't have to pull weeds or trim plants, just come and enjoy the club's garden.

Stephen Cooley

~9~

Robert Carey Hargreaves1939 -- 2015

A Letter from Bruce

My older brother Robert was able to speak at the memorial for my mother

on 20th Dec.,

but then had a stroke on the 22nd and died on

the 6th of January. A memorial service for him

was scheduled for the 31st of January. He wasnot involved in succulents. He was aveterinarian specializing in chickens. In recentyears he wrote numerous letters to the editor ofthe Californian and published a book Mr. Bobthe Chicken Engineer, which told of his time asan agricultural volunteer in Viet Nam.

I kept the Jan. newsletter comments short, so now I will catch up. Of course we were at both the Fresno and Bakersfield potluck suppers in December. Our son James and his wife Emily arrived

on the 19th of Dec. and on the 23rd we went for a baby viewing – they now have ultra-sound scans on screen for the whole family – and we saw Emily’s baby which is due in May. The next evening we went out to CALM and viewedthe lights. It was warmer this yearand the lights were better than ever. On Christmas Day we had breakfastand dinner at Lora’s. That Saturday

(the 27th) we went to Tehachapi toview ostriches.

On 8th Jan. we heard Steve Frieze speak on Namibia and South Africa at the Fresno CSS. It was a good talk, but it was a bit off-putting when he showed the name of the plant by itself before we saw the plant. I prefer the name with the plant. We heard John

Matthews, of course, at the BCSS meeting on the 23. I think passing plants around worked better with our smaller club, but it is still difficult to keep track of both plants and speaker in this format.

On the 17th we went to the Huntington for the Desert Forum. As usual, the Aloes were in glorious bloom. I managed to buy some interesting plants which I will bring for the brag table in coming months. We had lunch at the Chinese pavilion and then went to the teaching greenhouses to see the giant arum in fruit. The head of bright red fruits is quite spectacular! It was a lovely warm day –quite a contrast to overcast Bakersfield.

The Cruise part two: The 16th Nov. we spent the whole day at sea. For lunch we had a so-so MongolianBBQ. When we returned to our room wefound chocolates and a towel animal- thiswas repeated each day of the cruise. Inthe afternoon we visited the ratherimpoverished library. At 3 we sang alongwith some karaoke. That evening was adress-up affair and only two out of ourfour couples deigned to do so. (The others missed out on a lovely lobster dinner!) Bill and I both had similar blazers, but he outranked me. His sleeve had four buttons to my three.

Bruce Hargreaves[Bruce's opinions are his own and are not necessarily that of the BCSS]

~11~

Message from the Siskiyous Hello all. We were both sad to hear of the losses for the Lees and Hargreaves. We have had too many warm days here -- too little rain & snow. But, I am out planting a few more succulents in the rock walls, hoping most of them will thrive. The garage/greenhouse plants got their first watering this week. All seem to be doing fine, with some aloes blooming.

We took a quick trip to Arroyo Grande for Christmas with all of Bill's siblings. After returning home for a week, we headed south again to Sierra Vista, AZ. We stopped in Bakersfield for a quick visit with my son Zac & family, on his 45th birthday. We also made a very quick stop @ Quartzite to buy a strand of turquoise beads for a Hawaiian friend. Oh, I could have dawdled there, but Bill likes to keepon the move! It was too early for flowers or migrating birds, but we were going there to visit our only cousin on our mother's side. My brother & his wife joined us all. We walked a

bit around the town, and had one day in Bisbee for lunch. I must say, I do miss the desert landscapes and big skies. We were received with fine hospitality at the Honig's on our trip home. We have been on abotanical walk on theRough & Readybotanical wayside,which has a plethora ofplant species whichgrow in the serpentinesoil. It was a rainy day,but the creek was up, soit was beautiful.

~12~

The Illinois Valley & RogueRiver watershed are threatenedby the desire to strip mine fornickel and a Canadian pipelinewith 400 stream crossings.This was also a subject at thesecond Audubon meeting weattended. They seem to be afriendly lot, but do not haveraffles for fun, as Bakersfieldgroups do. Other hikes andwalks around the Valley giveus some fine vistas (unless it isfogged in!) We hope to make a meetingsometime this year and wemiss activities like the GardenFest, Pot-luck at FACT, andfield trips.All the best

Lynn & Bill McDonald

~13~

~14~

Feb. 10th: BCSS meetingPaul Klaassen

Feb. 21st: Hypertufa workshop1—3 P.M. See events (p. 7)

Feb. 24th : BCSS Board Meeting

March 10th: BCSS meetingWoody Minnich

"South Africa, The Land of the Halfman"

April 14th: BCSS meetingBuck and Yvonne Hemenway"Why We love South Africa"

April 18th: Garden Fest @ Bakersfield College

May 12th Family Picnic/PotluckAt the Cactus Garden on the CSUB Campus

June 9th BCSS meeting

June 14th-19th: Cactus and Succulent Society of America,Biennial Convention

Pitzer College, Claremont, CA

July 14th BCSS meeting

~15~

UPCOMING EVENTS