Dinner at Cactus Valley - Bakersfield Cactus and Succulent Society

INTERNET EDITION
Opuntia basilaris var. treleasei
Volume 13
August 2010
Number 8
THE NEWSLETTER OF THE BAKERSFIELD CACTUS & SUCCULENT SOCIETY
Photo by Lynn McDonald
Dinner at
Cactus Valley
Succulents at GROW Nursery
The Bakersfield Cactus & Succulent Society
% Stephen Cooley, editor
thecactuspatch@bak.rr.com
This Month's Program
Monthly Meeting
Tuesday, Aug. 10
Cactus Valley Restaurant
4215 Rosedale Highway
at 6:00 PM
(see map on page 3)
Please note the
change of
place and time
for the Meeting!
AUGUST’S PROGRAM
Volume 13 Number 8
August 2010
The
is the official publication of the Bakersfield
Cactus & Succulent Society of Bakersfield, California
Our Annual Summer Dinner
at Cactus Valley
Join us for a sociable evening with
all your friends and families from the
Bakersfield Cactus & Succulent Society at
Cactus Valley Restaurant
4215 Rosedale Highway
6:00 pm
Membership in the Bakersfield Cactus & Succulent Society costs
$10 per year for an individual and only $15 a year for a family.
Visit Us On the Web!
www.BakersfieldCactus.org
CONTACT INFORMATION
President: Ed Colley
CactusWoodsEd00@aol.com
Membership: Maynard Moe
lithops44@bak.rr.com
Newsletter/Website: Stephen Cooley
thecactuspatch@bak.rr.com
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The meeting started off with
talk of Field Trips (page 6), BCSS
Calendar (page 9) and next year’s
CSSA Convention in San Diego.
(Field Trip!). Maynard briefly
described the Show & Sale which led
to a discussion about moving the
Jack Kelley brought his Bombax ellipticum again to show its
new leaves. The newest start red but then turn green.
Sydney Kelley brought a Sinningia canescens (an African
violet relative) which had accidently had its tuber “squished” but
survived and had red tubular flowers.
I presented a “Pig’s ear” (Cotyledon orbiculata) which I had
bought at Target for the club garden. (The garden has the “pencil”
form.)
Polly presented a Dorstenia brauni of Kenya in full bloom.
(The flowers look like spread out figs and it is in the fig family.)
She told us how our son John found a Dorstenia in Malawi when
he went behind a bush.
Carol Gates brought a seedling valley oak to show the long
root which makes it difficult to weed out.
We also saw examples of the plant of the month, Euphorbia
canariensis. Some were in the auction.
There were also plants from Parlier in the auction.
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location should East Hills Mall close.
Gary Duke then gave us a
wonderful demonstration on how
to care for succulents. He covered
everything; soil, repotting,
watering, pest control, tools, seeds
– he even gave us a lesson in
grafting!
We ended with some members
taking home some really nice, large
plants at the raffle table.
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Pat, Nancy, Kelsey, Frank, and I went over for the tour. It’s about
5 minutes from our house (10 minutes if you take the long way!!)
After having someone take out the grass, Lea has done all the
work herself. She did a great job. I always find it interesting to see
what others have done. We’ll get another group together for a club
trip in a month or so for anyone else that would like to go. She said
that anyone interested in visiting on their own can call her. Give
me a call or email and I’ll send over her information.
We had a wonderful tour of Lea cactus, succulent and other
plants.
After having visited our spring yard sale, Lea Lehman
contacted me to see if any of our members would be interested in
starts from her cactus and
succulents. Of course, I
had to “run” right over to
her home to see what she
had.
What a great surprise!
She has turned her front
yard into a
cactus/succulent garden. It
is very interesting and
nicely done. As many
succulent lovers, she also
has many plants on her
patio and in her backyard
along with the mother
pigeon on her nest.
Immediately I thought
field trip!
Taking advantage of
a somewhat cooler day on July 29, Maynard, Glorianna and Ben,
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Saturday morning club members Ed, Frans, & grandchildren,
Pat, Debbie, Sidney, Jack & Lynn met at Margie's diner in Paso
Robles, for breakfast. We then drove on to foggy Cambria to
GROW nursery at Moonstone Beach. Nick was attending a family
function in Mammoth. We were well cared for by Jan, who
answered our questions and took our photo. After that we drove
along Moonstone Drive to see the landscaping done by Nick at his
parent's motel. Beautiful plants and design. Nick is really
"growing" his landscaping business these days.
Next stop was the Cambria Nursery up on Burton Street where
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KERN COUNTY FAIR
September 22 – October 3
If the club wishes to do a display in the garden area of the KC Fair,
it is time to make the plans. Two members already have some great
ideas. The theme for the garden area is oriental pathways. Please
bring your idea to the club meeting @ Cactus Valley, August 10
for the group to vote on. Then members can see what plants &
materials to be looking for. Thank you.
Lynn McDonald
we each were able to find some other nice plants. Then into town
for sunshine, shopping, coffee & snacks. Our last town to visit was
Cayucos. There we stopped at the recently opened Glanzer's
Garden. Mr. Glanzer was very helpful & knowledgeable, and
carries a nice variety of natives. We viewed another landscaping
project of Nick's where the home is right on the beach. Before
driving home we dined on fish & chips and a cookie form the
Brown Butter Cookie company. Yum.
Lynn McDonald
At our recent calendar
planning meeting we covered a
lot of ground. We determined that
we will charge $10 per calendar
and for our first outing with this
project, we will order 100
calendars. We are offering
business card sized ads for $25
and Sidney and Lynn are both
going to talk to a few of our local
nurseries to see if they have any interest in advertising. If anyone
wishing to place an ad would bring a check made out to the BCSS
for $25 along with a business card or disc with an appropriate
camera ready ad (business card sized) to our next meeting. We
have time to include them in the 2011 Calendar. Much past this
month it is really cutting into our wrap up time. The goal is to have
them printed and available for our upcoming Show & Sale
October 9, 2010.
Nancy Harper
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Football – World
Style
A Letter From Bruce
sinensis, the Chinese hackberry.
Inside we saw lots of thorny and thornless prickly pears,
Hesperaloes (with larger flowers than mine) and Agave vimoriana
with its tall spikes of flowers. They also grow grains, plants for
I became a football* to Chance til
I grew in hardihood and learned
how to repel kicks
-- The Autobiography of Henry M. Stanley
*Stanley was Welsh, so this probably refers to
what Americans call a soccer ball.
On 11 June the World Cup Football matches started.
Although not usually sport-minded, we watched this with great
interest. All of Africa is football-mad. Botswana celebrated for
days when the Zebras beat South Africa. Vans circled Gaborone
with vuvuzela buzzing. In northern Malawi in the 60s we had seen
village boys play barefoot on dusty, thorn-strewn fields. Perhaps
the most fascinating matches were in the Misuku Hills where the
pitch straddled a hilltop and more time was spent retrieving the
ball from down hill than in actual playing.
We were also entranced because this was the first time the
World Cup was played in Africa – and in South Africa! During
the dark days of apartheid South African football was boycotted,
so it is good to see them back in the world. We only wish that we
could have been there.
We watched the US vs England on the 12th and Serbia vs
Ghana on the 13. On the 14th Anne left to drive a trailer full of
school supplies for her son Daniel in South Dakota. We watched
South Africa vs Uruguay on the 16th, Greece vs Nigeria on the 17th,
and Slovinia vs the US on the 18.
The 19th was our 46th wedding anniversary. Polly
presented me with a wild cactus shirt (and later made herself a skirt
to match. [see page 5]) Then we went to Parlier to join the Fresno
CSS in a visit to the USDA arid plants research there. The first
things I noticed were trees which I took to be Celtis africana, the
African stinkwood. When I asked, it turned out to be Celtis
rubber and oil, wild sunflowers and hazelnuts.
We then observed seed cleaning machines (much fancier
than the hand cleaning we did in Botswana) and storage (similar to
Botswana). The visit ended with gifts for us of Hoodia gordonii,
Hylocereus undatus, Agave vilmoriana and jojoba seeds. That
evening we watched Denmark vs Cameroon.
On the 20th the family had lunch at Logan’s Roadhouse
where we watched Brazil vs Cote d’Ivoire. On the 22nd we
watched Mexico vs Uruguay and Argentina vs Greece. On the 23rd
it was US vs Algeria. On the 24th it was Slovakia vs Italy and
Cameroon vs Nederlands. On the 25th it was North Korea vs Cote
D’Ivoire.
On the 26th we went to the National Show and Sale at the
Huntington. We stopped at Vista del Lago for a picnic breakfast
on the way. I bought a few plants and one book: Mind-Altering
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Agave vimoriana at Parlier
and Poisonous Plants, Michael Wink & Ben-Erik van Wyk, 2008
Timber Press, Portland. It continues the excellent series by Ben
Eric who heads the Indigenous Plant Use Forum which I worked
Euphorbia schoenlandii at the CSSA Show
with in South Africa. There are a few succulents included:
cotyledons are poisonous and peyote is hallucinogenic.
The show had magnificent plants, but we hurried back
north as the US vs Ghana game had begun. We had lunch at
Chuys at Stevenson Ranch. We needn’t have hurried. The game
went into overtime and was finally settled in a penalty kickoff. The
game went to Ghana and people were upset when I cheered. This
eliminated the US from competition. (Well, after all, we insist on
playing soccer while the rest of the world plays football!)
On the way back we stopped at Hungry Valley State
Recreational Area. I didn’t expect the wild flowers to still be
blooming, but they were. The best were beautiful yellow “lilies”(
Bloomeria crocea or Golden Stars.) It’s great to see that
wildflowers can exist in an area otherwise destroyed by off road
driving.
On the 27th we watched England vs Germany and then had
lunch at Chuys on New Stine and watched Argentina vs Mexico.
Next day we watched Nederlands vs Slovakia and Brazil vs Chile.
On the 29th we watched Paraguay vs Japan and Spain vs Portugal.
On July 1st we went to Clovis for the Fresno CSS Potluck at
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the Stebles’ house. Mark Muradian brought a homemade cannon
and fired it twice. After everyone else left Polly and I stayed
overnight with Ron and Charlene who had visited us in Botswana.
We watched areal fireworks in the distance. Next morning we
watched Brazil vs Nederlands on their huge screen TV – a lively
game. The Nederlands won.
We then watched Uruguay vs Ghana at Polly’s sister
Martha’s house. Sadly, Ghana lost and was eliminated. They were
Africa’s last hope. That evening we went to the Clovis Farmers’
Market which is quite good. On the 3rd we watched Argentina vs
Germany and Paraguay vs Spain at Polly’s sister Nancy’s.
On the way back we stopped at Famosa and discovered an
Idaho zebra! It was on the side of a rental trailer which explained
that the prehistoric horses of America may have had stripes! Who
knows? When we returned there was a post card from Anne of
mammoth skeletons being dug up in South Dakota. Then the
Californian had articles on a giant ancestral whale and early
multicellular life. It was interesting to see so many fossils in such
a short time. Now if I could only find a fossil Euphorbia.
On the 4th of July we had lunch at Lora’s and the kids set
off fireworks in the evening. We went back home and watched the
Boston Pops. Anne returned from South Dakota on the 5th. On the
Watching the last game
6th we watched Nederlands vs Uruguay at Magoos Pizza on
Auburn. Nederlands won. Uruguay was South America’s last
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hope. On the 7th we watched Germany vs Spain at Hooters.
We watched the losers at the Old Fire House on the 10th.
Uruguay lost to Germany while playing in mud and rain at Port
Elizabeth on the South African coast. Finally on the 11th we
watched Spain win over Nederlands at Magoos on Olive Drive.
We were exhausted, but it had been a series worth watching,
despite blind referees and wobbly Jabulani (“celebration”) balls.
On the 12th I reported for jury duty but was finally
dismissed without serving on the 13th . That evening, of course,
was the BCSS meeting in which Gary Duke told us all (well
almost) about growing cacti (and a few succulents.)
UPCOMING
EVENTS
(see also the Field Trips on page 7)
August 10 BCSS Meeting at Cactus Valley.
program: Summer Eating Meeting
Sept. 14 BCSS Meeting at 6:30PM Olive Dr. Church.
Sept. 22 – Oct 3 Kern County Fair
Oct. 9-10 BCSS Show & Sale at East Hills Mall.
Aug 14-15 25th Annual Intercity Show & Sale. L.A. County Arboretum,
301 N. Baldwin Ave., Arcadia, CA.
Sep 4 Huntington Symposium. Huntington Botanical Gardens. .
Nov 6-7 San Gabriel Valley Cactus & Succulent Society Winter Show
& Sale. L.A. County Arboretum.
Dec 3-5 Orange County Cactus and Succulent Society Winter Show and
Sale. 10 am to 4 pm. Fullerton Arboretum, 1900 Associated Road,
Fullerton CA. occss.org.
2011
Apr 25 - May 1 CSSA 34th Biennial Convention. San Diego, CA.
Mission Valley Marriott Hotel.
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