Succulents and More™

This past weekend was the much anticipated 2025 San Francisco Succulent Expo hosted by the San Francisco Succulent and Cactus Society (SFSCS). With 40 vendors selling plants and pottery, this was the biggest succulent-themed event we’re likely to see all year in Northern California. I was there on Friday and Saturday, and while I don’t have exact numbers, attendance was good, the excitement was high, and people seemed to be buying. I definitely did. This post is about the action on the sales floor. I’ll have a separate post highlighting my favorite plants entered in the show. Friday afternoon shortly after the sale opened to SFSCS members (the event was open to the public on Saturday and Sunday) Lots to see and buy Plants sold by Brian Kemble and Walker Young (in their professional lives, curator and garden director of the Ruth Bancroft Garden) This vendor name made me laugh My friend Justin Thiel ‘s table. He was selling everything from aeoniums to mesembs, including his own aloe and...

When my Portland friend Loree ( danger garden) was down here in March, one of the things she wanted to do was visit the garden of Ann Nichols in Oakland. She had been there in 2013 as part of the Bay Area Garden Bloggers Fling ( read her post here ) and really wanted to see it again. Our Oakland friends Max and Justin (I blogged about their garden recently) know Ann well and arranged for a visit. I was as excited as Loree; I had been to Ann’s garden once myself, on a Garden Conservancy Open Day in 2017 ( read my post here ), and was eager to go back. Ann Nichols with Max (center) and Justin (right). Photo by Loree Bohl. Ann Nichols is as modest about her garden as she is passionate. But talk to anybody in the Bay Area and you quickly realize that she is a local icon. Everybody loves her garden, and everybody loves her. When Ann and her husband bought the house in 1983, the landscaping was basic and dull: “This was one big boring garden,” Ann said in a 2024 interview with Splashpad Ne...