Ruth Bancroft Garden 2013 fall plant sale

This past weekend was Ruth Bancroft Gardens big fall plant sale. The member sale was on Friday afternoon, and the public sale was all day Saturday. Not wanting to miss out on the best plants, I was there at 4:30pm sharp on Friday. The selection was a little smaller than at the spring sale but everything was 30% off. This made for some great bargains, especially considering that a lot of the plants they carry fall in the “unusual” category and are impossible to get elsewhere in Northern California.

Instead of organizing my photos by plant group, I’ll present them in the order in which I took them. This lets you share in the sense of discovery I felt. (The plant tables are in various places throughout the garden so to see them all, you end up doing a garden tour without initially knowing it.)

Purple tradescantia (Tradescantia pallida 'Purpurea') and aeonium sp.

 

LEFT: Leucadendron argenteum. I still want one but these 5-gal plants were $40, a bit too steep for what would be an experimental plant in my garden.
RIGHT: Leucadendron ‘Ebony’; $35 last year, now just $15. I got one this summer when I met up with the Garden Flingers.

Large selection of grevilleas. If only I had room for a few more of these but they get big.

Desert willow (Chilopsis linearis)

Agave titanota (2 gallon pot)

Agave titanota (4-inch pots)

Impressive agave flower stalk…

…and close-up of flowers

Aloe elgonica. In hindsight I wish I’d bought one.

Aloe elgonica and Aloe kedongensis

Prickly pear table

These were labeled as Opuntia ‘Santa-Rita’. The pads were amazingly round…

…and flat like a wafer!

Kapok tree (Ceiba speciosa) still blooming

Ceiba speciosa and Opuntia ficus-indica

Prickly pear fruit is called “tuna” in Spanish. It makes great jam.

Fruit on Ferocactus pottsii

I was thrilled to see this palo verde. I don’t know what species it is but it could be ‘Desert Museum’. My own palo verde saga had a happy ending; look for a new post very soon.

 

Sale tables. The tree in both photos is a Mexican palo verde (Parkinsonia aculeata)

Agave titanota. This is the classic white-leaved form described by Howard Gentry.

This undulating Agave americana ‘Marginata’ never failed to impress. Awesome if you have the space but definitely not suited for small gardens.

Tree-sized flower spike on Agave franzosinii

Agave franzosinii. Dying rosette up close.

Agave franzosinii

Agave franzosinii

Cow horn agave (Agave bovicornuta)

Agave mound

Agave parryi var. truncata

Agave parryi var. truncata, possibly the most beautiful specimen I’ve ever seen

Agave parrasana, my new favorite agave. Look at the color, the shape, the bud imprints! Fortunately I found a smaller 2-gallon size plant that was for sale. I’ve already planted it in our renovated driveway-size succulent bed (post to come).

Agave guadalajarana. This is the same species as the one I wrote about in my “Agave sunburn” post although it varies in leaf shape  from the specimens I saw at Succulent Gardens. This seems to be a species with a great deal of variability.

Agave attenuata with pups

Nerine sarniensis, a South African bulb. These intensely red flowers emerging from the rocky ground without even a hint of leaves made for a strange sight.

Baja fairy duster (Calliandra californica), another desert favorite of mine

Baja fairy duster (Calliandra californica). One plant came home with me and is now planted outside the front yard fence.

Sale area outside the nursery; the trailer on the right is the office

Rusty red clump of aloes. These desperately need some rain to perk up

Ruth Bancroft’s own manzanita cultivar, Arctostaphylos 'Ruth Bancroft'. The bark is a particularly lustrous red-brown.

Agave parryi and Agave parryi var. neomexicana (pointy leaves)

 

Agave parryi and Agave parryi var. neomexicana (pointy leaves)

Tree aloe (not sure, possibly Aloe barberae)

Flats of Australian natives

Agave mitis var. albicans

Aloe capitata var. quartziticola, still my favorite aloe

Ruth’s Folly, one of the two entrances to the Ruth Bancroft Garden (the other is via the office parking lot). By the time I left, the line of members waiting to get in had dissipated.

Check out these inquisitive epiphytic cacti growing through holes in the shade cloth (or possibly making their own holes)

 

Ponytail palms (Beaucarnea recurvata) and Agave parryi var. truncata outside the entrance

Dusty Miller (Senecio cineraria) and Agave parryi var. truncata

My haul (yes, my 40+-year old Radio Flyer wagon came along, too)

Agave stricta ‘Rubra’

Agave titanota (green and blue form)

This was was another great plant sale, and in spite of my initial misgivings about having to deal with rush hour (and early weekend) traffic, I actually enjoyed visiting the garden at this time of day. By the time I was back on the freeway heading home, the sun had set and the sky was bathed in beautiful shades of pink, purple and blue: