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To those of you who knew him-a large contributor to the cactus files here, just wanted to let you know Jürgen Menzel lost his (short) battle with Leukemia. Please tell those you know who knew him. Thanks.

Rosemarie wrote:To those of you who knew him-a large contributor to the cactus files here, just wanted to let you know Jürgen Menzel lost his (short) battle with Leukemia. Please tell those you know who knew him. Thanks.

Very sad I never got to meet him in person. A wonderful, generous, extremely knowledgeable cactophile.

Yes, I’ve lost my friend of 20 yrs. The many online forums will be sad about the loss of this amazing man. I know he worked at educating others about cactus & tried to fill the files with examples, using his plants.

This is sad news.
I've been to his place several times and always made a bee line to his sales booth at the San Diego Shows.

He was a master grower and collector of the most desirable collector plants.
We always comment on his potting soil, a red clay from his backyard mixed with a couple pieces of pumice.
It was so heavy that he must only water once a month and never in winter, it worked for him.
There would also be a selection of rare plants growing in the ground as experiments, like Welwitschia and Ariocarpus.

He would always have a couple plants in the show, and always they would be in plastic pots with calcium stains or whatever. His opinion was it was all about the plants, you shouldn't even look at the pot.

Here are a couple photos of him I found on Goggle He would always take his shirt off in his greenhouse when sunny.

This page from my Cactus thread has some plants I bought from him and some photos of his plants.
http://www.cactiguide.com/forum/viewtop ... en#p116486

Craig/Denise, I echo your sentiments.
I visited his greenhouse every year, although I came to calling it a “sauna”. I took hundreds of pix every time!

I have some of his plants to treasure & remember him by. Still in shock he is gone. The upcoming SDCSS show in Feb will not be the same without him.

Yes, his view of dressing up the plants for the show was deemed unnecessary. The plant by itself was the prize.

I made a tribute album in his memory, on Facebook. I hope to get it up on Flickr sometime soon & if allowed by Daiv, will post a link here.

Thank you for adding the pix of him.

Daiv, if you’re reading this, I replied to your email, but not sure it went through.

I have uploaded a memorial album, tribute to Jürgen Menzel (CactusJordi here) to Flickr. It is a public album. Not sure if you need to be a Flickr member in order to view. If not & you're a Facebook member, I have a public album there (under Rosemarie Armstrong). I'm hoping this link takes you there (it's been a long while since I tried posting a link): https://flic.kr/s/aHsma7xXpQ

♥ Gone, but not forgotten ~Jürgen Menzel ♥

Rosemarie, Thank you for your post, your words are true ; Gone but not forgotten. I was fortune enough to meet him once and snapped a great image of Jordi that I would like to share. I hope you don't mind.

That IS a great pic of him, James! Thanks for sharing! The 1st visit to his greenhouse (sauna), he wore a shirt~ but unbuttoned! We said he was so lucky to do that. We women could not! So after that, he suffered with us by wearing a shirt whenever we visited.

Any chance you’re on Facebook, James?

Rosemarie, Yes I do have a facebook account but I very rarely go there. My daughter signed me up with it. If that is where it's at I need to start going there more often. I do miss all the people that use to frequent the forums. I got to know Jordi from the online forums , bought seeds and plants from him and sometimes he would gift me cuttings at no charge. When we went to California he even offered me to stay at his house. All I can say is that he was a good man and very talented and knowledgeable C&S grower.