Mike
Cactus Data Plants
Cactus Data Plants
We went to CDP this last weekend, owned by Woody Minnich. He is most hospitable and frighteningly knowledgeable - we had a wonderful time. He has about 6 greenhouses, and I suppose I could have stayed for a week. You walk down the aisle trying to look at both sides, and then realize you missed everything on the floor. Some really spectacular cacti. Not only that, but he collects lizards and turtles and they are roaming about as well. Here are a few pics.
Mike
Mike
What we got
It is awfully hard to try to figure out what to get when you visit a place like that. I remember thinking that if I had the $, I would buy the whole greenhouse. But, we settled for this for our first visit as well as a small clumping frailea that looked awfully similar to the clumping gymno I posted earlier.
And I don't need any IDs.
Starting at bottom left and going clockwise, using his labels
Melocactus azureus, Lophocereus schottii monstrous f. obesa (how this could become Pachycereus is beyond me), Gsteria baylissiana, Melocactus maxonii, Oroya laxiareolata, and Mam. geminispina.
Echinofossulocactus coptonogonus, Thelocactus phymatothele, Melocactus melocactoides, Echinofossulocactus guerraianus, Epithelanthea micromeris ssp. unguispina, and neochileana occulta.
Gasterias nitada and armstrongii, Ariocarpus fissuratus, gymnocactus ysabelae (I also don't understand how this became Turbinicarpus saueri ssp. ysabelae - John as the Turbinicarpus expert, what do you think), Pygmaeocereus rowleyanus (it flowered in the trunk on the way home!) and Sulcorebutia rauschii.
And I don't need any IDs.
Starting at bottom left and going clockwise, using his labels
Melocactus azureus, Lophocereus schottii monstrous f. obesa (how this could become Pachycereus is beyond me), Gsteria baylissiana, Melocactus maxonii, Oroya laxiareolata, and Mam. geminispina.
Echinofossulocactus coptonogonus, Thelocactus phymatothele, Melocactus melocactoides, Echinofossulocactus guerraianus, Epithelanthea micromeris ssp. unguispina, and neochileana occulta.
Gasterias nitada and armstrongii, Ariocarpus fissuratus, gymnocactus ysabelae (I also don't understand how this became Turbinicarpus saueri ssp. ysabelae - John as the Turbinicarpus expert, what do you think), Pygmaeocereus rowleyanus (it flowered in the trunk on the way home!) and Sulcorebutia rauschii.
I've been to Woody's before. When I used to live in L.A. it was pretty much only his plants that I would buy at the local shows. I think I have atleast fifteen of them in my collection right now. I think I might actually make the trip next time he has one of his sales. You made some great purchases.
Andy
Andy
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templegatejohn
- Posts: 1198
- Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 2:57 pm
- Location: Leeds, England
Hi Mike,
I had this plant many years ago under the Gymnocactus banner. It is a beautiful plant and yours looks to be a really nice example.
I guess we are back to the "lumpers and splitters" again. Someone in their wisdom has decided that the plant has more characteristics in common with the Turbinicarpus genus than it does with Gymnocactus. I told you before, buy some shares in a plant label company, you will make a fortune, failing that, look out for 4 sided ones (only joking).
It is not a particularly easy plant to keep, watering is crucial. Do not water it unless you are sure it is growing (fresh green growth, new wool, new spines, flower buds etc.). If the weather is very hot it tends to become dormant, watering then is the worst thing you could do. Too much water at any time and the body will probably split.
Also your Melocactus
I can't keep them for love nor money, so should not be giving advice, but remember in winter they will need more warmth than any of your other plants, unless you have some Discocactus and they will need the same warmth, 55-60f through the night as well, is about right.
John
I had this plant many years ago under the Gymnocactus banner. It is a beautiful plant and yours looks to be a really nice example.
I guess we are back to the "lumpers and splitters" again. Someone in their wisdom has decided that the plant has more characteristics in common with the Turbinicarpus genus than it does with Gymnocactus. I told you before, buy some shares in a plant label company, you will make a fortune, failing that, look out for 4 sided ones (only joking).
It is not a particularly easy plant to keep, watering is crucial. Do not water it unless you are sure it is growing (fresh green growth, new wool, new spines, flower buds etc.). If the weather is very hot it tends to become dormant, watering then is the worst thing you could do. Too much water at any time and the body will probably split.
Also your Melocactus
I can't keep them for love nor money, so should not be giving advice, but remember in winter they will need more warmth than any of your other plants, unless you have some Discocactus and they will need the same warmth, 55-60f through the night as well, is about right.John
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Buck Hemenway
- Posts: 2798
- Joined: Mon Aug 15, 2005 4:39 pm
- Location: Riverside, Ca USA
- Contact:
I can confirm that Woody is one of the most knowledgeable C&SS people I've met. He is generous with information and has forgotten more than most will ever know.
He is speaking tonight 10/5 at the Gates C&SS in Redlands, CA (http://www.gatescss.org).
Take a look at the article about him and his business that ran in the LA Times on Sept. 29.
THE CALIFORNIA GARDEN
He knows their every spine· In the Southland, succulents and cactuses are more popular than ever. But to a teacher turned amateur scientist, these plants aren't about trends -- they're a lifelong pursuit.By Eryn Brown, Special to The Times.
SITUATED at the junction of two dusty rural roads, Wendell "Woody" Minnich's Antelope Valley home is an unassuming Mediterranean house, surrounded by a tall chain-metal fence and landscaped with small patches of grass and the low-maintenance plants you see everywhere in the Los Angeles desert."I picked stuff I wouldn't have to water," Minnich says, walking by the garden with a nonchalant shrug.
It's an ironic comment for Minnich, 58, a retired high school teacher. He is, after all, something of a star to cactus and succulent lovers worldwide, an amateur scientist who's in demand at places as varied as the San Gabriel Valley Cactus and Succulent Society (he's vice president), the British Cactus and Succulent Society (he'll speak at its national convention next year) and the Cactus and Succulent Society of New Zealand (where he's already booked to speak in 2008).
But it all begins to make sense when you reach Minnich's backyard, which is a gateway to its own kind of paradise.There, arrayed neatly in five low-frills greenhouses and two arbors, is one of the largest retail succulent nurseries in Southern California, with 10,000 square feet of rare cactuses and succulents, sometimes stacked two levels high on homemade plywood shelves.
There are tiny jewel-like succulents from South Africa's Cape region. There are giant leafy succulents with bulbous trunks, more than 200 years old. There are cactuses — flowery and spiny, big and small — from Mexico and beyond, including the largest documented collection of the genus Mammillaria.
Minnich knows from decades of field work and research that the white toxic sap from Euphorbia virosa poisoned Mussolini's troops in North Africa; that Ariocarpus kotschoubeyanus was named after a 19th century Russian prince and explorer and used to sell for more than its weight in gold in Europe; that dinosaurs once munched on conifers of the genus Encephalartos, also known as cycads (some of the few non-succulents in Minnich's nursery).
Southern Californians have always had a soft spot for cactuses and succulents, but today the plants are more stylish than ever, thanks to their beauty and sustainability in this region's arid climate. Minnich is glad the plants are "in vogue," as he puts it, but that's not his primary concern.
His business, Cactus Data Plants, doesn't cater to the casual cactus fan, or to people hoping for low-maintenance yards. He sells to succulent enthusiasts, those who feel for a rare Fouquieria purpusii the same way folks who show prize orchids lust after an exotic cattleya. Like his customers, Minnich's fascination with succulents has nothing to do with landscaping trends. He brings a naturalist's desire to know: where a particular species grows and why, how it got its name, its place in history.
He developed the interest as a kid, when his father, a scientist working on the Sidewinder missile, would take him out to the desert near the Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Lake. "We'd see cactuses and reptiles, and I thought the plants were really cool," he says.
Minnich got serious about succulents in the early 1970s, when he started teaching high school art. Whenever he had a break from his students — summer, Christmas or Easter — he'd throw on his hiking boots and head off with his young family to the California desert or to Mexico, where he'd observe the plants in their natural habitats, and would take copious field notes, draw sketches and shoot hundreds of photographs.Once home, he'd nurture and catalog his plants, which started winning dozens of prizes at shows. As the collection grew, he started Cactus Data Plants to sell his extra stock. Gradually, he became known as an authority, selling his plants — which were pure and documented the same way a pedigreed dog might be — to competitive collectors and botanical gardens, including the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens.University scientists began incorporating Minnich's field notes and photos into their research. He began judging competitions and speaking to cactus clubs all over the world, describing his adventures in the field and showing slides of the specimens he found.Minnich discovered, he says, three major species of Mammillaria, including one named after him by a German scientist. M. minnichii is a tiny plant that grows on cliff faces in southern Oaxaca, Mexico.
"Many I have found, many I have discovered," Minnich says. "But I'm not after the fame."He walks past a shelf of African succulents that grow in the cold season. "These are telling me that winter's coming. These live just from dews and mists," he says, tenderly lifting a member of the genus Copiapoa, a rugged cactus from the Atacama region of Chile, which receives almost no rainfall.Even scientific Latin thrills Minnich. Cactuses in the genus Astrophytum are star-shaped, he explains, walking past a shelf of five-pointed beauties. A. capricorne has curly spines like a goat's horns. A. myriostigma has many little spots. A. ornatum is, of course, ornate. The delicate A. asterius is "the star's star." Mammillaria plumosa has feathery spines. One of the smallest cactuses in the world, Blossfeldia liliputana, is named after the miniature island of Lilliput in Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels.
"Minnich retired after 32 years of teaching in 2003, leaving him more time for succulents. Cactus Data Plants hasn't made him a millionaire, but it funds his travels, and that's good enough, he says. He's now documenting the cactuses of South America, and leaves in mid-October for a two-month field study in Argentina.Mike Buckner, a well-known San Diego landscape designer, says that Minnich's greatest contribution to the study of succulents is his unbridled enthusiasm. "People live vicariously through the thrill of what Woody does, get a thrill just watching his slide shows," he says.Minnich gets a kick from them too. "It's like reliving the trip every time I do it," he says. "You hear about the exploration of Africa — Livingstone and such — and there are still places no one has been. That's my passion, to get to those places — to the Amazon, to the upper regions of Brazil and Peru. I've been in parts of Mexico where I was the first Anglo they ever saw."Minnich says he wants to use his retirement to learn "all the genera in the world" — to see as many species in as many cactus genera as he can and understand the origins of all the variations he sees.In the meantime, you'll find him in his greenhouse. "I need about 10 lifetimes to do all I want to do," he says.*Winter showSan Gabriel Valley Cactus and Succulent Society's Winter Show is 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 15 and 16; L.A. County Arboretum, 301 N. Baldwin Ave., Arcadia; http://www.desertsong.com/sgvcss.
He is speaking tonight 10/5 at the Gates C&SS in Redlands, CA (http://www.gatescss.org).
Take a look at the article about him and his business that ran in the LA Times on Sept. 29.
THE CALIFORNIA GARDEN
He knows their every spine· In the Southland, succulents and cactuses are more popular than ever. But to a teacher turned amateur scientist, these plants aren't about trends -- they're a lifelong pursuit.By Eryn Brown, Special to The Times.
SITUATED at the junction of two dusty rural roads, Wendell "Woody" Minnich's Antelope Valley home is an unassuming Mediterranean house, surrounded by a tall chain-metal fence and landscaped with small patches of grass and the low-maintenance plants you see everywhere in the Los Angeles desert."I picked stuff I wouldn't have to water," Minnich says, walking by the garden with a nonchalant shrug.
It's an ironic comment for Minnich, 58, a retired high school teacher. He is, after all, something of a star to cactus and succulent lovers worldwide, an amateur scientist who's in demand at places as varied as the San Gabriel Valley Cactus and Succulent Society (he's vice president), the British Cactus and Succulent Society (he'll speak at its national convention next year) and the Cactus and Succulent Society of New Zealand (where he's already booked to speak in 2008).
But it all begins to make sense when you reach Minnich's backyard, which is a gateway to its own kind of paradise.There, arrayed neatly in five low-frills greenhouses and two arbors, is one of the largest retail succulent nurseries in Southern California, with 10,000 square feet of rare cactuses and succulents, sometimes stacked two levels high on homemade plywood shelves.
There are tiny jewel-like succulents from South Africa's Cape region. There are giant leafy succulents with bulbous trunks, more than 200 years old. There are cactuses — flowery and spiny, big and small — from Mexico and beyond, including the largest documented collection of the genus Mammillaria.
Minnich knows from decades of field work and research that the white toxic sap from Euphorbia virosa poisoned Mussolini's troops in North Africa; that Ariocarpus kotschoubeyanus was named after a 19th century Russian prince and explorer and used to sell for more than its weight in gold in Europe; that dinosaurs once munched on conifers of the genus Encephalartos, also known as cycads (some of the few non-succulents in Minnich's nursery).
Southern Californians have always had a soft spot for cactuses and succulents, but today the plants are more stylish than ever, thanks to their beauty and sustainability in this region's arid climate. Minnich is glad the plants are "in vogue," as he puts it, but that's not his primary concern.
His business, Cactus Data Plants, doesn't cater to the casual cactus fan, or to people hoping for low-maintenance yards. He sells to succulent enthusiasts, those who feel for a rare Fouquieria purpusii the same way folks who show prize orchids lust after an exotic cattleya. Like his customers, Minnich's fascination with succulents has nothing to do with landscaping trends. He brings a naturalist's desire to know: where a particular species grows and why, how it got its name, its place in history.
He developed the interest as a kid, when his father, a scientist working on the Sidewinder missile, would take him out to the desert near the Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Lake. "We'd see cactuses and reptiles, and I thought the plants were really cool," he says.
Minnich got serious about succulents in the early 1970s, when he started teaching high school art. Whenever he had a break from his students — summer, Christmas or Easter — he'd throw on his hiking boots and head off with his young family to the California desert or to Mexico, where he'd observe the plants in their natural habitats, and would take copious field notes, draw sketches and shoot hundreds of photographs.Once home, he'd nurture and catalog his plants, which started winning dozens of prizes at shows. As the collection grew, he started Cactus Data Plants to sell his extra stock. Gradually, he became known as an authority, selling his plants — which were pure and documented the same way a pedigreed dog might be — to competitive collectors and botanical gardens, including the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens.University scientists began incorporating Minnich's field notes and photos into their research. He began judging competitions and speaking to cactus clubs all over the world, describing his adventures in the field and showing slides of the specimens he found.Minnich discovered, he says, three major species of Mammillaria, including one named after him by a German scientist. M. minnichii is a tiny plant that grows on cliff faces in southern Oaxaca, Mexico.
"Many I have found, many I have discovered," Minnich says. "But I'm not after the fame."He walks past a shelf of African succulents that grow in the cold season. "These are telling me that winter's coming. These live just from dews and mists," he says, tenderly lifting a member of the genus Copiapoa, a rugged cactus from the Atacama region of Chile, which receives almost no rainfall.Even scientific Latin thrills Minnich. Cactuses in the genus Astrophytum are star-shaped, he explains, walking past a shelf of five-pointed beauties. A. capricorne has curly spines like a goat's horns. A. myriostigma has many little spots. A. ornatum is, of course, ornate. The delicate A. asterius is "the star's star." Mammillaria plumosa has feathery spines. One of the smallest cactuses in the world, Blossfeldia liliputana, is named after the miniature island of Lilliput in Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels.
"Minnich retired after 32 years of teaching in 2003, leaving him more time for succulents. Cactus Data Plants hasn't made him a millionaire, but it funds his travels, and that's good enough, he says. He's now documenting the cactuses of South America, and leaves in mid-October for a two-month field study in Argentina.Mike Buckner, a well-known San Diego landscape designer, says that Minnich's greatest contribution to the study of succulents is his unbridled enthusiasm. "People live vicariously through the thrill of what Woody does, get a thrill just watching his slide shows," he says.Minnich gets a kick from them too. "It's like reliving the trip every time I do it," he says. "You hear about the exploration of Africa — Livingstone and such — and there are still places no one has been. That's my passion, to get to those places — to the Amazon, to the upper regions of Brazil and Peru. I've been in parts of Mexico where I was the first Anglo they ever saw."Minnich says he wants to use his retirement to learn "all the genera in the world" — to see as many species in as many cactus genera as he can and understand the origins of all the variations he sees.In the meantime, you'll find him in his greenhouse. "I need about 10 lifetimes to do all I want to do," he says.*Winter showSan Gabriel Valley Cactus and Succulent Society's Winter Show is 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 15 and 16; L.A. County Arboretum, 301 N. Baldwin Ave., Arcadia; http://www.desertsong.com/sgvcss.
Buck Hemenway