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Gregg Starr of

PRESENTS TO SACXS in May

San Antonio Cactus and Xerophyte Society

Where is what?

The San Antonio Cactus and Xerophyte Society was organized in 1977.

Its mission is to promote the study, propagation,

and public awareness of cacti and other succulent plants.

S A C X S F A C T S

Cover Story Gregg Starr Presentation Page 2 President’s Comments Board of Directors Page 3 Recent Program Page 4-8 Field Trip to Yucca Do nursery Page 9-10 HuperTufa Container Making 1 Oh Hail No! Page 12 Member Meeting Info Page 13 Other Club’s Programs Look into the Future Send articles or photo contributions to Eva Ruona any time you wish. [email protected]

COVER VOLUME 28, #5 May 2016

We have an out of state cacti & succulent expert visiting us this month. Gregg Star is a nurseryman hailing from Tucson Arizona. He will present us with a program from his book: Agaves: Living Sculptures.

Find Starr Nursery at http://starr-nursery.com

Here is a little background on Gregg and his nursery: Starr Nursery is a mail order nursery specializing in cactus and succulents and especially Agaves. We are located in the desert Southwest, which has a great climate for growing xerophytic plants. We have been in business since July of 1985 and have been traveling to Mexico in search of exotic plants ever since we opened our doors. Agaves have been a passion since 1990, and because Mexico is the center of diversity, we continue traveling there to learn more about them. It seems that more questions arise than are answered on each trip.

mailto:[email protected]�

http://starr-nursery.com/�

President’s Comments

President: Marty Ruona [email protected] First Vice-President: Joey Gutierrez [email protected] Second Vice-President: Grace Fry [email protected] Third Vice-President: Claude Townsend [email protected] Recording Secretary: Lorraine Pia [email protected] Publicity Secretary: Alice Knight [email protected] Treasurer: Don Clark [email protected] SAGC Liaison: Sidney Yarbrough [email protected] Directors: Linda Draper [email protected] Bill Fry [email protected] Barbara Schulze [email protected] Librarian : Paul Kibler [email protected] SACXS FACTS Editor: Eva Ruona [email protected] Visit our website: www.sacxs.org

SACXS Board Members

Fellow Club Members ! Welcome to another wild Spring in South Texas. We are approx. 5” above average in annual rainfall. The temper-atures have been on the mild side, with an occasional humid day thrown in. The wildest weather has been the large hail storms. I will discuss the hail damage in a separate article. The club's biggest event of the year, our ANNUAL SHOW AND SALE, was last month. What a success it was! Barbara and her big committee did a fantastic job of organizing three days of all things cacti & succulents. Seven plant vendors had incredible plants for sale, the silent auction was well received, and the live auction was fun, fun, fun. Our club provided many educational displays for the public, and hit a proverbial home run with the hourly raffle all three days. Kudos to the show & sale committee.

Ya’all done good. Twenty six members spent Sunday afternoon, May 1st, making HyperTufa pottery. Linda and Larry Draper opened their yard/driveway for this event. Three large batches of HyperTufa were mixed up. New members made pottery with old members. Everyone had a good time, and took home their home made pots. This was the third year our club has hosted such an program. Pretty sure we will do it again next year. I was informed that Yucca Do Nursery is closing this summer. Might we put together one last field trip to visit Wade and his many xeric plants? If we agreed on a Saturday trip, we can also stop by a nursery in Bastrop, called Lost Pines. They grow lots of succulents. Send me an email to which day ya’all would prefer….June 25th, or July 2nd, or July 16th? It is an exciting time for our cactus club. We have new members to meet. Upcoming field trips include picking prickly pear fruits and harvesting their juice. This will be in late July.

VOLUME 28, #5 May 2016

There are trips to nearby cactus/succulent nurseries. We will host a Fall trip to West TX, and in October we our clubs hosts the state wide club, TACSS (Texas Association of Cactus & Succulent Societies). The weather is near perfect. Each year we as gardeners get better and more knowledgeable on growing these favorite plants of ours. This is why we call ourselves gardeners. SACXS affords us a chance to interact with fellow cactus enthusiasts, learn from each other, and be a part of something special. We are members of a gardening club for a myriad of reasons. Making lifetime friends is I think the best reward.

PROGRAMS


Fellow Club members – we are excited to grow our club and have acquired new members through the Show and Sale. Was we are actively seeking more members to grow our club, we continue to keepvour club dues at an extremely reasonable rate, so that dues are not a deterrent to joining. Please be an ambassador for our club and spread the word about the many engaging activities and educational programs we offer. Family membership is only $30.00 and single membership is $20.00. This will be good through December 31, 2016. For information prospective members may contact Grace Fry: [email protected]

CLUB MEMBERSHIP AND DUES

As a follow-up to a recent program on propagation, Marty Ruona offers a few tricks of the trade with photos.

Q: How do you propagate the succulent hens & chicks? Break off a stem. Dip it in root-tone, or any other rooting hormone. Plant into a 4" plastic pot. Fill the pot with organic potting soil. My two favorite cuttings soils are Happy Frog or Lady Bug Vortex.

Select the perfect plant from which to take cuttings. Carefully lay out cuttings ready to dip stems in root tone.

Plant them sparsely using a good organic potting soil. Keep in flats for easy watering. Stand back and watch them grow.The last photo shows fully rooted, happy healthy plants one year after planting and still in their 4 in pots.

What’s Been Happening?


38 th Show and Sale



Another Show & Sale has come and gone. I hope you were there. The Garden Center was filled with eager shoppers and potential new members. Thirteen visitors became members during our Show & Sale. Nine vendors were present including Paul & Lisa Kibler, Richard & Carol Blocker, Eric Pedley, Ann & Jimmy Black, Doug Coates, Marty Ruona, Myriam Jimenez, Alice & Jack Knight, and Joyce Hochtritt. The Garden Center was a cactus and succulent lover’s delight. In addition to the vendors’ array of plants and pots, we had our best-ever selection of live auction plants. Visitors definitely gave these plants a good look-over and returned on both days of our live auction bidding with gusto. The silent auctions were very successful and the winning bidders went home with beautiful dish gardens, potted plants, and cactus-themed items.

38 th Show and Sale Summary report by Show Chairwoman Barbara Schulze

Continued over next several pages



Our 3 day raffle had visitors running to buy raffle tickets for a chance to win some high quality raffle plants. We had so many raffle plants that we were drawing 12-15 numbers every hour.

Thanks to everyone who helped pot up these plants at our

October Pot-a-thon Claude and Eula Townsend were there every day selling our coveted SACXS Fiesta medals. If you didn’t get one yet, be sure to contact Claude. The 2016 Show & Sale was never better! It takes a village to make something this big happen. I want to especially thank my co-chairs Linda Draper and Paul Kibler for their council and support. Invaluable assistance was provided by these Show Committee Chairs: Marty Ruona, Don Clark, Grace Fry, and Lisa Kibler. Thanks to these members for providing their time and assistance: Kevin and Deborah Knippa, Gerald and Sidney Yarbrough, Ellie Drileck, Joey Gutierrez, Suzanna Harrison, Gary and Lana, Daniel, Yolanda Medina, Ernie Akers, Lorraine Pia, Mark Araiza, Keith and Brenda Blackmon, Larry Draper, Bill Fry, Jeannie Clark, Manny Zamora, Manny Zamora Jr., Stephen Jackson, Janet McCarthy, David McClure, Bette Richards, and Eva Ruona. If I accidently left your name off of my list of thanks, please let me know. It was a very busy time and I may have forgotten to write your name down. I want to make sure all who helped are recognized. I hope you have some new plants in your collection. I hope you learned some new things about our hobby. I hope you made some new friends. I hope you had fun! And I hope you will be ready to do it all over again in 2017! Signing off for this year, Barbara Schulze P.S. Please return the borrowed yard signs at the May or June meeting. Thanks for helping to advertise the Show & Sale.

38 th Show and Sale (cont)



38 th

Big thanks to the vendors who participated, many of

whom have been exhibiting and selling at

our show for years

Show and Sale (cont)



38 th Show and Sale (cont)

As usual the public enjoyed learning about cactus and succulents through these displays. Even the Fiesta President, who visited our Show & Sale, walked with me to look at the displays and voted on her favorite one. The public was invited to select their favorite display and the two displays receiving the most votes were Alice Knight (Cutting Off the Top of Cactus) and Grace Fry (Euphorbia Milii). Other members who submitted excellent displays were Ann Black, Joey Gutierrez, Bette Richards, Alma Marks, Myriam Jimenez, Floyd Waller, Manny Zamora, Lorraine Pia, Lana Daniel, Alex Martinez, Marty Ruona, Janet McCarthy, and Barbara Schulze.

Educational Displays were

interesting and polished.

Linda Draper and Marty Ruona setting up for the Hypertufa Container Making Seminar. Linda graciously opening her driveway and fabulously spacious car

port to show volunteers and new club members.



HYPERTUFA CONTAINER

MAKING

Volunteers and new members Really got into this activity and

more than 60 pots were created.



HYPERTUFA CONTAINER MAKING (cont)

What Our Members Love

Contributed by Marty Ruona

VOLUME 28, #3 March 2016

High winds OH HAIL NO! The SACXS Board of Directors hope your homes and plants survived the recent hail storms. Six of our SACXS members -that we currently know of - experienced extensive hail damage. Their homes, cars, greenhouses, and plants took a severe beating. A week after our April 12th hail across the near north side of SA, Boerne got hit with large hail. Twelve minutes of really big hail fell in that devastating hail storm. We hope to never experience such a weather occurrence again. Our members are ok, their cars will get fixed, roofs replaced, and the plants will grow again. Many cacti will be permanently scarred, but have survived as is their tough nature and they will live. In several years after we get over our shock over this, we will consider this just part of their history.

AUCTION A little information for our new club members: Plant Auction are a helpful little fundraiser. For members the fundraiser is are a great way to share their plants by donating them to the club to auction off. The lucky auction winners often go home with a plant worth way more than they paid for it .It doesn’t have to be a plant – we also auction off any item related to the love of cacti and succulents. Look around your house for things you would be pleased to pass on to another member and gift the club with them. RAFFLE TICKETS Smaller things such as cuttings, seeds, small plants, pots, or cactus related things can be donated to our raffle. So before you throw something small out, say to yourself: “I could donate that to the raffle.” Don sells Raffle Tickets in the back of the room during Social hour: $1 each, or 6 tickets for $5. These funds go toward offsetting the cost of our meeting space. Each month we rotate through our membership list and ask members of the club to contribute snacks, nibbles and refreshments. Some of our members come to meetings directly from work, so they are grateful to grab something to enjoy before the evening’s program starts.

Meeting Reminders

Taking Turns

Plant AUCTION

SNACKS

Jack Knight Kevin Knippa

Karl Knox Cqrolyn Lewis Allen Lindner

AUCTION/RAFFLE

Alma Marks Janet McCarthy Yolanda Medina

Todd Mernin Larry & Pat Murphy


Raffle

SACXS thanks all contributing members for their generosity of

spirit and sharing.

Other Club’s Activities

SAN ANTONIO GARDEN CENTER CLUBS

For more information, go to www.sanantoniogardencenter.org or call (210) 824-9981.


Look into the Future

May 18 Keynote Speaker: Greg Starr “Agaves: Living Sculptures” June 15 TBD – Stay Tuned for information TBD Field Trip to Yucca Do Nursery July 30 Field Trip to Cotulla, TX for our annual Tuna Picking October 14-15 TACSS Seminars in SA October 16 TACSS Greenhouse Tours October 19 HyperTufa Plant Container Making & Pot-a-Thon

Feel free to suggest programs or field trips that would interest you. Contact Program Director, Joey Gutierrez.

http://www.sanantoniogardencenter.org/�

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