<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 150%;"><div>Greetings,</div><div><br></div><div>Rumors of Autumn have drifted in on nightly fog here the past week. A veritable storm of cactus flowers too. <br>You can view a few photos: <a href="http://sacredsucculents.com/photo-gallery/ ">http://sacredsucculents.com/photo-gallery/ </a>;</div><div>If I could share their sweet odorous exhalations I would, but alas some wonders are too ephemeral to capture.</div><div><br></div><div>We should get fully caught up with orders this coming week. <b><i>We are making to difficult decision to take another hiatus on shipping new orders--any order postmarked after this Monday, August 17th will be shipped on a first come first serve basis beginning late September/early October</i></b>. <i>The exception to this will be auction plants which will ship as payment is received.</i> This is the only way we can accomplish some essential plant propagation and nursery repairs before summer's end. </div><div><br></div><div>We are all feeling the strain of the pandemic as we watch the tide of human desire and will break upon the rocky shore of bio-physical reality. The current demands of just barely keeping our thousands of plants alive, orders packed & shipped and our daughters engaged & homeschooled has not afforded us space for anything else. If we do not get much needed propagation done in the next month it will notably effect the diversity of our offerings for the next several years. Running a complex nursery such as ours means that we must track and plan our propagation anywhere from 1 to 5+ years out. </div><div><b><font color="#38761d"><br></font></b></div><div><b><font color="#0000ff">Third Mini Auction Fundraiser</font></b> </div><div>Has begun! See partway down our homepage for the terms and listings: <a href="http://www.sacredsucculents.com">www.sacredsucculents.com</a> Please read the full terms before bidding. The auction closes 6:30 pm PST Wednesday, August 19.</div><div><br></div><div>As we recalibrate aspects of the nursery and shipping schedules we hope to give our self more time for writing and research. We just added a few pieces to the <b>Botanical Reflections</b> page of the website <a href="http://sacredsucculents.com/botanical-reflections/">http://sacredsucculents.com/botanical-reflections/</a> ; the first time we've updated this page in 9 years. Here you can find a smattering of our writing; childhood botanical musings, our floral assessment of a remote Incan site, bizarre genealogy, and pondering the fictions of taxonomy. We will post more eventually. </div><div><br></div><div>For those interested some of the research & writing projects we would like to finish if we can actually manifest the temporal space to do so in the coming year(s):</div><div><ul><li>Summary of my current (entirely inconclusive!) thoughts on <i>Trichocereus</i> taxonomy based on 27+ years cultivating the plants, years of travel and research in the Andes observing distribution, ecology, ethnobotany, archaeology and herbarium specimens.</li></ul></div><div>Articles on:</div><div><ul><li>The nearly extinct high Andean forests (the most endangered forest ecosystem in the world.)</li><li>Undescribed species of <i>Peperomia</i> and <i>Bomarea</i> observed during my travels</li><li>Andean anthropogenesis: Incan terraforming, agroforestry and irrigation systems</li><li>Vilca relations over the millennia (= <i>Anadenanthera</i> spp.; once one of the most vital religious plants throughout the Andes.)</li></ul></div><div>Along with full travelogues from past trips, sundry horticultural expositions, not to mention thorough updates to the catalog/website and more...</div><br>Perpetual gratitude for your ongoing support during these tumultuous times!<div><br><div>Ben</div><div><br></div><div>Sacred Succulents<br>
PO Box 781<br>
Sebastopol, CA 95473 USA<br>
<a href="http://www.sacredsucculents.com">http://www.sacredsucculents.com</a><br>
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We do not take Paypal or other online payments. Still just cash, check or money order to our PO box.</div></div></span>