<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><font style=""><font style=""><span style="line-height: 150%;"><font style=""><font style=""><font style=""><span style="line-height: 150%;"><font style=""><span style="line-height: 150%;"><font style=""><font style=""><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: large;">Greetings fellow phytophiles,</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: large;"><br></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: large;">It feels like we've been running an uncanny obstacle course the past 6 weeks trying to get the website updated and this email out! June was a bit of a lost month for us, much time being taken up by 2 family members’ sudden and completely separate close calls with mortality... We sincerely hope things are settling now and strive to turn our focus back to botanical matters.</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: large;"><br></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: large;">Months later and we are still seeing new evidence of damage from last winter’s extreme weather. Until recently, this had been the foggiest and coolest summer we’ve had in over a decade. This has made recovery and cleaning up the winter damaged <i>Trichocereus</i> problematic and new growth slower than <i>any</i> year I can recall! We’ve also been peppered with sporadic sudden heat spikes—these extreme temperature swings have been hard on many plants. We're discovering more plants failing to wake from dormancy and damage among some of the species in the greenhouses, greater than <i>anything</i> we've seen before. In the last several months we've lost about 70% of our Andean <i>Echeveria</i>, over a dozen of our large Burseraceae mother plants (Copal, Frankincense, Myrrh), and a fair number of globular cacti --<i> Ariocarpus, Turbinicarpus, Mammillaria</i>, etc. This is humbling and perplexing, to say the least. I can't piece together all of the causes of the damage and loss... some of it makes no sense I can track; it seems to be a complex accumulation of factors. Propagation this year has primarily been limited to our efforts to salvage damaged plants, and looks to remain so for the season. <b>All this has significantly slowed down fulfillment of the spring retail orders and will have a notable impact on our future offerings.</b> Under these current circumstances, new orders should be restricted to items on the Specimen Plant List [<a href="http://www.sacredsucculents.com">halfway down the homepage</a>]—we have to discourage new orders (especially for seed) from our retail PDF lists <i>until</i> we can entirely update them; you're welcome to make inquiries, just know that new orders from these retail lists likely won't ship until autumn (or later) and there’s a fair number of plants/seeds that won’t be available until next year...if again <i>at all</i>. Once more, I apologize for the inconvenience. We strive to update the Specimen List monthly and ship specimen orders weekly. For now, this is also where we'll list some plants from the retail catalog that are currently available. </div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: large;"><br></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: large;"><b><font color="#351c75">Not all is woe</font></b>, we continue to at least inch forward with essential nursery renovations. Some of the plants we've lost we have backed up at various botanical gardens, and, of course, in the gardens of some of you fine phytophiles. Many of our Asian and Andean shrubs and trees have thrived in the cooler weather, plus we finally seem to have entered a stretch of sunny summer days. We have managed to plant some seed, including fresh batches of <i>Boswellia</i> and <i>Bursera</i>; we also have seedlings of exciting new <i>Trichocereus</i> hybrids coming along which we hope to offer this winter or next season. </div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: large;"><br></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: large;"><u><font color="#990000">Note:</font></u> We changed our Hushmail filters and recently discovered that some customer emails were ending up as spam—we're not sure how many we deleted. We've corrected this, but if we haven't responded to you this summer this may be why. benkamm@monitor.net is always reliable.</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: large;"><br></div><font style=""><div style=""><span style="line-height: 150%;"><font style="" size="5"><u style=""><b style="">A new </b><b style=""><font color="#38761d">Plant Mini Auction-Fundraiser</font></b> <b style="">has begun!</b></u></font></span></div></font></font></font></span></font></span></font></font></font></span></font></font><font size="3" style=""><span style="line-height: 150%;"><div style=""><font size="6" style=""><font size="4" style=""><font size="4" style=""><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 150%;"><font size="3" style=""><font size="4" style=""><font face="times new roman, serif"><font style="">I'm attempting to honor the many requests for more regular plant
auctions—a small auction has been posted today and runs until Wednesday
evening. </font><font color="#990000" style=""><b>This is the first auction in some time to list Seed--<i style="">which is open to international bidders</i>!</b> </font><b style="">Plants remain for US bidders only.</b><font style=""> Due to the winter adversities, a </font><i style="">number of plants will only
be available via auction this year, and many of these only as a one
time offering</i><font style="">.</font></font><font face="Arial" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif;"> </font></font></font></span></font></font></font><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: large;">Know that auction purchases directly fund nursery repairs and renovations as well as our continual research and conservation work.</span></div></span></font><font size="3" style=""><span style="line-height: 150%;"><div style=""><font size="4" style="font-family: Arial;"><b>See partway down our homepage for the </b><b>auction terms and listings</b>: </font><font size="4" style="font-family: Arial;"><font size="6"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 150%;"><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 150%;"><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 150%;"><font size="4"><font color="#0000ff"><b><a href="http://www.sacredsucculents.com/">www.sacredsucculents.com</a></b></font></font></span></font></span></font></span></font></font></div></span></font><font style=""><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;"><font size="3">
</font></span><font size="3" style=""><span style="line-height: 150%;">
<div style="font-family: Arial;"><font size="4"><font color="#ff0000"><b>Please read the full terms before bidding.</b></font> <b><i><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" color="#9900ff">All bids should be directed to our other email:</font></i></b> <b>benkamm@monitor.net </b><br><b><font color="#990000">
The auction closes this Wednesday, July 26, at 6:00pm Pacific Standard Time. </font></b><br>
</font></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 150%;"><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><font size="4">Our <b><font color="#351c75">Specimen Plant List</font></b> is updated for July, see just below the auction on the homepage</font></span></font><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><font size="4">.</font></span></font></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 150%;"><font size="3"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: large;"><br></span></span></font></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: large;">In addition to the diversity of rare and endangered plants here, the nursery and gardens also provide habitat for a medley of 'wildlife'. We rejoice that the herpetological denizens are really thriving in recent years—our native treefrog (</span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: large;">Pseudoacris sierra</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: large;">) is the most abundant resident of the nursery along with blue-belly lizards (<i>Sceloporus occidentalis</i>); we also have the more solitary alligator lizards (<i>Elgaria multicarinata</i>) and the secretive blue-tailed skinks (<i>Plestiodon skiltonianus</i>)—all of the lizards have taken to breeding and overwintering in the big greenhouse. We see a medley of small snakes here: striped racers (<i>Coluber </i>spp.), ring-necked (<i>Diadophis punctatus amabilis</i>), gartersnakes (<i>Thamnophis</i> spp.), sharp-tailed (<i>Contia</i> spp.), the occasional gophersnake (<i>Pituophis catenifer</i>), and my daughters' favorite—the shy and gentle rubber boa (<i>Charina bottae</i>). The nursery and environs also provide habitat for worm-like slender salamanders (<i>Batrachoseps attenuatus</i>), friendly faced Ensatinas (<i>Ensatina eschscholtzii</i>), rough-skinned newts (<i>Taricha granulosa</i>) with their affable demeanor, orange bellies and highly toxic skin, the occasional arboreal salamander (<i>Aneides lugubris</i>), and the intimidating giant Pacific salamander (<i>Dicamptodon ensatus</i>). A large Sequoia tree that toppled in our stretch of creek last year is now the preferred basking spot for our local Western 'pond' turtles (<i>Actinemys marmorata</i>)—we've observed up to 6 at a time sunning themselves, from 1.5" juveniles to 9" seniors!</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial;"><br></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: large;">Through the calamities and obstacles of recent years we persist in our efforts to care for life here in all its myriad forms. You have our perpetual gratitude for your patience and support! </span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br></span></div><div style="font-size: xx-large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><font face="times new roman, serif">Regards,</font></span></div></span></font></font><font style="" face="times new roman, serif">
<div style=""><font size="4" style="">Ben Kamm and family,</font></div></font></span><br>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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