[Sacred Succulents] Nursery News & New Auction-Fundraiser

[Sacred Succulents]

Greetings fellow phytophiles,
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.
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 _Trichocereus_ problematic
and new growth slower than _any_ 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 _anything_ we've seen before. In the
last several months we've lost about 70% of our Andean _Echeveria_,
over a dozen of our large Burseraceae mother plants (Copal,
Frankincense, Myrrh), and a fair number of globular cacti --_
Ariocarpus, Turbinicarpus, Mammillaria_, 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. All this has significantly
slowed down fulfillment of the spring retail orders and will have a
notable impact on our future offerings. Under these current
circumstances, new orders should be restricted to items on the
Specimen Plant List [halfway down the homepage]—we have to
discourage new orders (especially for seed) from our retail PDF lists
_until_ 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 _at all_. 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. 
Not all is woe, 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 _Boswellia_ and _Bursera_; we also
have seedlings of exciting new _Trichocereus_ hybrids coming along
which we hope to offer this winter or next season. 
Note: 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 at monitor.net is always reliable.
A new Plant Mini Auction-Fundraiser has begun!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. This is the
first auction in some time to list Seed--_which is open to
international bidders_! Plants remain for US bidders only. Due to the
winter adversities, a _number of plants will only  be available via
auction this year, and many of these only as a one  time offering_.
Know that auction purchases directly fund nursery repairs and
renovations as well as our continual research and conservation
work.See partway down our homepage for the auction terms and listings:
www.sacredsucculents.com                                       Please
read the full terms before bidding. _All bids should be directed to
our other email:_ benkamm at monitor.net   
 The auction closes this Wednesday, July 26, at 6:00pm Pacific
Standard Time. 
Our Specimen Plant List is updated for July, see just below the
auction on the homepage.
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 (_Pseudoacris sierra_) is the most
abundant resident of the nursery along with blue-belly lizards
(_Sceloporus occidentalis_); we also have the more solitary alligator
lizards (_Elgaria multicarinata_) and the secretive blue-tailed skinks
(_Plestiodon skiltonianus_)—all of the lizards have taken to
breeding and overwintering in the big greenhouse. We see a medley of
small snakes here: striped racers (_Coluber _spp.), ring-necked
(_Diadophis punctatus amabilis_), gartersnakes (_Thamnophis_ spp.),
sharp-tailed (_Contia_ spp.), the occasional gophersnake (_Pituophis
catenifer_), and my daughters' favorite—the shy and gentle rubber
boa (_Charina bottae_). The nursery and environs also provide habitat
for worm-like slender salamanders (_Batrachoseps attenuatus_),
friendly faced Ensatinas (_Ensatina eschscholtzii_), rough-skinned
newts (_Taricha granulosa_) with their affable demeanor, orange
bellies and highly toxic skin, the occasional arboreal salamander
(_Aneides lugubris_), and the intimidating giant Pacific salamander
(_Dicamptodon ensatus_). 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 (_Actinemys marmorata_)—we've observed
up to 6 at a time sunning themselves, from 1.5" juveniles to 9"
seniors!               
           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! 
Regards,     Ben Kamm and family,
Sacred Succulents
 PO Box 781
 Sebastopol, CA 95473 USA
 http://www.sacredsucculents.com
 To receive our periodic emails listing new plants & seeds, specials,
musings from our greenhouses & travels sign up at - 
 http://lists.sonic.net/mailman/listinfo/sacredsucculents
 We do not take Paypal or other online payments. Still just cash,
check or money order to our PO box.
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