Come along with me on a tour of a marvelous, 60-year-old succulent garden in San Marcos, CA. Our host is Kevin Smith, a Palomar Cactus & Succulent Society (PCSS) member and the garden’s caretaker for the past 7 years.
"It's filled thousands of plants and hundreds and hundreds of species," Kevin says, adding that the garden was started by the PCSS in 1962. For decades, volunteers from the club continued to add to, tend and fine-tune it. As you can see by my photos, areas of it suggest the famed Huntington Botanical Gardens near Pasadena.
Dry leaves persist on aloes a half-century old. Those shaggy skirts insulate the trunks in winter and shade them in summer.
Many succulents you've seen in my books, website and YouTube channel thrive in the garden, which occupies 1.5 acres on the Palomar College grounds. Because many specimens are mature, this new video will help you evaluate whether similar plants might be good choices for your own garden.
Free for members
Belonging to a Cactus & Succulent Society club is a great way to obtain beautiful, unusual succulents for free or at minimal cost. In addition to monthly speakers and "brag plants" on display, CSS meetings include succulent swaps, auctions and sales.
Succulents and cacti that members donated to the garden long ago continue to provide cuttings, offsets and pups that enhance newer members' landscapes. As well as being a botanic legacy, the Palomar garden illustrates plant sharing at its best.
Rick Bjorklund and Kevin Smith discuss plants in the Palomar College Cactus & Succulent Garden
In the video I welcome a special guest: succulent collector and horticulturist Rick Bjorklund of the San Diego C&SS. He and I were there in January when many aloes and crassulas come beautifully into bloom.
Visit in person
The garden is open by appointment to Palomar College students and PCSS members and guests. It's also the locale of the club's annual pot-luck picnic every August.
For more info...
- Contact the Palomar Cactus & Succulent Society, info@palomarcactus.org
- Palomar College Interim Supervisor for Grounds & Recycling, Tony Rangel, arangel@palomar.edu; (760) 744-1150, ext. 2133.
- Palomar College Facilities Office: FacilitiesOffice@palomar.edu; (760) 744-1150, extension 2629.
Below is a gallery of more than 50 photos from my visit. It represents what caught my eye, but is in no way a comprehensive inventory.
Palomar Garden gallery
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