January Meeting - A Rollicking Trip into the World of Cactus and Succulents

Scott Calhoun
A Rollicking Trip into the World of Cactus and Succulents

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San Diego Horticultural society welcomes award winning author and garden designer Scott Calhoun, who will take us on an exploration of the origins and contemporary uses of garden succulents in everything from design to nutrition, ceremony and transcendence. The talk will conclude with a short video showing the perils and rewards of agave hunting.

For at least 9000 years, indigenous Americans have cultivated and consumed agave and cactus plants. From 2009-2011 Scott Calhoun took six extended journeys into Mexico in search of provocative succulent plants. What he found forever changed his garden design sensibilities and landed him in a culture fraught with international intrigue and outsized personalities. Due to fantastic leaps in propagation technology, Calhoun realized that even in this new century, we were on the cusp a new golden age of garden succulent discovery. Join Calhoun for a talk exploring the origins and contemporary uses of garden succulents.

 

In addition to his monthly “Southwest Checklist” column for Sunset magazine, Calhoun articles regularly appear in American Nurseryman, The American Gardener, Country Gardens, and Fine Gardening, and many others.He has also published five gardening books including Hot Pots: Container Gardening for the Arid Southwest (2009), The Hot Garden: Landscape Design for the Desert Southwest (2009), Designer Plant Combinations: 105 Stunning Gardens Using Six Plants or Fewer (2008), Chasing Wildflowers: A Mad Search for Wild Gardens (2007, winner of the 2008 GWA Book Award), and Yard Full of Sun: The Story of a Gardener’s Obsession That Got a Little Out of Hand (2005 and winner of the 2006 AHS Book Award). An eagerly awaited sixth book will be released in January 2012: The Gardener’s Guide to Cactus.

 

Currently, Scott is principal Zona Gardens, www.zonagardens.com, where he provides expert design services for those passionate about their Arizona style gardens. Prior to starting his own landscape design business, Scott was General Manage at Pascua Yaqui Adobe Company, and later at Civano Nursery.