West Coast Agave Nurseries Recommendations

[OWgave]

Hello Fellow Agave Lovers-

Me again. As some of you know, after reading my new member intro, it is my wifes obsession with succulents that introduced me to these fascinating plants. Specifically loving the toothy, viscous, wickedly and nasty looking ones.

So my wife and I will be taking a long road trip in the early part of September from Oregon to San Diego to visit some succulent nurseries that my wife's fellow succulent forum friends recommended to see and to purchase a variety of succulents that are not from big box stores which the majority of her plants are from.

So my question is, for agave lovers on the west side, where should i stop and visit to find some unique but viscous, toothy looking, nasties to hopefully take home if my wife spares me a bit of room in the rear of our car.

Thanks to all who replies.

VB

[KLC]

Tucson is where the good stuff is, but with Covid running rampant everywhere I won't recommend travelling. I want to be able to ditch this stupid mask sooner or later which will require a group effort at containment.

I've got various and sundry agaves for sale still. What are you looking for?

[mcvansoest]

Yeah why would you want to leave Oregon to go to SoCal, which like AZ may be slowly getting past peak COVID conditions, but unlike Oregon was and is still really bad when it comes to COVID. There will still be exceedingly high absolute numbers of infections well into the Fall. I'd take a good look at the numbers and the situation there, that should cure you from wanting to travel there road trip or not. Oregon as a state has only 2/3rds of the total COVID numbers in San Diego County. And yes SD county is not LA, but traveling to SoCal is like traveling to the Phoenix area at the moment: if you wanted to catch COVID without trying that is where you'd go ...

[OWgave]

Yes, you and mcvansoest are quite correct about how we should avoid heading down south for the moment. I will discuss it with the missus.

As far as this part:

I've got various and sundry agaves for sale still. What are you looking for?

As of this moment, I've got of a couple of Jeremy Spath's hybrids stuck in my head. They are agave istparr and agave kristop. I've contacted Mr. Spath on them and they are either too small to ship yet or just slightly too small for me.
Oh, this one too, agave utahensis var. eborispina:

https://hiddenagave.com/collections/spe ... -utahensis" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Specifically the one in the second pic, spinal spines all long and twisting to the sky (yes, im picky).

I need to see that they have a beautiful, uniform rosette armed with viscous, wicked looking teeth. So slightly bigger than a pup. And since im allowed only a few of these toothy critters, they need to be awesome specimens of their kind (did i mention im picky...lol).
Thanks looking, replying and most important, your concern for my missus and I's (is that a word?) health.

Cheers,
VB

[Xanthoria]

I just drove to LA to look at a horse for sale (masked and well distanced outdoor activities feel relatively bearable but it was tricky) and visited a guy in Yorba Linda who sells bigger cacti you might like. I've bought plants from him twice now and he has stuff I cannot get in N Ca for love/money/connections.

Here are his CL ads: https://losangeles.craigslist.org/searc ... 7160733126" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We always fill the back of the truck. This time we only got a 15g aloe dichotoma, a 5g variegated euphorbia ammak, a 15g ferrocactus gracilis and a 5g Myrtillocactus geometrizans f. cristata.

Not ALL that many agaves I wanted. Bring cash, and materials to wrap/pack the plants in the back of your car (styrofoam, moving blankets etc)

[OWgave]

Thanks for chimming in Xanthoria.
I will keep this in mind and thanks for the transporting of the agave tips.

VB