May Program: "Show and Botanical Garden Favortites"
Presented by: Tim Nomer

I started growing plants as a kid, avocado pits and potatoes. I later grew anything I could get my hands on, including tropicals, stapelias, and bulbs. I built a greenhouse on the side of our home back East. After moving out to California 15 years ago, I joined the Orange County cactus club, eventually becoming editor. This gives my wife and I an excuse to take lots of photos at cactus shows, and explore every garden we can find on weekends. We have a keen eye for finding unusual plants in remote corners of botanical gardens. We return to these gardens in different seasons for what is flowering at the time. Since 1999, we've amassed a vast collection of desert plant photos. My wife now helps with lighting the plants and
flowers.

Recently we've branched into taking epiphyllum, bromeliad, and orchid pictures as well. Someone in the San Diego club stood up and asked members to 'give back to the club'. So, we took the show pictures and created a 'Flowers of the Intercity Show' picture panel a couple of years ago. For this we Won a big honkin trophy sponsored by Mike Buckner.

This talk is titled "Show and Botanical Garden Favorites". In particular, I am including plants that I feel merit this for being either rare, rarely seen in shows, extremely well grown, or just plain gorgeous. Many plants in this talk are from the big CSSA and InterCity shows. I've also captured wonderful gems at local clubs shows: Sunset, Gates, Los Angeles, San Gabriel, Orange County and San Diego. Also included are some unusual desert plants from local botanical gardens. If you're looking to expand your collection, bring a notepad for species names, otherwise just enjoy the exotic plants from around the world.

Next Month: Tim Harvey presents on "In-ground culture of succulents"