Connecticut Cactus and Succulent Show 2019

The 2019 Connecticut Cactus and Succulent Show is taking place this weekend at the Bristol Community Center. This is the second year the show has been held at this location, and while it's generally a great venue, big crowds show up and parking space is fairly limited, so you might wind up parking streetside out in the neighborhood and walking to the community center if you arrive much after the opening time.

The free plant line Saturday morning. 

The Connecticut C&S Society gives away free plants to the first 50 people who line up in the morning. The giveaways are pretty common stuff of course, but this is always a popular event. 

The vendors' room shortly after opening Saturday.

The sales area had a full complement of dealers this year and was packed with customers Saturday morning. By the end of the day the tables were looking a little picked over, but there was still plenty of interesting material left for Sunday, such as this Hohenbergia, which caught my eye. This is a spiny bromeliad, about the size of a two liter soda bottle, still somewhat rare in cultivation; I have seen some great specimens in collections in California, but not in the East before. 

Hohenbergia endmundoi at David Burdick's booth. 

Pachypodiums in the judged show area. 

The judged show was pretty full this year; it looked like there were more entries than in the past couple of years, with more people entering plants from a broader range of categories.

Rebutia plants in the 2019 cactus show

The cactus division was well stocked, with some flowering plants, even though mid-April is a little early for peak cactus bloom for most growers in New England. Years ago Ron Byrom, who owned a small nursery called Real Rebutias, was a regular at the annual Connecticut shows; he sadly passed away relatively young in a traffic accident while on vacation in South America. Ron didn't have a greenhouse, so he kept his Rebutia plants in a cold, dark basement all winter, in a dry and dormant state. A few weeks before the show in April, he would load his plants into his station wagon, water them, and park in a sunny spot. By the time of the show, his plants in their improvised greenhouse would perk up and set flower buds and be ready for display! 

Conophytum plants in the show. It looks like C. calculus got the blue ribbon. 

In past shows I've usually been one of the few people entering mesembs (living stones etc., family Aizoaceae) in the show, but I was pleased to have some competition from some of the younger members of the CCSS this year. It seems like these plants are becoming more popular lately, as part of a general increase in enthusiasm for succulent plants.

Conophytum ernstii ssp. cerebellum.

One especially impressive entry not from me was an ancient pot of Conophytum ernstii ssp. cerebellum, from a grower in the Philadelphia area who is fairly new to the Connecticut club. These plants were originally in Frank Distefano's collection (which is now dispersed), and must have been started from one of the first distributions of seed of this taxon, around the time it was described in the late 1980s.