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"Russell is an Oakland-based succulent hybridizer specialized in winter-active succulent and bulbs. He has served as editor of Cactus and Succulent Journal and published a book on mesembs with Steven Hammer (with more to come!). The gathering should prove an apt merger of two forces in the succulent plant world: our society, and Russell himself, both founded in the same year.

Having explored large swaths of the succulent smorgasbord — Russell has grown euphorbias, haworthias, cacti, succulent daisies, pelargoniums, crassulas, succulents of the Canary Islands, and many other groups — his steadfast focus remains winter-active South African succulents: the compact mesembs (living stones), spiral- and prostrate-leaved bulbs (Gethyllis, Massonia), Tylecodon, and Adromischus. In recent years, hybrid work has come to occupy a great deal of his thinking/feeling about plants, and several hybrid lines — some successful, others less so — have materialized in his collection. A tour of Russell’s greenhouses, which member Panayoti Kalaidis experienced at the height of the recent winter growing season, is a dizzying barrage of shapes, textures, and colors seen nowhere else.

Which, if we’re honest, is not a unique situation: plant collections are always varied, daunting, and chaotic reflections of the mind of the grower.

Russell grows his plants from seed, having discovered early on the frugal economy, taxonomic depth, and morphological variety (even within a single species) that growing from seed allows. Thirty years on, his greenhouse is a living testament to his many interests, a smattering of this and that in a sea of specializations.

In this month’s talk Rusell will attempt a kaleidoscopic presentation of the plants he grows, highlighting the variation that can be found within species, and the unexpected results that arise when you cross species together. The work he will describe is something any grower can achieve, but the fascinating fact is that any two people, starting with the same source material, will create hybridization results — indeed any horticultural result — entirely distinct from one another. This is the hybrid mind: the intersection of chance, desire, personal aesthetic, and will that makes every collection as unique as each plant (and human) within it.

In addition to showing a few slides, Russell would like members to bring in their own seed-grown plants and hybrid succulents so we can have a sort of extended show-and-tell discussion about how we think and feel about bringing new life(forms) into the world—and deciding, in the largesse of seedraising, what gets to live and what will be tossed into the compost bin."

Program description provided by the speaker.