Cactus was not an early friend of Donna Ellis, who grew up in Wyoming where cacti are very small.
“My experience was stepping on cactus on the prairie in my bare feet.” Not a good introduction, she admits.
Mainly a houseplant gardener in her early life, Donna caught the cactus collecting bug from her husband, retired park ranger Robert. He’s been collecting cactus since he was a kid in Vallejo, California.
While the couple lived near Crater Lake, Oregon, they parked the few dozen specimens of their young collection at Robert’s parents’ home in Red Bluff, California.
They moved around a bit for Robert’s job with the U.S. National Park Service, adding to their collection when they could. In 1976, they put down roots in Tucson and moved most of their plants to their newly purchased lot near Colossal Cave Mountain Park.
Today, the couple has thousands of plants representing dozens of succulent species.
“I’d call it a joint collection,” Robert says. “She’s a succulent lady and I’m a cactus guy.”
Donna agrees, although she’s coming around to the spiny stuff.
“The more I grow a succulent, I appreciate a cactus,” she says. “They’re hardier, they take more cold, less water, hotter temps. You don’t have to worry about deer.”
He enjoys the flowers and spine colors of the cacti. Donna also is attracted to the colors. Spines come in gray, white, black and gold hues, she says, while the leaves of succulents add splashes of red, purple, blue and brown, as well as green, to the garden.
“The diversity in the plants are tremendous,” she says.
Donna and Richard will hang out with like-minded plant fans at next weekend’s (April 16-17) Sonoran XI Biennial Conference put on by the Tucson Cactus and Succulent Society.
The pair are long-time, active members. Donna is on the board and is in charge of the committees that handle cactus rescues and gift and raffle plants. Robert served on the board several years ago. They’ve opened their collection to club tours.
And what a tour it is. The highlight is a 1,960-square-foot greenhouse with hip-high beds full of full-grown exotic cactus. Hundreds of pots nurture seedlings or cuttings.
Columnar, barrel-shaped and leaf-like species spill over the beds and fill shelves. Some eye-popping ones include the orange-capped melocactus, globular rebutia and astrophytum that is shaped like a sea urchin shell.
The couple built the structure before they had their 2,100-square-foot home constructed, living in a mobile home while the work was done.
A 160-square-foot greenhouse holds Donna’s collection of potted succulents, including 10-year-old lithops that are the size of big toes, artichoke-like echeveria and leafy graptosedum.
And, yes, there’s more. Outside, the island in the circular driveway and the front yard are packed with plants that can handle the cold, heat and dryness of the Sonoran Desert. Barrels, boojums, mammillaria, agaves and ocotillos cover the landscape. Some are as old as 70 years, while others are emerging pups.
The Ellises have grown their collection from several sources: Kmart blue-light specials back when the retail store had them, their own propagation, gifts from friends and rescues by the Tucson Cactus and Succulent Society, which saves plants slated to be uprooted for development.
Buying the new and unusual is one reason why Donna likes the biennial conference that presents a plant show, plant sales, workshops and speakers.
“The best cactus nurseries and vendors show up with their best stuff all in one place,” she says. “To get the same experience any other time, you would have to drive around Arizona for a week.”
That’s helpful for Donna, who still works and can’t spend much time traveling to find plants. But she has plans for when she retires from her job as a requirements engineer for a software company.
She wants to add at least two more greenhouses to accommodate the varying temperature and humidity requirements of plants. Then she wants to travel to New Mexico, California, Utah and Nevada to find plants to fill the greenhouses. And she has one big desire.
“I would like to go to cactus rescues in Texas (where) there are rare plants,” she says.
