Volunteer Signup | Showing Plants | Become a Member for Early Entry | Facebook Event
Detailed information and weekend presentation schedule below
The event is held at the San Francisco County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park – more info
June 16-18 2023
- Free and Open to the public:
Saturday 10 am – 5 pm
Sunday 9 am – 5 pm - Society members early access:
Friday 3 pm – 7pm
Saturday 9 am – 10am - Members can also skip the entry line all weekend! Join now for $15
- NOTE that the show area is not open Friday for member-only preview sale. We encourage members to come to shop Friday and then come back for presentations and the show over the weekend.
Featuring
- 45+ Plant vendors selling unusual species of succulents & cacti you can’t buy at stores.
- Expanded hand-made pottery selection with 5+ new and returning vendors
- Plant Hotel (store plants while you shop)
- Exceptional specimens on display in the “Stranger than Fiction” plant show
- Expert growing advice, live planting demonstrations.
- Habitat & conservation info.
- Proceeds support the SF Succulent Society’s monthly programs and further our mission of education, conservation, and propagation
- Our friends from the SF Bromeliad Society and Gardeneur will also be participating.
Make your experience more enjoyable
- BYOB – SAVE TREES: Please bring your own box to shop and take plants home
- Please plan to pay by card or tap for quicker checkout.
- Use the plant hotel to store your plants while you enjoy the show
- Pro-Tip: Saturday morning is always the most crowded and longest lines
- Sunday and afternoons are always less crowded, so come then if you can.
- More space and more registers + additional day (Friday, members only) mean less crowding.
Special Presentations
We are proud to present several programs in the Auditorium where the show is held. These are free and open to the public on a first come first seated basis. The featured talk on Sunday will be streamed live on Zoom.
Saturday June 17 at 11:30am
“Intangible Strangeitude:
The Judges Speak“
Show Chair and Judges
Announcing the show winners and highlighting some of the best plants.
Saturday June 17 at 2pm
“Success with Succulents:
Growing Techniques”
Ernesto Sandoval, former curator at
UC Davis Botanical Conservatory
A deeper exploration of the science behind growing succulents.
Sunday June 18 at 11:30am
The Strangeness of Mesembs
Steven Brack, habitat explorer and co-founder of Mesa Garden
Steven is best known in Cactus & Succulent circles for co-founding Mesa Garden in New Mexico, which has been the most important seed distributor in the hobby for many decades.
More info about this presentation
Join the Zoom Meeting if you can’t make it in person
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88260235854?pwd=WVlVRklqcUhZeEx0dnpHS2tEL3FLQT09
Meeting ID: 882 6023 5854
Passcode: mesemb
Or watch on our Facebook Page
fb.me/sfsucculent
Our headline presentation for the weekend will function as the SFSCS monthly meeting for June, and as our summer installment of the MesembsVirtually lecture series in conjunction with the Manchester Branch of the British Cactus and Succulent Society and the International Mesemb Study Group.
Zoom stream will start at 11am Pacific Daylight Time in California, (7pm in the UK) with a quick tour of the show
Sunday June 18 at 2pm
“Bromeliads in Northen California Landscapes“
Bromeliad Society – Dan Arcos, Carl Carter
Tips for choosing Bromeliads in our climate, pairing them with succulents, and more.
Location
The San Francisco County Fair Building
- At the southern edge of Golden Gate Park at 9th Ave. and Lincoln – Directions
- 1199 9th Ave, San Francisco, CA 94122
Muni:
Easy access via 7, 44 bus and & the N-Judah which will take you to BART in downtown SF.
Parking:
There is no public parking lot at the County Fair Building. If you plan to drive, carefully read and obey all posted signs on city and park streets, as they are STRICTLY enforced. You will have a better chance to find parking the earlier you come, otherwise plan on allotting additional time to park. Look for parking along the streets in the park (Martin Luther King Jr Drive and Nancy Pelosi Drive) or along Lincoln Way. There are hourly parking garages further away (Golden Gate Park Parking Garage North Entrance).
Get reminders and invite your friends
- Sign up for our free email announcement list.
- Help us spread the word on our Facebook event. Mark yourself as “going” and click “share” to send invites.
Get involved
Volunteering is a great way to meet people and have fun helping the Society.
Sign up for shifts and get no-line admission on the day you volunteer (including Friday early access).
On Saturday and Sunday we also offer $10 per 2-hour shift sale credit (“showbucks”) as a thank-you.
Show your plants or enter a display in the juried plant show. Check out our Show Participants Guide and contact the show chair if you are interested..
- There will be prizes for individual plants & displays.
- There will be theme displays and prizes for the best crested/monstrose, grafted, and hybrid plants, and for “Fabulous Tales” (plants submitted with stories.)
- Show plant load in for non-vendors is Friday 9am till 7:30pm and Saturday first thing in the morning 7:30–8am.
- Plants must remain on display till 5pm Sunday, and be loaded out by 6:30.
Vendors
Northern California’s top rare Cactus and Succulent sellers:
Desert Wonders
Gardeners Home
Planta Seca
PB & J Cacti & Succulents
Radiant Cactus and Succulents (Sacramento)
Returning Favorites and New Surprises:
Casper’s Landscape
Gardenia Gardens and Design
Succielife
Edna’s Garden – NEW
Fynbos Flora
Marilyn Mangle
L&J Plants and Things – NEW
J. D. Wikert
New and returning pottery vendors – EXPANDED FROM 2022
Peety Pots (LA) – NEW
Rowe Clayworks (Morro Bay)
Cherney Design
Cloud Hidden Plants – NEW
Cate Ries – NEW
Rene Rosso – NEW
Specialist botanical growers / hybridizers
Artisan Plants
Agavoides
Dunne & Parisi
Epiphyllum World
Jim Smith
Vendors from the Monterey Bay Area and the Central Coast
California Succulents (Watsonville)
JC Succulents (Watsonville)
Desert Rose of Santa Cruz
And plant vendors all the way from Southern California
Desert Creations, Los Angeles
Green Touch Nursery, Los Angeles – NEW
Grow (Morro Bay)
Partner societies and organizers:
Bromeliad Society of SF (air plants and bromeliads plants from 12+ members)
Gardeneur (including @gardeneur, @casaplants and @green_dreamm )
And many more growers:
Karen Casino
Steven Hanson
Sus’s Succulents
Justin Thiel
Epiphyllum World
Vendor list is closed for this year. If you are interested in future years, the best way is to join the Society, come to meetings, and offer to be a featured grower at a monthly meeting.
Existing vendor links: Barcode order form (deadline June 1), 2023 Vendor Handbook (coming soon)