Your online cactus mall

As growers and collectors of cacti and succulents, many of us strive to continuously enhance our knowledge of these fascinating plants. I find that as we learn more about the plants, the more interested we become, and the hobby becomes even more enjoyable. Of course, we learn a lot from actual experience, cultivating these plants and seeing them grow. Some of us may have a C&S book or two, and these are invaluable in helping us understand and appreciate our plants even more. In our local society, there are also a few highly knowledgeable collectors and growers who have acted as excellent resource folks for expanding the knowledge of our members and the collective society as a whole.  

Having said this, I still find that many growers and collectors here don’t know what species or type of cacti and succulents they are growing. I personally believe that if you are going to be able to appreciate and grow your plants to their best potential given your respective micro-environments, it would generally be a good idea to know what plant you are growing, where it comes from, and what type of culture it requires to sustainably thrive. A few of us have some books and other literature on our hobby. I’m contemplating starting a cactus and succulent library for society members, where members’ books can be circulated among other members in an orderly and managed pace. But that’s working with what we’ve already got here, which isn’t nearly enough, in my opinion.

Many readers of this column as well as society members have nagging issues and questions about their plants. I try to help where I can, but mine is but one, limited perspective. It really helps to see what others around the world are doing, too. 

Additionally, most of us want to expand our personal collections with new species, varieties and forms. Unfortunately, what one can purchase locally is very limited indeed. Besides the excellent growers in Benguet and a few other commercial establishments, plus the spare plants in various private collections which go on the market from time to time (especially during our monthly society meetings), there probably isn’t enough of a selection available in our local market.  

The Internet is clearly the answer to address our informational and material shortage over here. And in my opinion, the best and most comprehensive starting point for just about anything that has to do with cacti and succulents is cactus-mall.com. As the website states in its introduction, "The cactus and succulent plant mall (CSPM) is an international resource for all growers of cacti and succulent plants. It is regularly updated with information on cactus and succulent societies and suppliers of plants, seeds and literature on cacti and succulents. The CSPM has developed and hosts webpages for cactus and succulent organizations worldwide (125 domains, 80 websites within cactus-mall.com and 76 advertisers). It also aims to maintain as complete a list of web pages and other cactus and succulent-related Internet facilities as possible. The CSPM is maintained by Suzanne and Tony Mace, an extraordinary husband-and-wife team who have had a deep love for cacti and succulents for many decades now. While I haven’t met them personally, I exchanged e-mails with Tony on a couple of occasions a few years ago and found him to be very responsive and helpful.

Suzanne and Tony Mace both have had a very long involvement in Sussex (England) Cactus Society activities; Tony since 1957 when he joined the Sussex branch and Suzanne (neé Rayner) who was the founder secretary of the Eastbourne branch. The Mace collection is now the largest private collection in Sussex, some views of which can be seen in the Cactus-Mall picture gallery section. The collection is open to public view on a number of occasions through the summer. Tony is currently publications manager for the British Cactus and Succulent Society (BCSS). Suzanne is currently manager of cactus and succulent production at Fresh Acres nursery, a leading plant nursery in the UK. Both Suzanne and Tony are members of the finance and general purposes committee of the BCSS – in Suzanne’s case an elected post which she has held for 21 years. Suzanne has been editor and secretary of the Mesemb Study Group since it started 19 years ago. The group focuses on the cultivation of mesembryanthemums, those beautiful yet difficult-to-grow (here in the tropics anyway) South African succulents, which include lithops and conophytums. Tony and Suzanne also run Mace Cacti, a cactus and succulent nursery.

"The CSPM includes the official webpages for a number of the major cactus and succulent societies in the world, including the American, British, German, Austrian, Italian, Mexican and New Zealand societies. On these pages you can find information about their publications, local groups and other activities." A few years ago under the leadership of Peter Bangayan, Lilly Ann Tan and Reggie Aspiras (yes, the famous culinary artist and chef herself who was once a mega-succulentophile; she still has some fine plants landscaped outside her bedroom, including magnificent Euphorbia specimens), the Philippine C&S Society also had its own webpage which was included in the CSPM. Unfortunately, our website was discontinued. Maybe it’s high-time we brought this back to life.

Please also note that cactus-mall.com is a web hosting company and not a plant nursery. But the nursery pages on cactus-mall.com contain a nearly complete list of nurseries that have web pages online. And for some geographical areas, maps of all the known nurseries are included, even those with no Internet presence. Very few nurseries are excluded through persistent reports of bad trading practices. This website has a dedicated high-performance server which currently hosts 145 domains, including 125 related to cacti and succulents. This portal attracts more than 90,000 visitors per month and the server more than 500,000, so this is the most visited online resource on cacti and succulents on the Internet.

I’ve constantly used the cactus-mall over the last few years to get information on specific plant groups of interest to me, to identify new sources of plant material, to buy books and other literature relating to specific plant interests I have, to contact world experts and premier collectors to get their views on specific topics and issues, to get information on growing techniques and pest control, or to find out the latest goings-on in the cactus and succulent world. In short, just about anything you can think of that has something to do with cacti and succulents! So if you haven’t done so yet, I strongly urge you to check out cactus-mall.com. I’m confident you will utilize this massive online resource for years to come.

Tony and Suzanne Mace have done and are continuing to do a tremendous service to the cactus and succulent world via cactus-mall.com. I wish them all the best, for their continued success will also be our success over the long haul.  

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E-mail the author at succulentophile@yahoo.com.