He’s the Epitome of Stick-To-Itiveness : Cactus Nurseryman Is Last of Thirsty Breed in O.C.
Under the blazing noonday sun, rows of cactus plants stand guard like skeletal sentinels.
The opening scene of a Louis L’Amour novel? No, it’s the everyday scene at Richard A. Hipp’s House of Cactus, a 37-year-old business, where 1,500 kinds of bent, gnarled and hunchbacked plants get scant water but plenty of Hipp’s particular type of attention.
“A lot of looky-loos come in and drive me crazy with questions,” snaps Hipp, who lays claim to owning the only Orange County nursery that deals exclusively in cacti and other succulents. “With 1,500 plants, they can do that pretty easily.”
He fingers a few exotic cacti no bigger than cuff links, muttering something about feeling more comfortable with collectors than with the general public. “I don’t know how you can word that nicely,” he says, his voice trailing off.
They say spouses begin to look alike after years of marriage. But the cheerfully prickly Mr. Hipp represents a related phenomenon: Men sometimes take after the goods they purvey.
Lean and dressed in green pants and a green baseball cap, Hipp more than slightly resembles a cactus. He acts like a cactus, and talks as a cactus might talk.
“Don’t say cactuses,” he warns, spitting the word from his mouth like a poison pricker. “Please don’t use the word ‘cactuses’! It’s cacti.”
Contemptuously, he mentions a recent newspaper article in which the author employed that dreaded and despicably incorrect description for the plant that features 3,000 species.
“Cactuses, cactuses, all the way through the article,” Hipp recalls. “That’s real ignorance. Somebody who writes an article should know better.”
(In fact, the plural is either cactuses or cacti. But don’t bother arguing with Hipp.)
When Hipp bought the House of Cactus 18 years ago, he says, there were several Orange County nurseries that dealt exclusively in the plant. Today, however, he could be the last of a thirsty breed.
Above the whoosh of traffic along Beach Boulevard, Hipp talks about outlasting his Orange County rivals. More than his own business acumen, Hipp credits strict new laws for the narrowed field of competition. Import and collection of cacti--many types of which are endangered--now fall under federal regulation, making the cactus practice increasingly harsh.
No longer can cactus retailers simply gather plants from the wild. Nearly every cactus in Hipp’s possession came from a nursery.
Still, Hipp hangs on, showing how tenacious a cactus man can be, just as his inventory demonstrates how human these strange plants can seem.
Durable, self-protective, various and solitary, the cactus can do three things that make it disarmingly familiar to Homo sapiens. It blossoms unexpectedly. It grows hair. And, Hipp notes with squinty respect, “it takes a long time to die.”
The same resilience makes Hipp a favorite among local cactus collectors, an incredibly zealous group. Especially in the spring, when many of the plants burst with brightly colored flowers, hobbyists drop by Hipp’s shop on a regular basis, simply to browse and chat, like art lovers visiting a museum. Some, such as the woman who stopped by the other day, beg Hipp’s advice on what do about ailing cacti.
From the white-haired billy goat cactus to the stately saguaro, from the baseball cactus to the Christmas cactus, Hipp knows it all and has it all.
“I can bet you that 99% of people in our club have bought their first cactus there,” says Toni Garretson, of Garden Grove, former president of the Orange County Cactus and Succulent Society, which boasts roughly 90 members.
Succulents--so named because they store water in their leaves, roots or stems--include thousands of varieties, cacti being but one. Many succulents are decidedly thorn-free, and their smoothness shocks the uninitiated.
Yes, popular misconceptions abound, Hipp says, among them the notion that cacti grow solely in the desert.
“I don’t go to the desert,” he says. “I’ve never been to the desert in my life. People say, ‘You must go out to the desert every weekend.’ I say, ‘Yeah, they’re all lined up out there in these little pots!’ ”
He stifles a sarcastic laugh.
Many customers praise Hipp’s eclectic inventory (which includes 3-inch cacti that sell for $1.50 as well as 20-foot giants and other rarities that retail for around $300) as Mother Nature’s postmodern art. Hipp humbly agrees.
“The crested plants,” he says, by way of example. “They’re like freaks of nature. They look like sculptures. Like jade sculptures.”
He holds such a plant up to the daylight and his voice softens, as though the company of plants were more appealing than that of people.
When the company of plants grows tiresome, however, Hipp consorts with the scores of skittish birds that flit about his partially enclosed shop. In and out the birds fly, feasting on scattered seeds, ignoring a wooden owl that hangs limply from an overhead wire. The owl, Hipp says mockingly, “worked for one or two days.”
Hipp’s partner in the cactus trade is his wife, Nancy, who joins him at the shop on Saturdays. Together, the Hipps have scrimped and saved to make their way. They never employ helpers, because schooling part-timers in the Latin phrases and assorted esoterica of cacti would be too costly and time-consuming.
“This is a tremendous investment,” Hipp says, scowling at his thorny charges. “I haven’t had a vacation in 18 years. I haven’t had a weekend off in 18 years. So what’d I buy?! Trouble!”
