The Succulents Man of Malibu

From his nursery, Don Newcomer sells succulents to the stars. He can tell you about the Hollywood ingenue who bought some unusual beavertail cactus--with wicked 6-inch-long thorns--and planted them on her hillside to deter the paparazzi.

Or about the wealthy producer who wanted a handsome and unusual agave that was growing in the middle of his rose garden. Newcomer didn’t want to sell it, since digging up the agave would wreck the garden, so he quoted a really high price. But the producer said “no problem,” and a few days later a crane hoisted the agave from the garden and loaded it onto a truck that took it away to some castle in the sky.

Newcomer also grows things to order for such big customers as the Disney Co. The huge Mickey Mouse head near the new Disney hotels in Anaheim is made of spreading Aloe ciliarus, grown by Newcomer.

It is not surprising that he has such an interesting clientele, since Newcomer’s Serra Gardens is right in the heart of Malibu, near the civic center. He didn’t plan on having a nursery here. When he sold his first few succulents from his parents’ Malibu garden as a kid, he had no idea it would become such a busy enterprise.

The slender, boyish Newcomer fell in love with cactus and succulents when he was about 10. “You know how it is,” he said. “Some plant seems to jump right out and bite you and you suddenly can’t grow enough. You want more and more, including all the unusual forms, and pretty soon it’s so bad you need to join a support group.” Or start selling the extras, which is what he did by the time he turned 18.

So he put an ad in a newspaper in 1972. Soon after, he was making more selling surplus succulents than he was in the construction business as a part-time carpenter, and Serra Gardens was born. Now, at 46, he grows more than 500 types.

The nursery grew to cover his parents’ eight usable acres, barely leaving them room for a swimming pool and a lawn chair. Though it began as a retail nursery, his parents’ rural Malibu Canyon driveway couldn’t handle the traffic, so it became wholesale only, selling to contractors and other professionals. Now he is getting back into retail by selling on the Web as cacti.com, but the nursery is still not open to the public; visits must be virtual.

Though the nursery is not too far from the mild beach, it can get surprisingly cold in the canyon, and light freezes are not uncommon, which suggests that much of what Newcomer grows will do fine in most of the Southland. Cactus and succulents can be used for a variety of purposes, from ground cover to focal points in the landscape.

Don and his wife, Beth, a graphic designer, live in another house on the property that doubles as an office and a tissue culture lab. There he raises special colors of epidendrum orchids in test tubes, a new venture. “I tried tissue culture on cactus but absolutely failed,” he said.

The house is surrounded by rows and rows of cactuses and other succulents. In January, the garden--Newcomer always refers to his nursery as a “garden”--is quite colorful, with all the aloes in bloom. The South African aloes are one of his specialties.

He grows huge ones, such as the rows of dramatic tree-sized Aloe thraskii, as well as small ones that will fit in a dish garden. One of his favorite little ones is Aloe brevifolia, which makes a dense clump of 4-inch-tall, soft-gray leaves that are blushed red. “This is one of the few things that will thrive in the salt spray on a Malibu oceanfront deck,” he added.

Newcomer also likes the similar agaves, which are native to the Americas. He’s especially fond of the graceful but leathery Agave bracteosa which has leaves that spiral like a curled ribbon on a birthday present. This species does not have the typical dangerous spine on the tips of its leaves, that can pierce boot soles or gloves.

Another favorite is the striking blue-gray Agave parryi huachucensis, which does have sharp spines, but they are colored black, in dramatic contrast to the leaves. As it grows, the leaves carry an impression of the spines on their surfaces that is quite intriguing. Though spiny, this agave is small and manageable compared with the giants found growing farther up the hill.

Here’s where the huge, octopus-like Agave salmiana, also called Maguey de pulque, grows, with its twisting, spreading tentacles. This agave can get 13 or more feet wide and when it finally blooms, the spikes shoot up to 26 feet high. In Mexico, the leaves are cut off, and the fat, pineapple-like trunk that remains is used to make the drink called pulque.

In recent years, agaves and aloes have been popular landscape subjects, but the hot items right now, according to Newcomer, are anything orange, including the aloes with dramatic orange inflorescences or the little foot-tall, rust-colored Sedum nussbaumeranum. This unusually colored succulent is selling like hot cakes on the Web.

And while he grows row after row of cactuses like the flowering echinopis or the bizarre, bald, monstrous forms of Lophocereus schottii, or succulents like the handsome echeverias, one of his favorite groups of plants is the challenging caudiciforms. Caudiciforms have fat, swollen bases that make them look like grizzled old bonsai. “Most are really tricky to grow,” said Newcomer, because they rot so easily. “But this one’s a snap,” he said, holding up a Sedum oxypetalum that looks more like a little tree than a succulent. It’s easy to grow in a pot.

Newcomer’s raising more and more little plants like this for his Web business. They’re quite affordable (the sedum sells for $12); the big specimen plants for contractors and architects may cost between $1,500 and $10,000, which can put quite a dent in one’s plant budget. But, if you really want one of the big plants, he’s learning how to ship these, too.