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Plants

California cactus garden: 112 plants of prickly, potted beauty

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Picture windows in Kurt Kamm’s living room offer views of the potted cactus garden and the Pacific beyond. It’s a vibrant landscape, even though he doesn’t have an inch of ground into which to plant.   (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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Kamm’s two dogs, Sierra and Lucy, have free run of the long terrace and are smart enough to avoid the cactus thorns. Hummingbirds are drawn to the cactus flowers, he says, and blue jays frequently perch on the plants.   (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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“I’ve had this cactus for five years,” Kamm says of the Alluaudia procera, the striking, tall, cylindrical cactus on the right with small green and yellow leaves. “It was 4 feet tall when I bought it. Now it’s almost 12 feet.” The plant to the left is Euphorbia horrida.   (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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Detail of an Echeveria gibbiflora hybrid.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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The Echeveria gibbifora hybrid “reminds me of something you would find swimming underwater next to a coral reef,” Kamm says.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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Kurt Kamm describes Mammillaria compressa as “one nasty cactus.” The big ones look like trouble, with all those thorns, he said, “but the little ones that look soft and fuzzy are the real killers.”  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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The Euphorbia tirucali cultivar known as Sticks on Fire glows brightly behind the silhouette of blue glass at the Kamm residence. “In cold weather, Sticks on Fire gets a dark red, and in hot weather it’s more of a faded yellow-green,” Kamm says. “It reminds me of my great uncle, who was tall and skinny and changed color when he got hot.”  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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Kamm salvaged olive branches from a wildfire that came dangerously close to his hillside home about six years ago. He placed them in a corner of the terrace surrounded by cactuses “as a souvenir of the fire that almost ate my house,” he says. The tall plant by the door is Pachypodium lamerei. Sierra, a whippet-husky-shepherd mix, gives it and the other prickly plants a wide berth.   (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
9/17
An array of sculptural succulents provide different shapes and hues: Aloe vanbalenii, with the serrated orange-tinged leaves; reddish Kalanchoe luciae, on the right; Tephrocactus articulatus, the tubular cactus in the foreground. They’re all backed by a scarlet-hued phormium.   (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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Parodia schumanniana, the size of a cantaloupe and adorned with beautiful yellow flowers.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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Mammillaria meuhlenpfordtii, more commonly known as pincushion cactus.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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Mexican fence post cactus, also known as organ cactus (Pachycereus marginatus). Kamm found this one in the back area of Cosentino’s, the nursery on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. “It was in a pot that was all dried out and barely growing,” he says.   (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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Myrtillocactus cochal, the first cactus Kamm bought nine years ago. Back then, it had just one branch.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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An aloe hybrid called Cynthia Giddy (Aloe cameronii x lateritia) is named after the South African nurserywoman who selected it. “A pair of California nightingales set up their nest for three years running,” said Kamm, who pruned the plant last year. The birds haven’t been back.   (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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Euphorbia flanaganii is loaded with tiny yellow flowers, but it’s one of the plants for which the hummingbirds have shown no interest.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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A cultivar of Kalanchoe luciae called Fantastic has deep red leaf edges.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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Aloe vanbelenni changes color: salmon-red in cold, green in heat.

  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
By Barbara Thornburg
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When author Kurt Kamm is not writing firefighting mysteries, you can find him on his terrace pacing among his pots of plants: 112 cactuses and succulents, at last count.

“I often come out when I have a thorny issue in a plot I’m trying to work out,” he said with a grin.

When Kamm moved into the two-story, 1960s home on the hillside bluff overlooking the Malibu Colony, the 100-foot-long terrace had not a single plant. Because he had a severe brown thumb and had never cared for a garden in his life, he began buying cactuses and succulents: “the biggest, cheapest, least troublesome thing I could plant,” he said.

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His first purchase, a 2-foot-tall, single-stem Myrtillocactus cochal cactus, has grown to 5 feet. Some plants are rescues. One exotic mutant from Anawalt Lumber in Malibu had languished in front of the store for two years; another in a vacant lot just seemed lonely and in need of a drink, he said.

“Some people rescue dogs. I rescue cactus,” he said. “Whenever or wherever I find a neglected, broken, dehydrated cactus, I take it home.”

The plants seem to come in every size, shape, color and texture, and despite their reputation as heat seekers, they are thriving on the deck’s southern exposure with ocean breezes and mild temperatures.

“It offers an ideal microclimate for the plants,” says Tom Cosentino, owner of the eponymous Malibu nursery where Kamm purchased many of his succulents.

Although an ardent devotee of the low-water, low-maintenance plants, Kamm knows almost none by name.

“You don’t have to know to grasp if they are exotic or interesting,” said the writer, who is certain the two most important ingredients he showers his plants with are water and love. “Although if I went away on a vacation — which I never do, but if I did — they wouldn’t miss me and would probably do better than ever.”

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