San Gabriel Valley Cactus and Succulent Society

Mark Fryer is the Cactus Production Manager at Western Cactus in Vista, California. Previously, he worked at C&J Cactus Nursery in Vista as a lead propagator. Before moving to Southern California in 2000, Mark spent a couple of decades as a dedicated hobbyist in Oregon, building a reference collection of Echinocereus and Opuntia and working occasionally with Rare Plant Research, the Oregon Cactus and Succulent Society, and various horticultural organizations dating back to the early 1980s. Mark is currently a Fellow of the San Diego Cactus and Succulent Society, where he served two terms as President, and he is a Life Member of the CSSA. Mark’s presentation is on growing cacti and succulent plants from seed to flower, and back again. Western Cactus has always been committed to automating processes, and that is a large part of what attracted him to work there. Mark will discuss and present some of the processes that help ensure reliably consistent plants, and how those processes can be translated into even the smallest windowsill collections. Mark also enjoys hybridizing and selecting numerous cactus species and cultivars