Discover Julian Duval’s Personal Botanic Garden

You're about to tour the garden of one of San Diego’s most endearing and knowledgeable plant experts: Julian Duval, retired CEO of the San Diego Botanic Garden.

In my new video, you'll see rare and unusual plants in pots, in the ground, and in an 18 x 24 greenhouse that Julian calls "a walk-in terrarium." His impressive, decades-old specimens routinely win blue ribbons at Cactus & Succulent Society shows.

Julian's vast assortment of uncommon succulents include uncarina, brachychiton and cyphostemma trees; bizarre and intriguing welwitschias, ant plants, caudiciforms, pachyforms, and epiphytes; and numerous oddball tropicals.

Uh, just what ARE those, Debra?

Julian introduces them in the video, but here are photos and definitions:

Ant plant (Myrmecophyte): Has a symbiotic relationship with a colony of ants. The plant provides food and nesting chambers; and the ants protect it from predation, provide nutrition via their waste, and aid in seed dispersal.

Myrmecodia tuberosa (ant plant)

Epiphyte: A plant that grows on another plant but is not parasitic, such as ferns, bromeliads, air plants, and orchids in tropical rainforests.

Epiphytic tillandsias and other bromeliads grow on the slender-trunks of a dracaena tree

Caudiciform: These plants have an enlarged base that stores water (a caudex). Despite being a succulent, the leaves may be thin. In many varieties, thickened roots can elevated and displayed like bonsai.  

Adenium swazicum with elevated roots

Pachycaul: From the Greek meaning "thick" or "massive:" A succulent with a bottle-shaped or swollen trunk that's minimally branched. Elephants, you doubtless know, are pachyderms.

Pachypodium lamerii is both a pachyform and a pachycaul. 

Pachyform: A general term encompassing caudiciforms, pachycauls, and other thick-bodied plants. 

Welwitschia mirabilis, native to African deserts, has two ever-lengthening leaves that emerge from a short, woody trunk. Certain specimens in habitat with leaves 8 feet or longer are thousands of years old---some of the longest-living plants on earth!

Welwitschia mirabilis

One of Julian's oddball tropical trees is Ficus auriculata, native to Nepal, China and Southeast Asia. Grows to 24 feet with oval leaves 15 inches in diameter. Large, donut-shaped, inedible figs cluster along trunk and branches.

Ficus auriculata

See more in the gallery below, all ID'd. 

Climate, soil, watering

The soil of Vista, CA is a mix of clay and decomposed granite that "isn't ideal," Julian says, noting it could be better-draining. "It's an adobe-DG combination."

For succulents and other dry-climate plants, Julian amends "mostly with inorganics such as pumice." However, due to the diversity of the plants he keeps, how he improves the soil is not a hard-and-fast rule. "The soil mix is also dependent on the watering schedule," Julian says. "There are lots of variables."

He and wife Leslie chose their 2/3-acre lot for its large boulders and sloping terrain that lets cold air drain. "Vista is generally frost-free," Julian says. "It stays warmer than the coast and cooler than farther inland."

Are you aware of the "collected plants" controversy?

Does Julian have favorites among the thousands in his collection? Yes---those with "fat bottoms" which he considers "sculptural." Because he's owned and tended these for decades, many of his bonsai'd caudiciform and pachyform succulents have the look of great age---a reason they impress Cactus & Succulent Society show judges.

Julian's bonsai'd Operculacarya decaryi took "Best Succulent - Advanced" at a recent San Diego Cactus & Succulent Society show and sale

It's frustrating to long-time collectors like Julian that "collected plants"---cacti and succulents taken from the wild---may be sold and/or displayed at shows, as though their owner had cultivated them a long time.

Julian says: "I support not entering plants collected from the wild in shows. Poaching is a serious problem that contributes to the potential extinction of some species. Plus I think growers who have taken the time to produce a plant that has the maturity judges look for in a show specimen should not have to compete with someone who has taken a plant from habitat."

What do you think? Agree or disagree? Tell us in the Comments!