What's New at Arid Lands Greenhouses

Recent Events

We are early-winter here in Tucson, and it is colder than normal in recent years. We covered our greenhouses early in anticipation of an early freeze. We had an excellent production and sales year in 2022, we are looking for more of the same in 2023.

We mananged to weather the change in Arizona's minimum wage law to $12.80/hr, which started January 1, and we made some modest price increases a year ago continue to mitigate the effects.In 2023, that all changes because inflation has taken its toll on us in the form of a required wage increase of $1 per hour as well as overall higher prices for plants that we bring in and supplies. This will require a general price increase in 2023 to stay in business.

Shipping costs have risen faster than wages, but we are going to try to not increase our shipping charges this year. Instead, we've moved from USPS to UPS and FedEx for larger parcels for the time being.

Publishing News

We are proud to introduce Arid Lands Press, a self-publishing endeavour started to print books with illustrations of many of the plants we sell. Our first book will be The Genus Sansevieria: A Pictorial Guide to the Species by Robert Webb and Leonard Newton. The book was published in April 2022. The second book could be a pictorial guide to Euphorbias, which is currently in the planning stages. Another publication could be a multipart exploration of the succulent flora of Namaqualand, South Africa As part of this, Bob continues to give presentations to clubs and organizations. His presentations in 2022 include to the Cactus and Succulent Society of America, the Green Valley Gardeners Club, and the Tucson Cactus and Succulent Society.

We're shipping orders normally at this time. We have a Wholesale List available for May 2022, and it will be updated to reflect our mid-summer inventory as soon as we can get that completed.

CITES Permit Update for International Customers

Of interest to our international customers, we are trying to renew our CITES permit for most of our species except cacti. This renewal could take months or years. When we can get the onerous application filled out, we will file for a permit to export cacti. For a year now, we have listed all of our species according to their CITES restrictions on export.

International Travel

Bob is trying to go to Tanzania and Malawi in December 2022. That trip is mostly about Sansevierias, particularly some new species and ones vaguely known. As most of us know, covid has made travel, particularly international travel, difficult.

 

plant photos