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Recent Events
It's mid summer in Tucson, and it is another series of 110F+ days, but the monsoon started in June and looks like it will pick up this week. We uncovered our greenhouses late this year owing to cool spring weather. We had an excellent production and sales year in 2023, we are looking for more of the same in 2024.
We mananged to weather the change in Arizona's minimum wage law to $15/hr, which with start next January 1, and we made some modest price increases a year ago continue to mitigate the effects. In 2023, that continues because inflation has taken its toll on us but we reduced our employees by 50%. This means we will not increase prices in 2024 to stay in business. And although shipping costs have risen faster than wages, we managed to continue our normally shipping without increasing shipping charges this year. Instead, we adapted by using UPS more than USPS to UPS for larger parcels.
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 and reprinted a small run in May 2024. 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, the Tucson Cactus and Succulent Society, and several cactus and succulent society affiliates in southern California.
We're shipping orders normally at this time. We have a Wholesale List available for May 2024, 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 renewed and expanded our CITES permit for most of our protected species including some cacti. This renewal took two years. For a year now, we have listed all of our species according to their CITES restrictions on export.
International Travel
Bob went to Tanzania and Malawi in 2022 and found quite a few sansevierias. The trip resulted in new Sansevieria descriptions and new information on species only vaguely known. As most of us know, covid made travel, particularly international travel, difficult; Bob spent 45 hours on one trip continuously wearing a mask. Those restrictions have now been lifted.
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