Dry Garden Botany Series - Mesembs (Webinar)

Name: Dry Garden Botany Series - Mesembs (Webinar)
Start: 2026-01-07T11:00:00-08:00
End: 2026-01-07T12:00:00-08:00
Location: 1552 Bancroft Road, Walnut Creek

Schedule

Wed Jan 07 2026 at 11:00 am to 12:00 pm

UTC-08:00

Location

1552 Bancroft Road, Walnut Creek | Walnut Creek, CA

The Aizoaceae (Ice Plant Family) stands out for its remarkable diversity, with roughly 1,800 species. Members of this family, often called mesembs, occur in various regions but are especially concentrated in southern Africa.
Mesembs are known for their vivid flowers and for how well they can blend into their surroundings, with some species mimicking the stones they grow among. They range from tiny, tight clumps to low groundcovers, and come in forms from a single pair of fleshy leaves to small shrubs.
Their rarity varies widely: some mesembs are common in cultivation, while many others remain largely unknown because they’re difficult to grow or simply underexplored. At the Garden, longtime curator Brian Kemble has introduced many new mesemb hybrids over the past decade. In this webinar, Kemble will highlight a selection of the plants we grow, focusing on 44 genera and on species that thrive in our climate!
Please note that this will be a pre-recorded webinar followed by a LIVE Q&A session with Curator Brian Kemble. (offered via Zoom) After registration (see below), you will receive instructions and a Zoom link one day prior to the lecture.
How it works: Register one person with one email at a time. If you would like to register multiple people, please register them each separately with separate emails. The webinar will be recorded and all registrants will receive a recording link via email within one business day. Once the recording is sent, you will have seven days to watch. After that time, the recording will expire. Access to the webinar recordings after the expiration date will be a charge of $15 (members)/$25 (non-members).