Once a month, a group of desert plant enthusiasts meet at the Woman’s Club of Bellflower to trade knowledge of their favorite succulents and cacti.
“We’re very enthusiastic hobbyists,” said Jennyfer Ibarra, director of the Long Beach Cactus Club. “And we thrive by learning more and more about the different types of cacti and succulents that are out there. That motivates us to go every month and meet up and just essentially nerd out.”
The pandemic brought with it a silver lining for the Long Beach Cactus Club: dramatically increased membership. People stuck at home were seeing cacti and succulents on their screens (the hashtag #planttok has reached 2.8 billion views on TikTok), and wanted to learn more.
The club begins its meetings by raffling off different plants, and then holds a presentation where a “notable member of the cactus community” gives an educational talk to club members. The last discussion was held by Australian naturalist Stefan Burger who spoke on the different types of cacti found in Chile. At the previous meeting, local cacti and succulent grower Gary Duke discussed how to identify different cacti.
“I think cacti and succulents are so cool; I think people are starting to realize how cool they are,” Ibarra said. “I found out about the cactus societies because I was on Instagram and I started meeting all these other people who were also hobbyists. So they started inviting me to meetings.”
She is now a board member for the club, and multiple members of the Long Beach Cactus Club will be attending her upcoming wedding.
“It definitely made the club grow more, it made it more diverse,” Ibarra said of the pandemic’s impact on the club. “But prior to that, it was a lot of the same members that have been in since pre-pandemic, even as early as the ‘70s. […] You see a lot more younger people, a lot more people in their 20s, a lot more people who are more Instagram-savvy. It just keeps growing because every month I see new members.”
The Long Beach Cactus Club—which claims to be the oldest cactus club in the US—now has around 40 members and looks much different than when it was first started in 1933, when all its members were white men.
“My personal favorite thing about Cactus Club is meeting different people,” Ibarra said. “I think at the end of the day we are just very passionate about our hobby and finding other people that are also as passionate about it is one of the coolest things I could have discovered.”
The club has been unable to have their annual sale since the pandemic began, but is reviving the tradition this year.
Multiple vendors will be selling their products on Sunday, May 22 at the Women’s Club of Bellflower. The proceeds will benefit the Long Beach Cactus Club.
Ibarra said the Long Beach Cactus Club also helps organize the annual Inter-City Cactus and Succulent Show, which displays “plants that they wouldn’t find at their local nurseries.”
“We are very welcoming, very open,” Ibarra said. “No one is judgmental. No one is judging each other on your levels of plants or how they look because we all just want to nerd out together.”
The Long Beach Cactus Club meets on the first Sunday of every month at the Woman’s Club of Bellflower, located at 9402 Oak St.