Homesick man brings cactus with him -- to chilly Maryland

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Feb 28, 2004 | by Eugene L. Meyer, Washington Post

IN the chilly winter darkness, strange pods rise from a Bethesda, Md., garden, glowing from within. It's downright spooky, like something out of a Stephen King novel.

But this is Calman Prussin's cactus garden, a cluster of cacti and other succulents wintering in the frozen north far from their intended warm, dry environments.

Prussin has moved earth and sky to nurture these precious reminders of his native Southern California: earth, that is, in the form of rock and soil; and sky courtesy of homemade cocoons, warmed by the heat and light of electric lamps.

To the casual observer, these measures might seem eccentric. For transplanted gardeners who understand the powers that plants can exert, the reaction might be: Do they work?

They do, though Prussin himself wonders sometimes if all the effort is worth it. The wraps go on in December. He takes them off in March.

Five years ago, the research allergist at the National Institutes of Health -- unable to move back to California -- decided to bring a bit of home to the subdivision where he lives with wife Daphna, daughter Talia and dog Doodle.

"I grew up with cactuses, so I was homesick and it was sort of a natural," he says.

He joined list-servs ("Too Cold for Cactus" was one) devoted to the care and feeding of plants struggling to survive in alien climes. He read extensively. He traveled far and wide, in person and on the Internet, in search of succulents.

As he soon learned, you can't just stick desert-loving plants into the clay-dominated soil of the Washington region and expect them to flourish. So he brought the desert to them, turning a 555-square- foot plot in front of his suburban split-level into a rocky terrain, bringing in 20 tons of crushed rock to place beneath a growing zone of sand, crushed stone, humus and topsoil made to his specifications. This altogether weighed 36 tons, not counting the heavy 6-by-6 timbers used to frame the plot. He was driven by the mantra of successful succulent growers: drainage, drainage and more drainage.

He excavated barrel loads of heavy clay, but his wife could see he needed help. (Prussin may be from California, but he doesn't share the current governor's physique.) So she went to a local health spa in search of a buff heavy lifter.

"I thought it was an absurd idea, but it worked out great," Prussin said. "She asked if anyone there does garden work. A guy there, one of their trainers, did. He was like a shoveling machine, for a few hundred bucks."

Last year's near-record rainfall put the rock garden to the test. "You want porous and dry soil," Prussin advises. "This summer, I'll add some more gravel. What kills them is not the cold; it's the wetness. In the cold snow they do OK. They don't like the slushy stuff. The end of winter, March, is when they really start having problems."

He grows 16 varieties of cactus, most related to the hardy Eastern prickly pear, perhaps the only garden cactus familiar in the Washington region. His other prickly pears include Opuntia macrocentra Santa Rita and Opuntia basilaris, with deep purple-red blooms; both are hardy only to USDA plant hardiness Zone 9, south of Georgia. Most of greater Washington is in Zone 7.

He also has eight types of agave, including the potentially huge century plant, various yuccas and a succulent named dasylirion. Much of his garden is planted with hardy ice plant, awash in magenta daisylike blooms in July.

Like the ice plant, many of his arid plants might survive winter on their own without the strange cocoons, given the attention to drainage, and about half his collection is not under wraps. But several are vulnerable in a cold winter like this one, and he doesn't want to take the chance, he said. The pods also keep the plant crowns dry in winter.

Prussin rose to the challenge, designing and building the winter survival system. His un-trademarked secret: structures made of PVC pipe and covered with Bubble Wrap, with some Tyvek to allow water vapor to escape. Light bulbs placed inside the structures go on when temperatures drop below freezing.

"A lot of people are purists. They probably wouldn't like it," said Prussin, 46, leading a winter tour -- sockless in sandals -- of his garden-under-wraps. "They like only passive, not active intervention. One person said to me, 'You've essentially created little greenhouses around each plant.' Exactly. So, for 31/2 months a year they stay dry and are not freezing.

"The only reason I cover them is for my own craziness and many of the plants I'm growing are more marginal" to this region, he said.

Prussin's plants come from various sources, including mail order. "I got some in Las Vegas when I was visiting a friend. I brought them back by plane."

The warming light bulbs (some are red and yellow "just for fun") in each structure range from 40 to 100 watts and are hooked up to a commercial thermostat set to turn them on when the thermometer dips below 32. Prussin says this ensures that temperatures inside the shelters are in the 40s, or about 10 to 20 degrees warmer than outside.