Rivenrock Gardens Philosophy Welcome to Rivenrock Gardens. We are a small family owned and run nursery and market garden. Our nursery is for the propagation of the plants we use in our landscape business which specializes in xeriscaping and desert landscapes. Our market garden is run in the old-world traditions of French-intensive. All our operations and the plants we sell are certified organic by California Certified Organic Farmers. (CCOF)
Besides this page, we have other pages dealing with organic cactus care and general organic cultural practices. Click on the 'pop-up' box below to see what other pages we have.

We ship our cactus cuttings unrooted, as this decreases costs and they will root quite readily at the final destination. The cuttings are taken when the order is received and held over for a few days to allow the wound to heal over. By the time the cutting is recieved it should be ready to plant, but if the weather is not co-operating the cutting can easily be stored in a cool shady, dry spot for several weeks with no loss in vigor. 
All our plants and cuttings are fairly hardy plants able to withstand temperatures into the twenties for short periods of time. All our mail-order plants are field grown and used to outdoor conditions. 

Why Garden organically?   I have been gardening most of my life, I do it because it is a natural activity for the human animal. The sense of being in contact with the Earth, with the soil and the great outdoors is not easily replicated with other outdoor activities. Many of us were raised gardening by parents who were raised on farms, in those days and locations one had to garden to have fresh vegetables. We are luckier now days, we can go and buy vegetables any day of the year of an astounding variety that would have been unimaginable a few decades ago. 
  Yet there has been a price gathered from this grocery shopping mentality, the price can be measured in the reduced knowledge of, and appreciation of the fact that we are all interconnected. The chicken is killed and the blood and entrails go into the soil to feed the plants that will in turn feed us and the new batch of chickens. If we poison the chicken we poison the soil and in turn ourselves. Man has lost touch with the bounty of the land in a personnal sense, that is not to say that we do not utilize that which the Great Creator gave us, but it is not appreciated by the average person. This has led to a demoralization of the entire society whereupon even members of one's own 'tribe' are seen not as fellow inhabitants, but merely 'resources' to exploit as we exploit the Earth. 
  Is there a way out of this quagmire of moral decay in which we find ourselves? Besides inner awareness, and a personnal religious awakening, one can garden to sooth the soul and rekindle the realization that all systems interconnect. when one gardens one has to consider the repercussions of one's actions, and the affects to the environment in which one is working. 
  A way to consider this is the correlation between pesticide use and crop insect damage. Even though we in the 'western' world use prodigious amounts of pesticides we still experience the same amounts of insect crop damage as occured at the turn of the century. This is due to several factors, one of which is the process of 'natural selection. In time insects will develop a resistance to the poisons we use, this means that we must constantly switch poisons in order to keep up with the insect breeding. The problem is that the insects like most prey species have a much quicker life cycle than their predator opponents, the vegetarian insects will allways be quicker to adapt to the poisons than the predators. This means that the amount of insect control provided by the predators will be negligable, yet the poisons will soon be rendering little effect on the target species. 
  Could it be that going the 'natural' way will result in little or no reduction in the food supply? Could be, the problem is that much of the research in this area is done by the large agricultural schools, they recieve large grants from the chemical companies who are reluctant to have adverse results obtained. I have seen tests that were scewed to show that organic farming willl reduce yields by unacceptable amounts, and cost twice as much for input at the same time. These tests forget to take into account the interrelationships between the fungal, bacteria, insect and animal populations of the soil. 
  The main idea behind organic farming and gardening is to encourage the animals and micro-plants of the soil to flourish and generate food particles form the native soil and a small amount of additives such as compost. If the soil is sterilized from years of chemical saturation and then organic methods used, the crop will indeed be meager. The sterile soil cannot support the plant growth required without the constant additions of chemical 'soup' that the soil requires once the micro population is gone. It can take up to five years for a soil to be 'renewed' to the requirements necessary for optimal organic growth. 
  So in order to renew your soil, stop using the fertilizers and pestecides that cause undue hardship on all that comes into contact with it, switch to organic methods and expect and ready yourself for reduced yields, and increased insect damage for the first couple years, after a time you will learn more about the organic methods and have better soil that can well support the plant life that you expect. 
 This page will be updated and more information added in time, so be sure to come by in time to see the information that I will add, and the links that will be added to appropriate text.