Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeremy Spath
Jeremy, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
In my early 30’s I was struck with a sudden pasion for plants, falling in love with all of the different families. I soon quit my old career and got a job working for the San Diego Botanic Garden, which lasted for 5 years, Following this I started a Landscape Design business, Water’s Path, where we mostly designed with a mix of California Native plants and odd and unusual succulents that blended well with the natives. Concurrently I worked for Rancho Soledad Nursery in Rancho Santa Fe. It was at this nursery I became more specialized in succulent plants, and began traveling the world looking for new and unusual ones to introduce to the trade and that would flourish in our climate. I became even more specific with what I was growing and introducing and bought an 8 acre property in Escondido breaking ground on Hidden Agave Nursery and Labarortory. At my nursery I grow plants from seed and propagate the best forms of these by tissue culture in the lab. Hybrid plants are popular for their beauty and ability to grow easier in gardens, in general, and much of the focus of my nursery is on creating new hybrid agaves. Agaves are one group of plants where little hybridizing has ever been done. I continue to grow unusual and beautiful species of agave at my nursery, not only hybrids. As well as several times a year, traveling throughout Mexico, South America, and the Southwestern U.S., looking for species of agave and photographing them in their natural habitat.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
People love plants, they sell themselves, and I have found it to overall be a smooth road. In fact, not just in California, but people all over the world have received my plants well.- most of what I produce is shipped worldwide. I love what I do, especially seeing the plants in the wild. Traveling to see plants in their natural habitat sparked a book concept, and Jeff Moore and I are finishing up the 2nd Edition of Agaves, Species, Cultivars, and Hybrids- due out in January.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am not a large nursery, so creating in house, that aren’t available anywhere else, has created a niche market for me and enabled me to find success. Almost anything can be viewed as a possible art. Agaves are my medium- cross breeding plants to bring out and combine characteristics of the parents, and then selecting specific offspring is an art to me- they are living sculptures.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
That I make my own pottery, pairing a beautiful plant with a handmade pot that works with the specific plant transcends both to become truly an art piece.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://hiddenagave.com
- Instagram: HiddenAgave
Image Credits
All photos are my own
