Cactus Blog 

It’s looking particularly pretty today.

This one is not nearly as funny as the Demetri Martin joke below. So, really, don’t even bother reading this one – scroll down and read the other again instead.

Why did the cactus cross the road? Because it was stuck to the chicken.

Oh my god, I’m gonna die.

About a month ago, I got a cactus, and a week later, it died. I got really depressed because I was like, damn, I am less nurturing than a desert.
Demetri Martin

Did I mention that we have our California native lupines back in stock in the liter pot size?  No blooms yet on these smaller plants. The first one is of course more popular with the Berkeley crowd.

Lupinus albifrons

Lupinus arboreus

Still wondering why L. albifrons is the more popular? Because it’s less common. That’s the crux of the bargain at a small specialty nursery.

Here’s a larger plant from last year.

Man, that’s an attractive lupine. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s more popular because of those silvery leaves. One never knows what goes on in the mind of a customer. Except when they tell you, and then you do know.

From Nanny’s Best, we have a cleaner that they claim is “all-purpose” and then they list everything it cleans.

All-Purpose Cactus Cleaner
Unscented – for laundry (4-6 Tablespoons), dishwasher (1/2 teaspoon), hand and jewelry cleaner, window and general cleaner (1 part cleaner to 60 parts water), car wash (3 Tablespoons to a gallon of water), shampoo, makeup remover, bath gel, spots on clothes and carpet. Don’t ask for details, but hot tub owners swear using the cleaner supplies the best bubble bath and a perfectly clean hot tub afterwards (does not take much cleaner).

It’s a floor wax, and a desert topping!

Pennisetum messiacum is such a pretty grass.

Booties? I don’t think we need these in California. But you can buy them here, if you are so inclined.

Penguin Pajamas? Seems unlikely, too, but you never know.

You can see the summer fog there – it’s amazing the flowers even open.

Echinopsis peruvianus

Kniphofia uvaria “Primrose Beauty”

Opuntia subulata makes really good fences. The fruit are easy to plant and will root and grow up into a 30 ft tree, or so.

They come, they go, it’s Baby Toes!

Fenestraria aurantiaca

Epilobium canum usually has orange trumpet flowers. This selection has white. Now that’s not something you see every day.

Wondering what you’ll be doing tonight, in Del Mar?

Succulents to be discussed

DEL MAR —- Debra Lee Baldwin, photojournalist and author of “Designing with Succulents” and “Succulent Container Gardens,” will speak at the San Diego Horticultural Society meeting at 6 p.m. July 12 at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, Surfside Race Place, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd. Baldwin will explain how to create container displays of geometric, architectural and water-wise succulent plants. Admission is $10 for prospective members, free for members. Parking is free. Call 760-295-7089 or visit sdhortsoc.org .

Echinopsis thelegenoides

It’s been so cool out in Berkeley recently that this flower lasted 3 days! The plant grows to abot 6ft. tall and then the stems crash over on the ground, sometimes rooting into the ground right there. Either way there are always more stems growing. Such a cycle to behold.

The Golden Gate Gardener (Pam Pierce) in the Sunday Chronicle has an article up about why you should be planting drought tolerant plantings in the Bay Area, even after a wet winter. They say we’re still only a dry winter or two away from water rationing.

Ingredients of a design for wet or dry years: Scarlet blooms of Aloe saponaria line both sides of a permeable pebble path.
Photo: David Goldberg

OK, so it’s not really called lavender sage. It’s Official Common Name is Musk Sage, but that’s just nasty.

Salvia clevelandii ‘Winifred Gilman’

Aromatic grey green leaves are topped with whorls of lavender blooms. The shrub will get to about 3 ft., and not an inch more.

It’s history is all Bay Area. First found in a Strybing Arboretum sale, later found growing in a Berkeley garden, and introduced into the nursery trade in 1990. This is considered by many to be a hybrid, unlike other more common varieties like “Allen Chickering”. On the other hand, “Allen Chickering” smells delicious.

Wondering what to do today in New Mexico? Are you near Las Cruces? Then check out the succulent class today.

Explore Succulent Plants class will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at Enchanted Gardens, 270 Avenida de Mesilla. Learn about the wide range of succulent plants that thrive on our patios and spread in our landscapes. Succulents have interesting shapes and colors and thrive in heat with low water. Cost is free for members and $7.50 for nonmembers. Reservations requested. Reservations or info: (575) 524-1886.

Hyperbole and a Half has a new dog that appears to be a whippet who is, shall we say, adorable.

She didn’t understand, but she knew she was supposed to do something, so she just started frantically doing things because maybe – just maybe – one of those things would be the right thing and the magical wizard cup would let her know where the treat went.

Eriogonum latifolium is native to most of coastal California, north of Los Angeles and into Oregon. This puffball of blooms is only about 1″ across. At normal size it looks like a creamy white ball, but with this closeup you can see the delicate red anthers, and the gently striped sepals.

The Las Vegas Review Journal has an article about growing barrel cacti in the Nevada desert. I’ve extracted a photo essay from it, with my comments, for your fun and games. Click through to see the rest of the article.

Barrel cactuses are protected from certain birds and wildlife by their sharp thorns.

OK, that seems reasonable. I don’t really have a comment to put here, so instead I will use the classic writer’s “trick” of typing out some kind of gibberish that the editor will fix in preproduction.

This old barrel cactus survives with deep roots anchoring it into the fissures of a cliff.

That is amazingly tall for a cactus growing in a fissure on a cliff. I know because I grew up on a cliff face. If we had one that size, and I would estimate it is about 5ft. tall, we would charge $2k for it. But, as it were, we don’t dig up plants from the wild, and we don’t have any 60 year old barrel cacti at the nursery. Or so you would think. But actually we do. We have a giant clump of Echinocactus grusonii that is at least 60 years old that we rescued from a heritage garden in San Jose a few years back. And we have a price tag on it that is a bit higher than my supposed $2k.

When barrel cactuses thrive in groups like this, conditions are ideal for reproduction.
SHNS PHOTOS COURTESY MAUREEN GILMER

(She’s talking about sex among the barrel cactus….)

Heuchera “Canyon Belle”

I can’t tell if this photo is in focus. I took it with my phone, and am blogging it direct without seeing the results on a computer. What do you think?

Ah, the simple pleasures of an Echeveria imbricata bloom stalk. Droopy!

A cactus in Indiana has made good – they made the front page of the local newspaper! How quaint!

TERRE HAUTE — Bill and Mariea LaSure of Terre Haute are the proud owners of an especially interesting night-blooming cactus plant from Arizona. Starting with three small “starts” 12 years ago, this cactus – which the LaSures call “Angel of the Night” – has grown into three separate and hefty cactus plants.

“When they open up, they look like a big trumpet,” said Mariea, referring to the beautiful white and pink blooms that appear on the plants in the middle of the night. The blooms start to open around 10 p.m. and close up again around sunrise. “We’re just really proud of them.”

No pictures? I’m deeply apologetic to you. It was a good story, but would have been better with documentary proof.

Apparently they’re now smearing cactus fruit on their face.

Skin Nutrition gives cactus pear extract credit for providing potent antioxidant and purifying, soothing and calming the skin to help prevent the appearance of redness and blotchiness.

That’s disgusting. Am I allowed to say that on the internet?

Eriogonum grande var. rubescens

Easy to grow, endemic to California, and the only red-flowered eriogonum around. native to Southern Cal., we find it grows well enough in Northern Cal. too.

Here’s what it looks like a little less closeup.

Nice!

Follow this link only if you are prepared to be shocked by all the information about gasterias that you could ever need. Unless you are a gasteria biologist in which case it’s probably not that much information at all. In fact, really it’s not that much information at all. I might have been exaggerating a bit, for effect. But it is some good information nonetheless, about gasterias. I personally don’t really like gasterias.

They make recycled cactus in Italy.

“I used to make my cactus with all stuff even junk I can get around.”
Ilaria Chiani aka “Ilaria Chiani Cactus”

Those are really nice. Now you know what to get me for my birthday.

Kniphofia “Little Maid”