Cactus Blog 

The rain started last night and should last 10 days or more. The weather report is for 10 days more than 50% chance of rain. I feel like I’m in Seattle or something. And then at the very end, they are forecasting a partly sunny day with only a 20% chance of rain.

It’s my blog and I’ll whine if I want to. (more…)

It’s Jason, checking out his Tintin collection.

It’s a beautiful cactus ring.

Well, OK it’s a cactus that you throw rings at.

Cactus Ring Toss

But I love it anyway.

Since we’re going to be having some big storm fronts moving in over the next day/weeks I thought I would feature this spectacular photo of the Painted Hills in Oregon under a rainbow.

Painted Hills Rainbow
National Geographic Photo of the Day
© 1996-2010 National Geographic Society.

Photograph by Larry Andreasen

Taken at the Painted Hills National Monument in Central Oregon near sunset. Having been here numerous times before in the summer months, seeing a rainbow on a 100-degree day was the last thing I expected … usually the skies are clear on hot days.

Plants are the strangest people photographed a Crassula ovata in bloom at a nursery in Iowa.

I wonder why Iowa?

Anyway, they bloom all the time around here, but apparently not so much as a houseplant in the frigid midwest. I’m getting cold just thinking about it.

On the other hand, they do have gay marriage there, so they’re probably pretty good peoples.

Crassula “Moonglow” is one of the pagoda-like crassulas. I think it’s even more pagoda-like than C. “Pagoda”, but that’s just my opinion. This one is called Moonglow because at night, when the moon is out, it glows. Bright blue! And the moths like it, they flock to it like it was the moon, glowing. At night.

Interesting.

Samuella has a new puppy, Butter, who likes to hang out with the whippets.

i am dianthus has an amazing photo of a Pachyphytum oviferum, also known as Moonglow.

Well, now, this is interesting. I’m not even sure I should be posting this. Maybe I’ll post it without a link.

There is a posting on Craigslist offering to sell some of our fully punched frequent buyer cards. Who knew there was a market for such a thing?

Here’s the photo that goes with the post.

Looking carefully, I can tell that 2 of the cards are really old, from back when we were a backyard nursery.

Hi there, I was told to email you for an ID of this big boy. My awful neighbor tore this beauty out of the ground….is it a ferox, or something else? I don’t see the little red pimples on the backs of the leaves like ferox usually has…. Thanks for any help you can give with it’s ID.

Jay

Jay,

I have decided it is most likely an Aloe salm-dyckiana, which seems to be a naturally occurring hybrid between A. ferox and A. arborescens. There are a couple of other options… but until it blooms, and even then, it will be hard to tell. If you can send a few more photos with close-ups of the top and bottom of leaves I will ponder it some more.

Cool plant!

Hap

Danger Garden visited The streets of Fillmore, California and found a lot of agaves. Some other plants too, but mostly agaves. I see A. americana, A. neomexicana, A. lophantha, A. marginata, A. attenuata, A. parryi and yuccas too, I almost forgot the yuccas.

Hi from the Big Island of Hawaii,

I have three Euphorbia Lactea plants that I have had for almost three years now. They have been healthy and have been in the same location since I got them. One of them just started having a problem, though, and I was hoping you could give me some suggestions on how to help the plant and perhaps eliminate the problem. About a week ago I noticed a dark, mushy section on one of the fans of one of the plants. I didn’t know what to do but I took a knife and just kind of cut along the border of the mushy part. I didn’t know what to expect but it seems like the fan is continuing to rot along the edge of the cut. I am attaching a couple of pictures for you to see what’s going on. I water about every two months and the other two plants are not having any of these symptoms. I love the plant and I hope there is a way to stop the spread of the rot and save it!

Aloha, Darcy

Darcy,

I have to say the only concrete idea that I have is, it looks like your crest may be outgrowing the ability of the grafted photosynthesizing base plant to feed it. It could be that there is just too much of the fan for the limited green tissue to support. It seems like a weird line of damage, if you were here (or someplace cold), I would say it was likely frost damage. The only other thing I can think of is that it had an mite infestation and that led to a fungal infection. However Albino Crests are easy to lose, since they are dealing with both the lack of chlorophyll and the cresting mutation, which may just be a non-fatal virus. Can you send me a couple of macro-close-up photos of the damage? Maybe I will see something in a closer look…

Take care,

Hap

A Growing Delight in Canberra has regular visit from their local magpies, and the hoyas are about to bloom! Photos of the birds and the flower buds are included.

Cactus Taqueria in Oakland finally has some decent cactus, but the echeverias are looking a bit etiolated.

And yes, my crispy chickens tacos were DELICIOUS! Thank you for asking.

I’ve been busy preparing all our year end documents, printing reports, etc, that I seem to have forgotten to blog. Well, let that be a lesson to you.

I have attached 4 pictures, the same ones I have on my blog.
The two rounder ones are doing fine but the other two seem to not like the cold so much. They shriveled and turned yellow. That’s bad right?

Jacob

Jacob,

Your Echinopsis chamaecereus look fine for this time of year (#1 & #2). The Cereus hildmannianus monstrose (Fairy Castles) (#3) is showing frost/freeze damage, being a “miniature mutant” it is less tollerant of cold, wet weather than the true species is. Try and keep it dry for the rest of the winter and hopefully it will grow out of the damage in the spring. But watch for rot, as it may more damaged than it looks in the photo. The Hylocereus (#4) is a tropical jungle cactus and will not usually survive heavy frosts or freezes. It really is a houseplant that needs to be treated more like an orchid than a cactus. Try moving to a warm spot and keeping it dry for a month and see it it comes out of it, all though I have to say from the photo, I think it might be too damaged and is on it’s way to being black slime.

Take care and good luck,

Hap

Espotoa lanata

This is the same plant below that is in bloom in January.

Hello! I’m wondering if you might be able to help me identify this plant . . . and then help me figure out what to do with it.

Last year my husband and I bought a house in El Cerrito with a front yard sporting several cacti and succulents, including the large bushy thing in the attached photo. It’s currently about 5 feet tall, and has long spines intermingled with leaflike protrusions along its branches. We’ve never seen anything quite like it. It has grown extremely fast, to the point that a couple of neighbors have said they’re scared of it!

We are wondering what kind of plant it is, and how large it is likely to get. Since its size and prickliness are a little overwhelming for a spot so close to the sidewalk, we’ve also been contemplating removing it and replacing it with something a little softer. Do you know of anyone who might like to dig up and “adopt” a plant like this, or even just take some branches to transplant? If we have to take the plant out, I’d hate for it to go to waste.

Thanks,
Juliet

Juliet,

Your cactus is a lovely Opuntia (Austrocylindropuntia) subulata or “Eve’s Needle”. An amazing tree cholla from the Andes. In the wild it only gets about ten to twelve feet high and around, due to the cold. Here in the bay area it lives up to the tree description and can get about 25 feet high with time. However with pruning it can be kept much smaller. It also has wonderful red blooms.

The trick with this plant is to not water it in the ground after it’s first year, otherwise it grows too fast and does not develop the internal wood to support its weight and the branches will break off in storms and high winds.

It is the wrong time of year to transplant cactus and digging a five foot O. subulata is not easy to do safely, so usually I would recommend just cutting it up and saving pieces to re-root, but again that has to be done in the spring or summer. If you do decide you want to remove it please feel free to contact us in the spring and we can discuss the options.

Take care,
Hap

From a reader in Germany, near the Danish border, we have four really well presented succulents.

Thanks!

Whippet Snippets

chuck b. of My Back 40(Feet) has some big and juicy rock photos of Tahquitz Canyon outside Palm Springs. I highly recommend the photo with the little tufts of grasses poking through.

A classic pose, Benjamin lounging around with a blanket on top. Oh, those whippets.

One of the Old Man cacti is sending an out of season bud.

Espotoa lanata

Hi again…. Is this a colorata? They only grow about this big as adults, these were pups from the mother plant…. Jay

Jay,

That looks like it is a lovely pile of Agave parryi v. truncata! Agave colorata is similar but a bit more toothy and mean…

Hap

Joni Mitchell

What was the name of this cactus?

Was this crested or montrose? What was the name?

Thanks!
Paula

And there are more lovely photos from Cactus Jungle by Paula on flickr.

Paula,

It is a Crested form of Myrtillocactus geometrizans

the true form looks sort of like spiny blue cucumbers.

Take care,
Hap

It’s an awesome Cactus Margarita Glass, 12 oz. and it’s available for only $5.00! And they have a lot of them in stock too. Now that’s a deal. I wonder how much for shipping?

I see that aHa! Modern Living has featured the Perch Campy Planters that we’ve been featuring and also planting with succulents.

Here’s one we have at the store with an Echeveria agavoides in it. We like to display them at a slight angle.