Cactus Blog 

While looking for more porcelain cacti, instead I found this interesting product reviewed on a few different sites, but I can’t seem to find a place to buy it, or who manufactures it. I think it may be so last year (or even as far back as 2006), and is no longer available.

Kiko the Lonely Cactus is a sad kind of character.

Hello

My campfire plant developed this fungus, I did mist it recently?

Can you help

Thank you

Tom and Joy

Tom and Joy,

It looks like your plant has a fungal infection. I recommend you treat it with a Neem Oil 1% solution, sprayed on once a week for the next month. That kind of infection is usually brought on by over watering, how often are you watering your plant? It needs to dry out completely between watering’s and is happiest with at least 4 hours of sun.

Take care,

Hap

Hey Hap…hope things are going well…a bit of rot has set in in both branches of the mealybug cactus…should I cut off above the rot and put both branches in the potting room for a couple a weeks after a dousing of roottone and then have you come back to repot it? thanks dianne

Dianne,
treat the rot spots with hydrogen-peroxide and leave on if you can… it is hard to get cacti to root this time year.
hap

Hi Hap…me again…so I’ll spray the hp…how often?

Sorry about that I should have told you!

Spray three days apart, repeating three or four times. The rot should dry out and scab-over in a couple of weeks. If it doesn’t by then, more drastic measures will need to be taken.

Hap

I forgot this item in my previous post about porcelain cactus and succulents.

How could I have forgotten that one, you may ask? Well, I have a bit of a head cold, so that’s the excuse I’ll be using.

Oddity of the Day.

An entrepreneur has come up with a way to foil monkeys who steal underwear from washing lines.

Ray Liddell has stopped the thieving barbary macaques of Gibraltar by selling a plastic spiked device – called The Cactus – which can be fitted to fences to make life difficult for the cheeky primates.

‘The monkeys are everywhere,’ said the 38-year-old, from Hartlepool.

No pictures.

Well, it’s true. The Clusia bud converted over this morning to a bloom.

Clusia orthoneura

I think it’s clear why they call this the porcelain flower, but if not, here’s a link to some porcelain figurines. Now is it clear? No? Well, how about this? What!?! Those porcelain flowers aren’t enough to convince you!?! I don’t know what more I can do to convince you of the propriety of the name “Porcelain Flower” for the Clusia. Maybe this will do it. Aha! Now you see what I’m talking about. And yet… Is there a picture of a porcelain cactus or succulent, just to be sure? There is! And it’s a triplet!

I’m feeling a bit silly right now. Sorry about that.

Come follow me after the break for a close up of this wacky and entertaining porcelain-like flower. (more…)

Waking Dogs

CHRIS HILLOCK/ Taranaki Daily News

CACTUS QUEEN: Ngaire Ward has a passion for prickly plants. Mrs Ward has been made a life member of the New Plymouth Cactus and Succulent Society.

“This is a great privilege and I really hadn’t expected it.”

The stupid Clusia orthoneura bud won’t open. It’s been in bud for months.  I keep telling myself  “any day now” and nothing. It’s gotten humongous, but maybe tomorrow…

You’ll be the first to know.

Hello:

My name is Allen and I live in half Moon Bay. I’ve got 4 large cactus growing in pots and they seem generally healthy and are growing. But they are developing what appears to be a scale or fungus and I’d like your advice on how to treat them. I’ve attached some photos of the worst/most representative areas of concern. I’ve sprayed several times with Neem oil and it’s possible that it’s making a difference but it’s to early to tell. The columns are firm, no mush is developing and all is good other than what you see in the photos.

Your thoughts on the malady and the cure?

Thanks, realy appreciate your help!

Allen,

It looks like your cacti has either a virus or a fungus (or both) as well as a few scale. Neem Oil should deal with both the fungus and scale with a few treatments. I recommend retreating it with Neem Oil, spray to the point of run-off, once every seven to ten days at least three or four more times. If any of the infection looks like it is turning to rot, (the spots will turn either orange or slimy-black), treat those areas with regular 3% hydrogen-peroxide, paint or spray on the infected area. Alternate with the Neem treatments.

If it has a virus, the best thing you can do is give it some liquid kelp (Maxicrop or other brand) to help boost it’s immunity and fight off the virus, just like you taking a vitamin, or drinking orange juice when you have a cold. Hopefully the plant will fight off the infection and heal. It will likely always be scarred, but the infected areas will “bark” and give it character.

Take care,

Hap

Maureen Gilmer, regular contributor to the Orange County Register…

Her new book, “Palm Springs-Style Gardening” (Sunbelt Publications, $24.95) brings as much insight into gardening in dry places as she brings to her myriad projects.

They haven’t sent me a review copy yet. So no review. And we don’t carry it at the store. You’d think the publisher would be on top of things.

Can you help me identify this plant?

Samuel

Are you asking about the euphorbia or the leucadendron?
Peter

euphorbia!

The questions they get in Florida are totally different than the questions we get in California.

Several years ago we placed a potted cactus at the base of our lakeside cypress. We did not know that it was a climbing cactus. It has climbed 45 to 50 feet to the top of the cypress and is branching out in each direction. It has become a conversation piece for visitors, but will its growth harm the tree? — Maggie Robin, Plantation

The climbing cactus is a night blooming cereus, which has spectacular night opening blooms that are very fragrant. People used to stage entertainments around the opening of the flowers at night.

The white flowers can be 1 foot wide. I think the cactus will not harm the cypress as the tree is strong. The cactus is heavy but the cypress should be able to handle the weight.

I wish they had pictures, don’t you? Now, as for it being a “Night-Blooming Cereus” that could mean anything, as there are dozens of species that are called that. Do they mean Cereus, Peniocereus, Epiphyllum, Hylocereus, etc…? Harsh.

Devine Tropical sells a lovely pink dragonfruit, or pitahaya, also known as Hylocereus, probably H. costaricensis.

The LA Times says they’re becoming more common, more popular even.

And all from a happy vining tropical jungle cactus. Here’s my photo of the plant growing in a tree in Costa Rica.

Erde Design on Etse has some beautiful handmade wood succulent planters for sale. Singles, triples, you name it, they have it. Not that you couldn’t plant something other than a succulent in it, but why would you?

I wonder if they have drainage?

The cactus moth, a South American bug that destroys the prickly pear cactus, was recently discovered on Louisiana’s coast….

The biologists want to stop them now, before they get to western cactus-lands where they could devastate environments.

The agriculture agents are also breeding sterile male moths that they will release in areas where other cactus moth is found. The female cactus month mates only once, and if she mates with a sterile male the population will decrease.

More info is here and here.

Larvae inside a prickly pear pad. Photo: Susan Ellis, USDA APHIS PPQ www.forestryimages.org

Low water gardening is coming in to fashion everywhere, even in the fashionable districts of Palos Verdes.

Local homeowners facing mandatory water rationing can learn much from the newly installed beds at the South Coast Botanic Garden on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Pedra Furmall, assistant gardener at the South Coast Botanic Garden, takes South Coast Fuchsia Society members on a tour. (Photo by Meredith Grenier)

If Coco + Kelley were inspired by succulents in their fashions this summer, so why shouldn’t you be? Do you think you’re better than them?

Here on the cactus beat, we see some pretty crazy things. People eating cactus, for jiminy crickets sake! But this beats all.

China Kangtai Cactus Biotech Inc., a vertically integrated grower, developer, manufacturer and marketer of a variety of cactus-based products in China, announced today that the company has successfully completed the trial production of cactus-based cigarettes.

If offered, I will refuse to carry them in my cactus store. On the other hand, if you have a good importer of cactus based vinegars from Italy, let me know.

I wonder what the packaging will look like? I imagine a mini-saguaro sticking out of a cartoon camel’s mouth.

It’s a little early in the morning for tequila, but this story is from the UK, so it’s already cocktail hour in London.

In the UK, consumption of tequila, the fiery spirit traditionally distilled from the cactus-like agave plant, has trebled in a decade.

Actually, I just like this story because they used the word “trebled.” And while many people assume agaves are cactus, they’re not really even “cactus-like”.

Cactus:

Agave:

I rest my case.

Some rare September thundershowers hit the Bay Area this morning. Be careful out on the roads, you know, since they’ll be slick, what with 6 months without rain. And don’t bother watering your cactus this afternoon, they’re already wet.

Claretcup Cactus Blossoms
Photo Credit: Elizabeth R. Rose

Earlier this year I was hiking at Navajo National Monument near Kayenta in the Four Corners area and found… an amazing Claret cup cactus flower.

That is a very nice picture indeed. Cactus are pretty…

Have you ever been to Navajo NM? It’s got amazing cliff dwellings. As are many of the extant cliff dwellings, it’s near the Four Corners part of the country, or so they tell me. No, wait, actually I’ve been there, so I can tell you this myself. Interesting name since there aren’t any corners there at all, unless you’re looking at a map.

Did You Know?
Hisatsinom is the Hopi name for their ancestors that lived in the Four Corners region of the Southwest.

Well, no I did not know this before today, but now I do.

Epilobium canum “Catalina”

I wonder if this was first discovered on the island of Catalina? Or maybe the color reminded someone of the island. Hmmm…. How can I find out? If I google it, I find out that it was

…selected by Mike Evans of Tree of Life Nursery from the Middle Ranch area of Catalina Island.

Good to know. If I were to name it, I would call it a “Creeping Trumpet”.

Sleeping Dogs

Aster chilensis “Purple Haze”

Such a native wildflower in the Sunflower family (asteraceae) that you should have to have a license to grow it.

It does take a bit more water right now and through the summer than other natives, but the payoff is a full autumn flush of blooms. This was the first bud to open this year. Congratulations!

Apartment Therapy likes succulents. Here they feature a cinder block wall designed to hold succulents, inspired by Annette over at Pot-ted.

More photos over at the link. Some text too, but why read when you can skim?

Dani sends along this photo of a backyard bamboo grove, where she’s working for the day. Is that a Euphorbia ammak I see over on the left?

The fall blooming California natives are starting to bloom at the nursery.

Here we have a favorite, the Lotus crassifolius var. otayensis and the blooms are just starting to crack open. Pea-sized!