I am told this is a “Burbank Spineless” variety developed especially to feed cattle. But it has a serrated edge and a particularly interesting veining pattern in relief on the pads that I have never seen on any Opuntia. It does bloom yellow.
Thanks for your time,
John
John,
It looks to me that is most likely not one of the Luther Burbank clones, but is Opuntia undulata. A variable species from Mexico (probably Aguascalientes). In habitat it is said to get 10 feet tall. Here in Berkeley, it rarely gets over four feet tall, but I have only been growing it for about three years so maybe someday it will pile up that high…
Great plant, the young pads are great nopals and the fruit is tasty too.
Stars and Stripes has found some large cactus in Germany. I can’t decide what category to put this under – news or travel, since I don’t have a military category.
Michael Abrams / S&S The cactus house is the first hothouse you enter when visiting the Karlsruhe botanical gardens. The giant cactus in the foreground is an Opun(t)ia, or paddle cactus. The big round Golden Barrel Cactus at right, are nicknamed mother-in-law seat in German.
What should you plant if you have a balcony garden in Orange County, California and it faces into the all day heat of the day, i.e. South? Here’s what the OC Register has to say about this alarming situation.
This is the most common rhipsalis in all of Central America. We only found a couple specimens in Costa Rica. It’s a pendulous epiphyte with cylindrical forking branches. I should copyright that sentence. It’s known as the mistletoe cactus because it gets covered in little white fruits. It likes moist lowland forests, not too moist.
They’re very successful grown in hanging baskets on your front porch, preferably getting an hour or two of morning sun.
Another fine recipe. I wonder if this is going to be a week filled with recipes.
INGREDIENTS
1 lb Nopales – 1 paddle, cleaned
1 tb Oil as required
1/2 lb Tomatoes diced
2 cloves Garlic – peeled and crushed
1/3 c white onion – Finely chopped
4 medium Serrano chilies – seeded & fine diced
1 ts Salt – to taste
2 lg Eggs
2 large Egg whites
Notes: Nopales (cactus leaves) have been a staple of Mexican cooking since pre-Hispanic times. They taste a little like green beans, and they’re a source of vitamins A and C. Fresh nopales with the thorns removed can be found in the produce section at many grocery stores.
From the Marco Eagle in Marco Island, Florida, comes this succulent winner.
Barbara Messner, flower show Committee Horticulture Chair, pictured with her unusual specimen in Class 3. Cacti / succulents: Kalanchoe, gastonis-Bonnieri, (seen in lower right corner) captured Best of Show Blue Ribbon in Division II – Horticulture.
I think I’ve mentioned before that I like local newspapers. They are the future of journalism in this country, what with the upcoming death of the largemetropolitannewspapers across the country.
Just curious…can you tell me what happened to these two plants?
Too much rain water? or is it something else
thanks
Brian
Brian,
Looking over your photos, my best guess is a combination of rain followed by the several real cold snaps we had, cause frost/freeze damage and that opened them up to infection. The Cleistocactus (the tall fuzzy one with multiple arms) looks like the damaged arm should be trimmed off with a knife and the cut part at ground level splashed with hydrogen-peroxide, so the infection stops with just that arm. Clean your knife and recut the top part above the infection so you have clean green tissue with no signs of orange and black, splash it with the peroxide, let it heal and dry for a week or two inside and replant and it may root (Cleistocactus are slow or tricky to root but in never hurts to try). I would also suggest pulling out the mammilaria and tossing it, so it does not spread the fungus infection to the other plants.
Generally those cacti are hardy here but if they are wet and then we get real frosty they can be damaged.
From Gun Barrel City, Texas comes news of a gardening seminar sure to be of use to those within driving distance of Gun Barrel City, Texas.
The Kaufman County Master Gardeners will hold their 2009 Annual Spring Seminar on Saturday April 4th from 9 am to 1pm… Lynn Ackerman… will speak on landscaping with succulents/cactus.
Cactus pads can be found in Latin markets as well as some supermarket produce sections. Look for bright green, shiny leaves the size of your hand. The spiny soft thorns must be rubbed off with a nylon abrasive pad before you proceed with the recipe. Careful as they can be sharp.
-2 large cactus pads (nopales), scrubbed of thorns, rinsed and cut into 1/2-inch dice
-Water
-Salt, to taste
-1 medium tomato, chopped
-1 serrano or jalapeno chili, seeded and minced
-1/4 small red onion, chopped
-1/4 cup minced cilantro
-Juice of 1 lime
-6 lettuce leaves, optional
Put diced cactus into a saucepan of cold water to cover. Add a pinch salt and bring to a boil.
Cook 4 minutes until tender. Drain and rinse under cold water.
Combine cactus with remaining ingredients except lettuce and mix well. Serve on leaf lettuce or in small cocktail glasses as an appetizer. Makes 6 servings.
Since I never try out these recipes in advace of reprinting them for you, I cannot calim to know if they are delicious or not. Only you can decide that for yourself. Fortunately there is no shrimp in this recipe, so at least I could try it if I wanted.
Time Out New York has this advice for you urban gardeners.
Succulents and cacti will grow well in little earth and need little water, so they are an option for unusual and small containers. Some people may want to use old boots… as planters but I think this is more of a gimmick than a practical growing solution.
Interesting addition to this morning’s post about a hylocereus in habitat, we now get a little bit of hylocereus used as a root stock for a grafted cactus.
hello. im elya and i need ur help!! i have a hibotan cactus. its a cactus left by my late best friend. so it really means a lot to me. i hope u can help me.
well,firstly,i have no idea whatsoever on how to take care a cactus. in fact,i just know that its called hibotan cactus today when i searched the net. u see im a university student and im very busy. so i really dont schedule when i water it. and at first i just leave it in my room. and i am a very very careless person. i knocked it down for 3 times already i think. the rest are done by the wind. and when its knocked down,usually it will fall out of the pot. with the soil still attached to the cactus. i know i know,im very careless.. but yeah. i still love it so so much though. hmm.. anyway,in 3,4 days now,the cactus’ head is going black!!!! i think i over water it i guess!!! here’s the picture of it. i hope it can still be saved. oh yes,my university is kinda in a rural area and i dont even know if theres a gardening store nearby. i hope its still saveable……
hope to hear you soon.
p/s: please reply to my email. and u can post it in the blog if you like. thank you. hope in hearing you soon.
— elya,Malaysia
Elya,
What you have is a grafted and irradiated cactus on top of a hylocereus base. The colorful grafted top portion is dead and probably just came to the end of its mutated lifespan. It was a nice touch of color while it lasted.
However, the hylocereus base can survive and grow into an amazing plant. I recommend you cut off the dead portion, spray the cut end with hydrogen peroxide to help it heal, and repot the rooted base in fresh, fast draining cactus soil. Keep dry, and don’t water for a couple weeks.
Those prickly plants can be a serious danger to cattle in dry regions, and they can spread pretty rapidly too. This is the first I’ve heard of a problem in Asia.
Landowners in Faifa city in Jizan Province have exhausted all options in their attempts to curb the spread of the… fast-growing purple-colored cactus…
“This type of cactus was only found in desert areas of the Tihama plains,” Bin Yahya says, “but over the time it spread to the foot of the mountains and then the baboons and birds and other animals brought it up the mountains. If we don’t tackle the problem soon, the cactus could sweep away all the pasture land and forested areas in the Faifa mountains.”…
The rapid spread of prickly pear in eastern Australia in the 1920s was considered to be one of the botanical wonders of the world, and its virtual destruction in a mere six years by cactoblastis caterpillars is regarded as the world’s most spectacular example of successful weed biological control.
Up to this point on our trip in Costa Rica we had seen only a few scraggly cactus high up in the canopy on the trails in the jungle national parks. Here we were driving along a country road through farms and over hills, and BAM there was this tree covered with jungle cacti and lots of bright red tillandsias too.
Hylocereus costaricensis
This is quite the site to see. I wonder how long the tree can survive with that much weight on it? Strong trunk, I suppose.
It’s one of the non-deer-resistant varieties. Fast growing, it will form a mounding shrub about 3 ft. high, but spreading wide. Loves sunny coastal gardens, as do we all.
Colorful isn’t it? It’s a Tillandsia. Actually, there’s more than one, but only one is blooming. There are so many tillandsia species in Central America that it would take a tillandsia expert to be able to identify them.
Don’t you wish we could have collected some from the wild and brought them back to Berkeley and propagated them and then offered them to the public? That’s what used to happen out in the world not that long ago, but no more.
I refuse to read the article that goes with it because that headline is enough for me, thank you very much. The article came up in a cactus search, so I assume the festival has something to do with cactus and succulents, but I wouldn’t know because, as I said, I refuse to read the article beyond the headline. And that’s my perogative. I guess I’m weird that way.
Crews are set to begin installing the remaining pieces on a massive public-art sculpture in downtown Phoenix on Monday….
The piece is called “Her Secret is Patience” and is designed to evoke a cactus flower.
Honestly, I just don’t get it. An article about a massive piece of public art already under way and not a single photo or drawing to go along with it. This is an outrage; verily a disgrace. I would write in and complain, but I really couldn’t care less. On the other hand, the art seems like it’s going to be pretty cool.
“The majority of plant specimens at the Chico State Herbarium are flowering plants, conifers, and ferns, but bryophytes, lichens, and especially slime molds, are also well represented.” Now – and I am not being sarcastic – if you have a general interest in plants, wouldn’t you like to just take a quick look at a slime mold? I would.
How to preserve a cactus? “It takes quite a lot of dehydration before we can mount cacti or other succulents,” admits Lawrence.
The Washington Times goes traveling to Arizona and finds some cacti.
PHOTOS BY GENE MUELLER / THE WASHINGTON TIMES This giant saguaro cactus is one of thousands that dot the southern Arizona landscape….
What a contrast. From desert flora and fauna to a sensible Native American, then on to barren rocks, crooked pine and aspen trees sitting in snow drifts – all within a 50-mile drive.
I’ve been to Arizona and I can tell you there are giant saguaros all over the place, including spots where there aren’t paved trails and little signs. In fact, if you get off the paved trails, you can find entire forests of these things, and not just single sentinels.
