Cactus Blog 

You know you’ve been looking for a cactus sweater for your nephew, and I found one for you just in time for christmas. You can thank me later.

Hand Knit Wool Peruvian Camel Cactus Sweater Boys
Great 3D Details in This Sweater! Hand Knit in Equador

A restaurant chain called Boston Pizza has a food item called Cactus Cuts with Cactus Dip. I don’t know what it is. But here’s the nutritional info on it from About.com Health.

Calories in Cactus Cuts with Cactus Dip
Manufactured by Boston’s Gourmet Pizza

Nutrition Facts
Serving Size 1 serving (459.0 g)
Amount Per Serving
Calories 1170
Calories from Fat 630
Total Fat 70.0g
Sodium 1220mg
Total Carbohydrates 113.0g
Dietary Fiber 8.0g
Protein 11.0g

Wow that’s a lot of salt and fat and carbohydrates.

This blog post is kinda stupid. Here we have a food item at a chain that has the word “cactus” in it, so here I am posting it. I don’t even know anything about it. This is ridiculous. let me go find out at least what this food item is. Follow me on this journey of discovery after the break… (more…)

It’s a beautiful painted cactus collage from Teri’s Painted Daisies.

As the Bush era comes to a close, and new rules are promulgated at the last minute, the Denver Post tracks the consequences for endangered cactus for us.

LATE-TERM RULE CHANGES
Bush’s push to be felt across West

“There are at least a couple of examples right here in Colorado where species were overlooked in agency evaluations that Fish and Wildlife raise,” Erin Robertson, senior biologist for the Center for Native Ecosystems.

For example, in an oil-and- gas lease on South Shale Ridge, outside De Beque, the BLM failed to note the presence of the threatened Colorado hookless cactus.

Now in this case, the leases have been changed to keep protections for the cactus in place, so everything is still OK in the cactus world as the Bushes leave.

Cactus – can you identify this cactus i cannot find it anywhere.

This cactus is 20+ ft with three arms

Fabian
Mortgage Finance Consultant

Fabian,

it is a Euphorbia ammak

Nice plant, but it looks like it needs planted in the ground so it can get even bigger.

Hap

It’s all about the T-shirts this holiday season. I’m pretty sure that’s what all the kids want for christmas. And here we have the one T-shirt they’ll want more than any other, or so I’m told by Invisible Industries on Zazzle.

Well it sure is cute. Here, let me analzye for you why this is so cute. I know you’re thinking it’s the kid. And yes, the kid is cute, with the chubby cheeks and the puffy hair. But it’s the bandaid on the cactus from the kid, rather than a bandaid on a kid from the cactus. It’s very clever, and that’s my analysis of cuteness on this very cold Sunday morning in December.

What is this video blogging doing on a cactus blog? Is this reasonable?!?

Here we see a fine image of a moon of Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft, and if you look closely, alongside those interesting geological features, you’ll see that there are no cactus in space.

Numerous stars provide a serene background in this view of Enceladus captured by the Cassini spacecraft while the moon was in eclipse, within Saturn’s shadow

Time to get ready for winter. I see from the weather reports that some parts of the Bay Area are going to be below freezing this coming week. I know that the current rains are more imminent than some frost in a few days, but it’s the combination of 3 days of rain followed by temperatures in the low 30s and even into the 20s in some parts of the area that will cause you to want to put a frost blanket over some of your more sensitive succulents, like the aeoniums and kalanchoes. 

But, what with our crazy quilt pattern of local variation, you may not be getting below 40 anyway, so then don’t worry.

Here’s a closeup of yesterday’s aloe in bloom.

Aloe ferox

Did I mention that this is a tree aloe, and is regularly grown for the aloe vera gel? They harvest the large spiky leaves with a hatchet. Chop them right off.

National Geographic claims that a recent study shows that dogs get jealous.

The first scientific study to find envy in non-primates affirms what many already know: dogs can get jealous.

Yeah, whatever, we see it all the time.

Anyway, this particular study doesn’t seem to show any such thing anyway.

The team had one dog watch another dog receive a reward for doing a trick. When the watching dog performed the same trick and was not rewarded, that dog refused to do the trick again, Range said.

But that’s not jealousy, that’s Justice. Dogs have a sense of justice! Just goes to show that justice is a requisite for social species. Even for dogs.

Here, have a picture of Benjamin.

He’s very social.

I feel a limerick coming on, so you may want to back away from the computer as quickly as you can.

A girl with a hat on her head
Was sitting in the middle of a cactus bed
She was wrapping a present
The garden was pleasant
So the garden gnome being wrapped she did wed.

I warned you.

Here’s a wedding picture for posterity:

Looking back, Grant Cleveland admits that starting a business with just one product, a kit for growing cactus plants, didn’t seem like the most logical thing to do….

Six years ago, Cleveland launched DuneCraft Inc. with just the cactus kit, called the Odd Pod, and less than $100,000 he raised from suppliers and angel investors….

Today, DuneCraft… makes fun products, including Carnivorous Creations, a kit for growing meat-eating plants.

That’s just fantastic. I wonder what these so-called toys are? Shall I search the interwebs to find them for you in this happy holiday season?

Yes I shall. Come with me to see what I’ve found after the break… (more…)

Aloe ferox

The bloom stalk is quite impressive. This one is around 2 ft. tall on a plant that has barely started a trunk. The bottom blooms have just begun to open, and they will work their way up the stalk.

It’s so big.

Grammar isn’t my strong suit.

Nice gift set for a kid, if you have a small kid to buy a gift set for. I don’t. Railroads, Western motif, and Cactus, as shown right there on the box. It’s good stuff.

You can thank me later for all these wonderful cactus gift suggestions.

I heard from a customer about how the Japanese have started in on cultivating new Aechmea varieties, having completed a full range of Adenium varieties. I hear they’ve achieved a striped yellow and orange bloom. I think they should call it Striped Billionaire.

Is this reasonable?!?

Can I hit the “post” button? Should I? Is this for real? And here I go and hit “Post”… Woohoo!!!

Normally a time lapse video of flowers, cactus or not, would show the flowers opening. But this video I found is special. It shows the flowers closing instead.

Now isn’t that odd.

King Kaufman at Salon can’t get his year-end peyote fix because of the economy and his year-end sports roundup is threatened because of it. I thought I would put it to our cactus readers to come up with some legal peyote for the King.

My usual method is to spend a week in the desert consuming peyote and writing down everything that happens in my visions. Beats taking notes all year and you’d be surprised how often my visions have happened to be similar to what actually happened in sports over the previous 12 months. Readers haven’t noticed anything amiss.

Alas, the recession has hit the peyote industry hard and my dealer was laid off last month.

So I’m turning to you.

We here at Cactus Blog want to help you with your holiday shopping. So here’s today’s what to buy.

It’s the Wild Republic Audubon Cactus Wren with authentic sounding sounds.

I can’t resist the siren call of the cactus wren; can you?

Phalaenopsis

These Asian epiphytic shade orchids come in many colors, in fact over 60 species, though I don’t know what the species of any of our individual plants are, since we’re cactus specialists, not orchid specialists, you know. Nice run-on sentence, Peter.

Click the image for the more full view.

Igor from Serbia posted this amazing bloom photo on the Cactus Jungle Facebook Page.

A mature Ariocarpus, probably A. fissuratus.

Q: We have two large cactus – both approx 5 feet tall – 18 years old. Not sure their type but they grow tall and straight with many 8-15 inch offshoots. We live in Georgia – left them outside all summer and they flourished. We left them outside one night too many though and we had an early frost. They used to bleed a milky white, now they are bleeding a redish brown sap, they have turned a sickly army green color and the tips are black. Most of the prickles are gone and several branches have fallen over and gone limp. Our beautiful plants are dying. Please if you have any advice on how we can save these plants, let us know immediately. We will do anything.

CHADPS

A: It sounds like they really froze hard. Keep them warm and dry and see if they perk up. If the black starts spreading, they are rotting and you need to cut it off to clean tissue to stop the infection. Clean the knife between cuts with rubbing alcohol. After a week or two of dry warmth you could give it some liquid kelp to try and perk it up. Kelp works like a multi-vitamin and growth stimulant.

Good luck,

Hap

Echeveria derenbergii in bloom, indeed. Such precious little plants with such brilliant tightly packed flowers that I can’t let pass this little story:

One day we were looking for space for our little store, before we got the current nursery, and we got a space and signed a lease and gave the landlord a small blooming E. derenbergii as a thank you. And then the lease all fell apart and we lost the space and she gave back the plant. I said she could keep it, but she said it was bad luck to keep a gift after everything had fallen apart.

Now you know.

My brother wouldn’t let me post photos of his robots before, but now that they’re in a gallery show and the photos have been publicly posted on facebook, I figure it’s OK. I hope.

So like, these little baby Aloe marlothii’s are just so spiny and adorable when young, even if they eventually get to like 10 ft. tall and all.

Ishmael in Kodiak (Weather report – Today: Overcast, Tomorrow: Overcast, etc…) found cactus leaves at the Safeway. In Kodiak! I’m shocked.

No, really, I am shocked. I’ve been to Kodiak, and I can tell you how shocking this development is. It’s very shocking, indeed. Deliciously shocking.

Oxalis herrerae

Gee, I wonder what PBS has to say about this plant? Well lets go take a look:

Oxalis herrerae is a species from Peru. It can grow up to 3 feet (1 meter) and can tolerate a wide range of soil conditions from full sun to part shade. In lush soils with good watering, it will retain it’s leaves and will drop them to reveal a succulent when water is withheld. The most interesting thing about this species is the swollen petioles which gets rather fat in full sun and spindly with less sun. Flowering spike carry numerous 1″ yellow flowers which is most prolific in spring and summer. It can be cut back hard in the spring for a tamed appearance. Propagation is easy by stem cutting. This is a fun one to have for anyone who likes arborescent Oxalis.

Well, yeah, that does seem right.

I’ve been reading the real estate ads recently to see how far the value of our house has dropped, and I noticed a strange thing – the ads that feature gardens out front of the house do not get repeated week after week while the ads that feature only interior shots do.

From this I have determined that gardeners make better home owners.

Do with this anecdotal knowledge what you will, but be gentle, please.