Cactus Blog 

We do some orchids at the nursery. Some Odontoglossum, an occasional Oncidium.

We also like the mini Phalaenopsis, like this one:

Here’s a few we’ve ID’ed from photos sent in recently.

Agave attenuata

Ooh, it’s a baby! But clearly identifiable as a Cotyledon orbiculata.

Echeveria imbricata

So far, nothing too tricky.

Well that’s just a common Jade, aka Crassula ovata.

From the Arizona Daily Star comes a news story featuring a cactus toy. It’s a balancing toy, or something. With little wooden parts.

I suppose you won’t get stuck with any cactus spines playing with this cactus, but you might get splinters. I suppose that’s inappropriate for me to say about a product I haven’t tried out. So I take it back. Not only won’t you get any spines with this cactus, you also won’t get any splinters. There. Well, that’s it for the cactus toy news for today. Check back tomorrow to see if there are any other news stories about cactus toys to report.

People ask us, so we like to answer them.

It’s been a week filled with California Native blooms, and now it’s finally back to the cactus blooms. You know you were waiting for them. Now they’re back.

Echinopsis marsoneri

These are getting ready for another round of blooms in 2 to 3 weeks, but they’re pretty much finished up with this round. So no whining when you come to the nursery and they’re not in bloom this week.

Anyway, I blogged this plant last month, so you can go read all about it there, if you are so inclined.

You can buy a lovely and ornamental cactus needlepoint at Pastimes Needlepoint online, featuring a Saguaro with ribbons and what looks like an Echinocereus in bloom. Plus some rocks and mountains and stuff.

Kate, now you know.

John McCain on Social Security:

“Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that’s a disgrace. It’s an absolute disgrace, and it’s got to be fixed.”

via Carpetbagger Report

The night-blooming cereus flowers once a year, and, for the best performance in town, Tohono Chul Park is the place to be. The park, at 7366 N. Paseo del Norte, has more than 350 of the native cactus on its grounds, the largest collection in the world, Tohono Chul communications coordinator Glenn Nowak said.”They’re starting to open now. You can see them starting to show a little color,” Nowak said around 4:30 p.m.

Peniocereus greggii, the night-blooming cereus

Wow.

Now I wouldn’t normally post a commercial, even if it does feature a cactus, unless it’s not a US ad. This one is not a US ad. And on top of that it features not a cactus but a “cactus kid” so it’s freaky enough to deserve a looksee.

Q: I bought the arrangement in the attached photo and the leaves are beginning to yellow and fall off. I’ve been watering every 10 days or so. Ususally I soak it for a few seconds and then let it drain. Any help?

Thanks
Brent

A: Brent,

It looks like you just have a dead branch, the rest of the plant looks fine. Trim off the dead part and it should be fine. You can also bring it by for us to take a look at…

Take care,
Hap

Well, that was an easy one for Hap to answer.

Asclepias tuberosa

This is really a great plant. It’s shrubby. It has beautiful little flowers. The butterflies are constantly circling these plants. And they die back down to the ground in the winter, with the underground tuber (hence the name…) hanging out til next spring, when the plant comes back bigger and stronger and more flowers.

Plus it’s a milkweed.

Plus I like the dark green leaves with hints of red.

If after all that you still don’t like this, then I feel sorry for you.

Well, that was a little harsh. I apologize if anyone was offended by my previous remarks.

Moonjazz took a very popular photo of a cactus bloom. Everyone on flickr seems to like it, so you may too, not that I’m making any assumptions about you and your aesthetic tastes. After all, you’re on this blog and I have my own aesthetic, which is different from moonjazz’s, so you may not like it like everyone else on flickr likes it. OK?

Gaura lindheimeri ‘Siskiyou Pink’ – Appleblossom Grass

These are strangely wispy plants with upright stems and weirdly stalkless leaves and flowers growing directly on the stems. Rose pink flowers of course.

They’re a wild addition to any closely cropped garden plan. Well, I should rather say that if you are uptight about your garden, then these are just the plant to loosen you up, so to speak, if you know what I mean, wink wink nudge nudge.

Ultimately, the problem is that there are too many California Natives. Too many plants grow wild in this state that we call our home. My head hurts.

You too can make money from your extra greenhouse you have lying around. According to Greenhouse Toolbox, all it takes is to turn the plants you grow in there into mixed dish gardens.

If you plan a retail business – no matter how small – you will want to feature some dish gardens. Perhaps you have a friend who designs interesting and colorful ceramic bowls. If so, why not team up with her? She’ll earn money from the sale of the bowl, and you will earn some from the sale of the plants, as well as from planning and planting the tiny garden….

Succulents, wax begonia, pilea, echeveria, kalanchoe, peperomia, and bromeliads are some of the accent materials I have used in dish gardens….

If you carry a line of figurines in your shop, you may be able to sell more of them by including them in the dish garden….

A friend of mine made several hundred dollars from the sale of succulents planted in gilded, individual aluminum-foil pie pans.

Now that you know the secrets, you too can be rich and famous. Just don’t tell anyone else.

Abutilon palmeri – Indian Mallow

Shrubby to 6 ft. tall, although I’ve only seen them get to around 4ft.

Very heat-tolerant. Fuzzy gray leaves, orange poppy flowers. An astounding addition to any drought-tolerant or native-plant garden. You know you want to lean over and look deeper. Go ahead.

…caudex photo, since I had previously posted strange bloom photos and now today I’ll post some leaves. Now you can puzzle the pieces together and figure out what the whole thing looks like!

I hope you are having a happy holiday weekend. I am.

Salvia “Allen Chickering”

Shrubby to 5′. A Bay Area favorite for years now.

Did I mention the lavender flowers? They are happy for you too. And of course, being a salvia, they have fuzzy grey leaves. (Gray vs. Grey – which spelling do you prefer?)

Q: Hi there,

We bought some plants from you in the little coconut husk pots. Do the plants get removed from those pots or are they planted in them?

Signed,
Cactus-Newbie

A: Cactus-Newbie,

You can just water the plant and pot, plant the whole thing and then water it again and the pot will break down quickly after it is planted.

Hap

Followup: COOL! That’s what we did yesterday, so I was hoping that was correct!

Happy 4th and all to you and all, from us and Benjamin too.

A blog called Gardening References likes a gardening book.

Designing with Succulents by Debra Lee Baldwin is the best book ever published on the subject of succulents.

We like Debra’s book a lot too. It really is one of the most fun how-to books with great pictures and useful information. We can’t wait for her next book.

…I posted a strange bloom photo of a Cyphostemma juttae. And people asked us what the rest of the plant looked like.

Now you know what the caudex looks like. Maybe tomorrow I’ll post some leaves.

We like the Apartment Therapy blog, and have found some good stuff there, not to mention they’ve featured us a couple times too. But this is not right. They’ve found some cheap succulents at a national chain (Trader Joe’s) and figure they’re going to die anyway, so who cares.

Then we spotted these adorable succulent plantings. At $6, they’re inexpensive enough to replace if our notorious black thumb has its way.

Consumerism is just so disposable that even lifeforms are seen as disposable. Plan it out in advance – how to kill your new plant in two easy weeks.

Now I’m all grumpy – see what you’ve done to me, Ap’t Therapy!

Malacothamnus fasciculatus

I’ve been waiting for this to start blooming. I love the vertical stems and grey leaves, but it’s been covered in buds for months and finally it has started to pop. I feel so relieved.

The Nature Conservancy has a fantastic photo feature on the Saguaro for Summer 2008.

When Gila Woodpeckers, gilded flickers or other excavating animals abandon nest cavities in saguaros, opportunists… move in.

Photo © John Cancalosi/naturepl.com

Did I say it was fantastic? Well, I only borrowed the one photo, while there are dozens more where that came from, including a shot of a western screech owl moving into that giant hole the woodpecker pecked out.

The Casual Perfectionist has a scraggly cholla, as they all are, but it has pretty flowers.

…. was started with seeds smuggled out of Nazi Germany in a matchbox. It sounds practically mythical, but that’s what Israelity tells us they learned from,

this wonderful old gardening book by Walter Frankl the other day

Here’s the quote in question.

The first importer of the many ornamental cacti you can now find at virtually every nursery in Israel today was a man called Israel Hebel, from Darmstadt in Germany.

He was a bank clerk by profession, and an amateur gardener and cacti lover by hobby.

When Hitler came to power, Hebel managed to escape Germany for Palestine, but the Nazis forced him to leave all his possessions behind. The only thing he did manage to smuggle out, however, was a matchbox full of hundreds of tiny cactus seeds.

Echinopsis huascha

The angle of the photo really tells the tale of why this is called the Red Torch Cactus.

On the other hand, the flower color is actually pretty variable.

The stems can get to 3′ tall in clusters, and it looks a lot like an Echinocereus, but it’s from South America so it’s an Echinopsis. Although it has been mistaken for Echinocereus, and used to be called Trichocereus, and sometimes grouped with the Lobivias.

There’s a new cactus fabric design by Yuka Saji.

I just thought you would want to know.