Cactus Blog 

Cyphostemma juttae

Trees to 6 feet tall with branches and leaves on top, vining bloom stalks with little grape-like fruits. In the grape family. Peeling bark.

Mammillaria calacantha

I recommend clicking the image to see the larger version.

It’s a slow blogging weekend.

Maybe I should be out cross pollinating some dudleyas. Would you like some new dudleya hybrids?
While waiting for your answer, I think I’ll be taking a short nap here…

The final photo in our series. First we had a horizontal composition, and then a vertical closeup. Let’s finish up a bit further back, see more of the plant.

Now we can really see the cactus, in shadow, but still clearly there. This also allows us to see the extreme funnels leading up to those fluffy white flowers. Now we’re focused on the front flower, so there is no other foreground element at all. I like the large amount of black space at the top. It really helps to exaggerate the dizzying height.

Since we’re a little further back than the other two shots, this one takes on a painterly style, little daubs of white against a black background, with hints of color on one side of the cactus – almost a Rembrandt effect, if I may be so bold, of deep thickly painted shadows. Well, that’s how I see it.

So oto review, the 3 photos are very similar, since obviously they’re the same plant, and almost even the same angles, and yet the effect is so different that I just can’t decide between them.

Echinopsis subdenudata

Here we have the classic closeup posed flower picture. I like the way the other 2 blooms frame the picture, but they’re barely there. The focus is definitely on the one flower. It kind of makes you want to dive right in, like a bee.

Benjamin is on vacation visiting his brother Whylie in Alameda.

Here’s an older photo of them from last year or so.

Today I’ll be exploring composition of a photograph, using a single plant in bloom. I’ve taken 3 pictures, all with the same background, all with the same cactus with 3 blooms open.

Echinopsis subdenudata

Here we have the focus on one bloom, but with the other 2 blooms providing both the foreground and the background. Plus there’s the hint of the cactus at the bottom that these blooms are protruding from.

The angle gives us a good look inside the bloom to the reproductive parts and stuff.

Man, those white fluffy flowers….

A few weeks ago Vanillalotus went to the San Antonio Garden Center Sale and got her first succulents, including a nice juicy little Aeonium “kiwi”. Many have stopped by to offer her encouragement in her new venture into succulent-land.

It’s in the mid 90s here. Probably hotter where you are. If you haven’t wilted, this would be a good time to water. And give the plants a drink too because it’s hot out there.

I wish I were a bird. Then I would eat these lovely manzanita red juicy red extry red berries. Maybe I should eat them anyway.

Arctostaphylos “San Bruno Mountain” also known as the Bearberry. I wonder why?

The Boston Globe travels to the California desert in Spring, and what do they find? Why, cactus!

Spring is to California’s southeastern deserts – Joshua Tree, Mojave, and Anza-Borrego – what autumn is to New England. From February to June, depending on rainfall and snow melt, the deserts are alive with color as flowers, cacti, shrubs, and trees come into bloom and migratory birds make their way north.

Those crazy Bostonians and their analogizing ways. Now, I’ve always felt that the desert in spring is like the glaciers melting in summer up in Alaska. Or, wait, maybe it’s like the pot-dens of Copenhagen in bud. Well, there you go, another Bostonian and his analogizing ways.

The Grand Junction (CO) Sentinel goes trekking for cactus.

Ute Canyon is one of four main canyons within Colorado National Monument. It’s not the longest, nor does it contain the most spectacular rock formations…

Well, that’s not promising. What else are you offereing?

Last year at this time, I found… Ruby Red Claret Cup Cactus and common pink prickly pear preparing to pop.

We’re a little behind this year. Nonetheless, I spied a handful of colorful wildflowers already in bloom… The cactus are just beginning to bud, so you’ll have to wait a while to photograph them.

OK.

Slice of the Day has a great photo of a Puya in bloom. Turquoise is the word of the day.

The Christian Science Monitor has published this anecdotally proven method:

“The important thing is to water the cactus at exactly the right intervals. These plants came from the desert near Tucson, Ariz. When I brought them back to Boston, I immediately subscribed to an Arizona newspaper. And when the paper says it rained in Tucson, that’s when I water my cactus plants. As you can see, so far it’s worked well.”

There are so many Echinocereuses and so many of them are hybrids that I just can’t keep track. So I don’t know if this is a species Echinocereus or a c.v. or a hybrid. I just don’t know, and you’ll just have to live with that. However, I can tell you that the plant is small. And someday I’ll post a picture of the inside of these flowers, since they’re pretty special when they open….

We Get Questions from people about their Euphorbias.

Hi there:
I am kicking myself that I was so blind to have probably missed this entire blighted side on this cactus before I bought it, just a few weeks ago. What is growing on it? Mold? Rot? Plaque? (I’ll break out a toothbrush! :-)) What can I do about it? I’ve attached a sad picture.

Thanks for any words of wisdom-
Amy

Amy,

You “cactus” is actually a Euphorbia, a cool succulent from Africa. It
actually looks more like sunburn, so I don’t think your blight is an
infection. My guess is your plant was greenhouse grown, under shady
conditions and when you brought it home the “north” side got turned
towards hot sun and the plant burned, just like we do on our first spring
trip to the beach…. The burn will eventually scar over and turn to
bark and the plant will keep growing, but it will always have a scar.

Take care,
Hap

bunnyunlaced lists the 64 best things about LA, including things like Frank Gehry and Disneyland and Venice Beach (I don’t know, maybe that was just me.)

Huntington Gardens
You visit this 120-acre enclave for a ramble through roses and bonsai. What you don’t expect is that desert garden: a live-action Dr. Seuss book where cacti and succulents resemble stalagmites and flowing seaweed, and blooms in oranges and reds and pinks burst from monsterlike forms.

Museum of Jurassic Technology
Two of its most beloved exhibits are The Stink Ant of the Cameroon, an insect driven mad by a spore in its tiny brain, and The Horn of Mary Davis Saughall, an appendage that grew on said woman’s head in the 17th century.

We loove Dr. Seuss, and not those Jim Carrey Seuss-wannabes either.

This is one random blog link, you know. I hope you appreciate the way I dig deep into bloglandia to find these gems.

2) Attached is also a photo of a prickly pear we purchased from Cactus Jungle. We are unfamiliar with these plants and are wondering if the new growths shown in the photo are new pads and if so, how will we know when we are getting fruit instead of pads. As well, is there a cycle for when new fruits typically emerge?

Many thanks!
Beth M

Beth,

Number 2) Your Opuntia does look like it is growing a nice crop of pads.
Young flower-sprouts look very similar but look more like spear-points
when they first sprout. Your plant should bloom over the late spring and
summer, but you can encourage flowers by giving it some “Bloom”
fertilizer (a fertilizer with a high middle number like “4-16-3”. We use
Fish Bone Meal as a nice slow release Bloom Fertilizer or for faster
results the liquid “SaferGro”.

Take care,
Hap

I featured this blooming plant last month here and here. But I just can’t resist another shot of the giant flower on top of these small columnar hedgehogs.

Echinocereus armatus

Hello,

We have two questions below:

1) Attached is a photo of a plant you put in one of my existing pots. It is blooming beautifully and seems quite happy. However, it does appear that it will soon outgrow the pot. How shall I go about re-potting this plant?

2) [2nd question edited for later blogging]

Many thanks!
Beth M

Beth,

1) The Calandrinia is fine in that pot for several years. It will get
bigger, and bloom more boisterously as it does. If it gets too
rambunctious prune it back a bit. Just cut the stems where you want it
to re-sprout. You can save the cut pieces and plant them in dry soil and
they should root and start growing in a month or two. If you want to
repot to something larger, rather than pruning, run a garden knife
around the edge of the pot to loosen the root ball. Then ease the soil
and roots out and move carefully to a larger pot and add soil in around
the existing root ball. Calandrinia have very fragile roots so handle
with care, but even if most of the roots break off it will reroot,
though it will set in back a few months.

Hap

The Arizona quarter is finally being released, with the famous Saguaro design.

Isn’t it lovely?

I see some Opuntias on there too, plus what is that I see in the background? Why, I think it’s a sunset! Yes! Yes it is a sunset! And here I thought the sun set over the Pacific, as viewed from California, not over the Grand Canyon. What were those numismatists thinking?

Reader Anthony B. sent in this link to a video.

Oy.

The Blue Mountains Courier-Herald from Thornbury, ON, Canada sends out travel writers to visit US National Parks on occasion. The Canadian travel writers don’t stay in lodges, they tent it.

Just got back from hiking and camping in the Grand Canyon Sunday night and I have to tell you the place is amazing….

Flowering cacti was the subject of our amateur yet brilliant photography.

Our eyes screened the rocky desert hoping to sight a blooming prickly pear cactus or the violet flowers peeping from a barrel head or hedgehog cactus. Although only April, pictures were snapped for our aspiring wall galleries at home.

It does seem to be a good year for cactus blooms everywhere. Even the National Parks are getting in on the act. And yet these Canadians didn’t publish any of this chap’s photos for me to “borrow.” How rude of them.

Chris sent us photos of the Echinocereus grandiflora he got from us.

Before and after. I like the “before” pic — the cactus looks ready to explode. And it did, the next day!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Oy, that’s amazing.

I don’t have much to add to this notice from Chronogram Magazine.

Brooklyn-based quartet So Percussion… sound like all-acoustic techno music. “Percussion,” of course, does not necessarily mean drums. Ethereal bells, glockenspiel, bowed marimba, and toy piano also qualify—as well as aluminum pipes and an amplified cactus.

The Chamber Arts Festival of Marbletown runs on two weekends, from May 23 to June 1, at SUNY Ulster’s Quimby Theatre. (845) 687-2687

If you get to go to the concert to hear the amplified cactus, and get to record it, then do pass it along to the rest of us.

Rebutia narvaecense

These little rebutias are amazing bloomers, with dozens of over-sized pink flowers coming from each and every one of those tiny little 1″ barrels. Just imagine after they’ve pupped and there’s a whole cluster of them! Dozens of blooms multiplied by dozens of stems! That’s a whole gross of flowers. And we can thank the good deserts of Bolivia for this spectacular show.

I wonder if I should try to edit the wikipedia entry for Bolivia? Nahhh, my recent adventure with the bontaka was enough.

Whether you eat relish or not, you must give props to the winners of the Taste of Wilmington.

The secret ingredient – cactus – showed up in a relish, a spring greens salad, a ceviche and even a sugar cookie dessert.

I ate cactus last night at Casa Poblana in Emeryville. The steak was tough, not as good as usual, but the nopale was delicious, and the margarita was fantastic.

The Austin Statesman wants you to know that this is now cactus flowering season in Texas.

Mike Leggett/AMERICAN-STATESMAN Despite a dry spring, this claret cup cactus is in full bloom in Kerr County.

This spring hasn’t been much for wildflowers, but there are all the signs it’s going to be a great year for cactus flowers.

It’s true, the cactus are blooming in Texas. How do I know? Well, I read the Austin Statesman, that’s how, duh.