Cactus Blog 

Sandykidd likes cactus, and had this to say,

I have been called the ‘Prickle Fairy’ for a reason! For my strange love of cactus and also my social resemblance to said prickly succulents.

The Washington Post visits the famous architectural something-or-other.

Arcosanti was started in the 1970s by Italian architect Paolo Soleri, a spitfire who seeks an alternative to a car-dominant, hyper-consumerist society….

“Arcosanti is both a success and a failure….”

The property sits on 15 cactus-strewn acres.

So that’s how they do it! Eco-living is determined by how many cactus you have strewn about! Good enough for me. No need to read the rest of the article.

I did like the correction appended to the article.

A previous version of this article incorrectly said that Steven Spielberg was inspired by the architecture of Arcosanti. It was George Lucas’s team that drew inspiration from the desert designs for the “Star Wars” movies.

Nice.

Today’s photo of Benjamin and Jaxx comes courtesy of alotoflife.com and Dani.

Where is Jaxx when you need him anyway?

From the Contra Costa Times, we get more of Ruth Bancroft’s answers, plus a picture too.

Sempervivum hybrid (Becky Rice/Ruth Bancroft Garden)

Q: I have a patch of little hen-and-chicks in my garden (this is what I have always called them, though they came labeled as Sempervivum) with an appealing purple color. Some of the heads do not look right, and seem to have a sticky substance on them. What could cause this?

A: Sempervivums, with their clustering habit and neat little rosettes, are popular garden plants. Coming from the mountain ranges of Europe, they are very cold-hardy, but they are also prone to attack by aphids, as you have discovered.

These small sucking insects secrete a sweet sticky substance that often attracts ants. However, aphids are not hard to combat, without the need for toxic chemicals. Simply keep a spray-bottle of Safer Soap handy to spritz the affected plants.

Note that another group of rosette-forming succulents from Mexico, the Echeverias, share the common name “hens-and-chicks.”

OLETE MAIA from Brasil sent me a published report from 1977 on the nutritional content of Pereskia leaves, among some other documents I’ll be looking through too. On the other hand, I’m not a scientist, so at best I can read the abstracts. But this one has a picture to go with it, and a lovely picture it is.

It seems that Brasilians have been eating the leaves of the Pereskia aculeata and nobody had bothered to check on their nutritional value before 1977. After checking,

Food efficiency, apparent net protein utilization and apparent digestibility were also determined. The fibrous residue showed a high digestibility…

It’s protein content is 25.4%… suggests it is a good protein source…. On the other hand some leaves do not yield protein concentrate of good quality.

The rest of it is equations and tables and percentages.

I turn the photography of the blog over to Chris again today.

Now, clearly this needs some explanation. So Chris says this,

is the front yard of the house immediately adjacent to the previous house with the grusonii/concrete balls combo. I call it “Cactus-henge.” I think the cacti are S. pringlei. The sad background is that in the space where “Cactus-henge” now sits, the prior owner had a wonderful cactus garden with many interesting cacti and other succulents. My friend said that a few specimens were saved prior to the move-out, but most of the garden was “bulldozed.” Anyway, I guess Cactus-henge is the coolest thing ever if you are really into S. pringlei …

From CNN

“No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president’s disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark,” said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

Now that’s what I call a quote. via Atrios.

Did you like that short post I posted an hour ago? I thought it was well reasoned, carefully worded, and not so long that you would have to take a break from work to read the whole thing. All in all, a successful short post.

Parkinsonia aculeata

The subject line of this question was “My Barrel Cactus” so that’s how we knew what the question was about. There was no photo, so we had to make some assumptions. Photos are always good. Anyway, on to the question.

Hi,

I have cactus that that has been dying from the base up and turning and orangish yellow. I am wondering if there is anything i can do to save it. Someone told me that you can cut the cactus off above the dying part and then replant it. Can you do this? What do you have to do in order for the cactus to survive if you do this?

Thank you,
Mike

A: Mike,

It is possible to save a cacti by cutting off the top un-infected part and then re-rooting. On barrel cactus it is very hard to pull off since they are so big around so it is hard for them to heal. To make the attempt cut above the infection, take a look at the exposed soft tissue and make sure there is no sign of infected tissue (orange, red, brown or black spots), if there is clean your knife in bleach and try cutting higher up. Once all there is is clean green tissue coat with household hydrogen-peroxide to disinfect and to speed up the “callusing”. Let the cut heal in dry warmth until it is scabbed over by what looks like a well scabbed skinned knee after a bike crash…. Then place the plant in dry cactus soil to grow new roots. Do not water until there are signs of roots, six to twelve weeks. You can mist the barrel a little at night (when it’s stoma are open) to give it some water. Keep it warm and in bright light but not in full sun.

Good luck,
Hap

[ed: good luck indeed.]

Chris sends along some nice shots, with descriptions, so I turn over the blog to Chris today, tomorrow, and the next day.

Chris says this,

is a cool combination of a cactus and sculpture in the yard across the street from my friend’s house in Tempe.

It’s true, the magazine Real Simple, as featured on CNN.com, keeps it real.

Choose the potting mix

If you are planting succulents or cacti, use a mix especially formulated for them….

Choose the plants

Don’t put a cactus and a pansy together in one pot and expect them to get along….

Prepare the pots

Fill the container with the soil….

Pot the plant

Now that’s all good advice. For more of that advice, you can click through and read the rest of the article. Or not. The rest of it is pretty generic, actually.

Sometimes we get questions about sick agaves and they’ve sent along a picture too.

hello Hap,

i met you at your store a few weeks ago…i have a sick agave that i was hoping you could diagnose. per your suggestion, i have attached some pictures. as you will see, the leaves seem to be splitting. we have really poor, clay soil here in San Rafael. We just amended the soil today and moved it to a new spot in our yard.

Any advice you have on what else needs to be done would be very much appreciated.

Thanks so much.

-Sally

Sally,

It looks like your agave took some winter wet/frost/freeze damage. Moving and improving drainage will help a lot. They can usually handle the cold if they have dry feet(roots) and leaves. You can clean the infected areas with household Hydrogen-peroxide which should help them fight off the fungi. The Damaged leaves will always look bad but given time it should grow enough new leaves that you can cut off the older damaged one.

Good Luck,
Hap

Sometimes the Cactus Art is art that is made out of cactus and sometimes it is cactus that is made out of art, so to speak. In this case, Margarita Cabrera’s show at LACMA is cactus made out of art. There, I said it. From CindyLu’s Flickr stream.

Who says you can’t make wine from Cactus? Just ask the Coppola winery, up in Napa. From Wine Spectator:

(Francis Ford) Coppola has… supplied the obtuse travel diary of one 26-year-old “Nick,” who has been sent to Europe in search of wine-based adventure and discovery, with decidedly mixed results. Here’s Nick on Luxembourg: “…um, anyone know what language they speak in Luxembourg?”

Wait, that wasn’t the cactus part of the news. Let me see, here it is, further down in the article, below the picture of the cactus. It turns out that Coppola has nothing to do with the cactus wine at all. I must have just wanted to name drop on the blog to increase hits.

Anhui Cactus winery is currently marketing a range of drinks made from a combination of Languedoc vins de pays and cactus juice. The red and white wine drinks, sold under the label “Cactus,” contain 5 percent of the prickly plant’s juice—not a lot, but enough to knock your socks off. “It’s similar to a cactus-flavored Campari,” said company spokesperson Eric Lathan. Chinese drinkers, who prize cactus juice for its nutritive and energy-giving qualities, purchased more than a million bottles of the brand last year. Lathan added, “You can pick up the [cactus] aromas straight away and the attack on the palate is really surprising.”

Who wouldn’t want to replace your lawn with 10,000 succulents?

Xeriscape landscapes are kinder to the environment and less expensive than lawns because they don’t require a lot of watering.

For many yards here, succulents and cactuses achieve all of the above without soil amendments.

Mitch Kessler has 10,000 of the plants in his North Tampa yard. “They’re eco-friendly and require almost no care,” he says.

My parents live near Tampa in the winters now. They have no yard at all, what with living in a condo. But they do have lots of Tillandsias in the trees on the property.

Anyway, that article was from the Tampa Tribune.

Greenfish Artist and Gardener has a whole bunch of little cactus from the Austin Spring Fling thingy, plus a picture of an unlabeled Rechsteineria leucotricha in bloom.

Apparently serious advice to the US Government, no less.

Larry Niven, the bestselling and award-winning author of such books as “Ringworld”… said a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants.

My eyes hurt. Please make it go away. via Sadly, No!

…among the Saguaros!

“We had our first rattlesnake sighting today,” she announced….

Hikers on the Cactus Forest Trail in Saguaro National Park were startled Sunday by a sign warning that aggressive mountain lions had been sighted in the last 36 hours….

All this, and more, signal that the Sonoran Desert spring is full upon us, with all its ambivalent blessings.

So goes the Arizona spring. Via the Arizona Daily Star. Click through to see the Palo Verdes in bloom.

Senecio repens
Grant Street, Berkeley

Everybody loves the blue color these get in full sun. Dismayingly they go green in shade. So I would not recommend them in Bakersfield where they would need to be in light shade. Hah!

White flowers, puffy seeds, delicious alongside a sunny deck in the summer sun, dazzling in the brightness as I shade my eyes to watch the hummingbirds frolic in the aloe blooms, a glass of freshly squeezed lemonade at my side. Maybe with a touch of vodka.

Well, you really have to click through to the full size original.

It’s a bee on a Hoya carnosa bloom. The one bloom and the bee are both in amazingly clear focus. You do know how small those hoya flowers are, now don’t you? Well, they’re only about 1/2″ across. And apparently, if you look very closely, fuzzy, just like the bee. Plus, if you click through to the original, you can see the pollen on the bee’s knees.

Photo © Martin Heigan, from his Flickr stream.

Daystar Shine on Me visited the Botanico Jardin Las Palmas Canary Island and took some great shots of some giant cacti in the gardens. How come I never get to go to the Canary Islands?

McClatchy News has a simple and unassuming article about going green in Texas, referring to LEED certified homes and such. But what I was interested in was the clear and unambiguous competition between cactus and bamboo. Which is greener? Which will win out for more points in your LEED certification process that your architect can check off the list?

“It’s pretty much an experiment,” says Ward, 52, of his new home…

“Cork, stucco, wood, cinder block, steel, laminate … they’re just used in a more precise way.”…

Low-maintenance mass plantings of cactus and native grasses add subtle texture, and a few potted plants such as bamboo and succulents blend well with the home’s tactile exterior.

Aha! We have a winner! The cactus are planted in the ground while the bamboo, poor things, are stuck, even confined, in pots. Over time, the entire yard will be overtaken by the prickly pears, while the bamboo will eventually outgrow the pot and die. It is very sad to see a competition like this get so brutal, so very very brutal.

Q: Hi Peter,

Wondering if running the tillandsia under water till it’s all wet is enough, or does it need soaking? I’m doing this twice a week, and it’s cohabiting with a cymbidium under the eaves on my deck.

It’s like having a pet – I can bring it in for a bath, talk to it, walk it around & put it back or put it anywhere else! What fun.

I’ll get some liquid kelp too.

Phyllis

A: Phyllis,

The key to growing tillandsias is what you say when you talk to them. I prefer to read to them from Vonnegut.

Running it under water twice a week is enough – it doesn’t need to soak but once a month with the kelp.

You can even mist it 3 times per week, or leave it in a bathroom where it gets light misting every day.

It’s all good.

Peter

(T)he Center for Creative Photography’s… current exhibition (is) “Debating Modern Photography: The Triumph of Group f/64,”

Then there are the unique close-up observations of plants and flowers — cactus and aloe and succulents and buds and blossoms by Brett Weston, Noskowiak and others. These images of humble, simple objects, simultaneously detailed and sparse, slow us down, call us to a peaceful attentiveness….

They favored using the f/64 aperture lens setting, the one that provided the greatest depth of field, the most detail, the sharpest focus. They used large-format cameras and made contact prints on glossy gelatin silver paper.

This was revolutionary.

In late 1932, in San Francisco, a group of these photographers — Group f/64 — held its first exhibition at the de Young Memorial Museum. The show included work by group members Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Willard Van Dyke, Sonya Noskowiak, and Imogen Cunningham…

From the Arizona Daily Star

The Tuscaloosa (AL) News likes cactus and succulents for your container garden. I think I should collect a list of all the newspapers that think you should make a succulent container garden. I wonder if it’s all Martha’s fault. She was first, of course, recommending them a year ago.

Container gardening is a rapidly growing garden trend….

A shallow dish or saucer is fine for cactus and succulents.

See, it’s a trend. I blame Martha Stewart.

And I don’t mean eggs…

Anyway, the BBC tells you what’s going on down in Mexico.

But in Mexico, organised crime has moved into a different market: cactus plants.

It has become a multi-million dollar business, so sought after are some of the species.

I know none of you do this, so I guess I should stop my harangue, as if I had even started one. Maybe someday.

Mallorca Daily Photo Blog has a lovely photo of a Cleistocactus at the…

Botanicactus near Ses Salines in South East Mallorca is a huge botanical garden.

I’d click through to see the full size photo if I were you.