Cactus Blog 

Euphorbia milii “Dwarf Apache Red”
These are a fan favorite – short, shrubby, very branchy, small deep red bracts. It’s everything you ever wanted in a crown of thorns.

I’m trying to fix the blog software issues. Hopefully, I’ll have a newly minted, fast blog up and running. Hopefully it will all work at this same address, so you won’t miss a thing. Wish me luck.

Aloe striata
Also known as the Coral Aloe

Water When Dry’s cactus garden is in full wildflower bloom, and she’s got great pictures to prove it.

Euphorbia milii “Salmon Dome”
Yeah, that’s definitely a “salmon” color for the bracts.

Euphorbia milii “Salmon Dome”
Stay tuned for a close closeup later today.

I forgot to whippet-blog yesterday, so Danielle sent us this lovely and lively photo of Amica in repose.

Albuca namaquensis
Winter growing bulb with curly leaves. The sun was very bright when I took this photo. Maybe too bright for the delicate petals.

The classes at the SF Garden Show this weekend look good. We’d be there but we can’t because, well, the store is open and all, and people will be coming after visiting the garden show.

(Photo provided by Saxon Holt) Saxon Holt discusses succulents, such as opuntia cactus with veronica and centranthus in the background, at the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show….

Debra Lee Baldwin, garden photojournalist and author of the nationwide best seller, “Designing with Succulents,” will be discussing her book at 5:30 p.m. Saturday in the Tamalpais Room and will be available for book signing at 6:15 p.m..

Award-winning garden photographer and Marin resident Saxon Holt will cover more details of succulent gardening with “The Beauty of Succulent Gardening: The Hottest Plants for Today’s Hot Climes” at 1:45 p.m. Sunday.

Debra Baldwin may also be coming by our nursery to see some of our container gardens. She’s writing a new book.

That’s the headline on the Palm Springs Desert Sun article about a mammilaria in bloom.

(Photo: Jim Cornett, The Desert Sun)

The nipple cactus, or Mammillaria dioica, is often unnoticed unless it’s in bloom.

Now that’s what I call a cactus.

Euphorbia characias c.v. “Bruce’s Dwarf”

It’s the dreaded chartreuse blooms. Everybody asks if there really are any chartreuse blooms, and I always tell them no. No there aren’t any chartreuse blooms. But I’m lying. Not only does this spurge bloom chartreuse, but so does the Echinocereus viridiflorus.

In case you were wondering what chartreuse really means, considering that there’s a picture right above that you might not believe your own eyes, here’s the wikipedia traditional chartreuse sample for your perusal.

Oxford Street
Dasylirion longissisimum
I don’t know if I spelled that right. I should probably look it up. What do you think, should I spell check plant names before posting them?

At the SF Garden Show this week

It’s a nice story of a local boy who made his community proud.

Bulbinella robusta
A grassy relative of aloes, forms mounds of narrow succulent leaves with bloom stalks as tall as 30″. From South Africa, where it is known as Cat’s Tail. Propagates easily by division in the fall.

Steer Forth! has posted a poem, illustrated by one of my photos.

It’s called Happy poem #4

CBS News’ The Early Show featured some cactus and succulents in a mixed container garden for spring.

I think they may be defining art down. Now why couldn’t they recommend some spinier plants? I think CBS’ older demographic is ready for spinier plants. But I do like this adding of statuary idea. My grandmother always had small statues hanging around on the side tables and they would have looked very festive in a pot of cactus. Send us your photos and I’ll post them here.

Gardening with Wilson links to an article in the latest edition of Home Concepts that he wrote about gardening in Singapore.

And here’s a photo from the SBG Sun Garden website.

Nice.

Q: Hello

I am trying to find out what is the problem with my 6 foot cactus. Started to turn black on the top 4 days ago and is growing down. I had another cactus in the same pot, but died like 2 years ago and started to die the same way. I live in New York and is beeing very cold the last 2 weeks. I also watered the cactus on april 19 and because I was out of the country I watered an extra half of cup. I usually watered every 2 months with no problem. I hope the pictures can talk by themself.

Please give any advise because I don’t want to cut it if is no necesary.

Thank you so much.

Carmiña

A: Carmina,

Sorry to be the one to bring you the bad news, but the tip of the cactus needs to be cut off. It is rotting from the top. Cut well below the infected part, look at the tissue and make sure there’s no sign of infection (brown/yellow/orange) and then spray the tip with household peroxide every day for 3-4 days. In a month or 2 after it’s healed I recommend repotting in fresh well-draining cactus soil. Do not reuse the pot without sterilizing.

We usually water cacti every 3-4 weeks, drenching the soil and letting it drain completely away, never letting it sit in water. It is OK to let it go up to 2 months without watering on occasion.

Good Luck,

Peter

The Philadelphia Garden Show has stories to tell. The Philly Inquirer shares with us the yearly trek of Nona Begonia.

Now I wanted to go to Philadelphia last year, but it was a little farther out of the way from California than I would have expected.

In Phoenix, the Desert Botanical Garden is opening a new Cactus and Succulent Garden, years in the making. The Salt lake Tribune is all over it.

Now, what I’d like to know is, how much does it cost to fly to Costa Rica, since we’ve reserved a condo for a week there next January.

We’re not at the garden show this year. Last year, we shared a small booth and had our plants featured in the eventual grand-prize-winning garden. This year, not so much. Some designers have come by and purchased some plants for their show gardens, like a beautiful large Ceanothus “Ray Hartman” that should be in full bloom at the show, but no features this year. We’re just too busy.

We’ll visit the show, of course, and I’ll post pictures too.

News these days is that the Cow palace won’t be around much longer. I wonder where the garden show will go?

Poor Richards Almanac blog takes us on a virtual tour of an obscure Pennsylvania nursery in a town nobody has ever heard of (until today.)

Strangely enough, some other people had previously discovered Ott’s. They posted on gardenweb.

and

That’s enough about Ott’s for today.

Grant Street
Spurges (Euphorbias). OK, so they’re not succulents, but they sure are a nice complement to any succulent garden. They’re low water. They’re deer-resistant. And the butterflies come by every day to pollinate away.

Echeverias are definitely the hot plant right now. We just shipped a few hundred to New Jersey, full retail. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. The Marin IJ tells you what to plant, and if I may give you a hint, they suggest echeverias.

(Photo provided by UC Davis Botanical Conservatory) Echeveria is a member of the Crassulaceae family, succulents that are one of the most practical, low-water use options, with highly varied, even stunning, choices for garden and container plantings.

Now you know. They also suggest other succulents, especially the crassulaceae family.

Heavens, that’s a lot of crassulaceaes.

Plants are the Strangest People has a nice article (with pictures!) about the lovely and red-stripey Synadenium grantii v. rubra, also known as the African Milk Bush. I’d tell you all about this wonderful plant, but then you wouldn’t bother to click through.

M Sinclair Stevens in Austin, Texas at Zanthan Gardens has a great photo spread of golden barrels used in landscapes. And a story of a $2 barrel with eyes glued on, too.