Cactus Blog 

Something called NWA Online has an important message for its readers.

What’s to love: Succulent plants are rather trendy at the moment.

Indeed! Thank you, NWA Online. Now we know.

And if you were wondering, NWA stands for North West Arkansas. It is a group of local newspapers from the NWA region. A nice region! A beautiful region!

This is a very colorful and very spiny Bromeliad. Not as spiny as some Puyas I’ve known, but spiny enough in its own right. The colors on the other hand are spectacular and well worth the fight. The blooms are orange.

Dyckia “Rubra”

Rich dark red terrestrial bromeliad; lots of sun/regular water in summer. Hardy to 25F. Prefers Full Sun.

Gilman Street, Berkeley

Hiding behind a fancy fence is a very bloomful Crassula ovata, better known in these parts as a Jade Tree.

The Marin Independent-Journal News-Navigator is pretty definitive about how to pronounce plant names.

Kalanchoe

Pronounced kal-un-KOH-ee, kalanchoe is a little blooming machine that can light up a room with brilliantly colored blossoms encircled by fleshy, glossy, scalloped green leaves.

Dictionary.com lists 4 possible pronounciations. We prefer the 4th one. The one listed above is generally used by florists, while nursery growers usually say “kuh-lan-choh”.

It would be irresponsible not to comment.

We seem to be on a blooming perennials and shrubs kick this week. Must be the weather.

Achillea “Lavender Beauty”
Lavender Yarrow

German Hybrid; Native to Eurasia and North America
Herbaceous Perennial

Sun: Full Sun
Water: Low to Moderate
Size: Shrub to 3 feet

Lavender colored flowers. Attracts butterflies. Remove spent flowers for a late fall rebloom. Cut flowers last a long time, look great dried. Hardy to below 0°F.

Succulents and More has a new crop of Aloe babies received from a fellow collector found on facebook. Wait, you mean facebook is good for something?

While buying larger specimens provides instant gratification, there’s something even more special about young plants,barely out of seedlinghood. I think of them as the botanical equivalent of babies and toddlers—so full of life and promise, virtually all their life still ahead of them.

Click through for the pictures of the bare root baby Aloes. Fine.

We don’t post warnings at the front of our nursery that there might be cactus inside. You know, beware of the cactus, since the name of the nursery is Cactus Jungle, after all. But what about on a desert hiking trail? A letter to the editor of the Carlsbad Patch:

While walking with my family down by the south east end of the Lagoon in Carlsbad Agua Hedionda and my youngest son was attacked by what is known as jumping cactus. Having grown up here in Carlsbad and hiked that whole area since I was young I’ve never seen such a cactus. It was vicious to dislodge from his leg….

I think there should be a warning sign in the area…

Well actually just one popular California Sage, a useful and pretty sage, a Lavender Sage.

How useful? You can use the dried leaves for cooking or for tea, or you could leave the whole plant in place in your garden and have a pretty and fragrant garden plant. Or all three! It’s that popular.

Salvia “Allen Chickering”
Lavender Sage

California Native
Evergreen perennial

Sun: Full Sun
Water: Low
Size: 4 to 6 ft.

Fragrant leaves make a nice tea. Lavender flower whorls make this a Bay Area garden favorite. Deer resistant, attracts butterflies, fragrant flowers. Hardy to 20.

6th Street, Berkeley

A large and untidy Aloe arborescens in full bloom.

Interestingly the Saguaro attacks the young woman with chollas.

This particular popular Ceanothus is a very tall shrub, some would say a tree but some would say that technically its a shrub. Excellent arguments all around!

Ceanothus “Ray Hartman”

Native to California
Evergreen shrub

Sun: Full Sun
Water: Low
Size: 20’max.

Light blue flowers, dark green leaves. Fast-growing, completely drought-tolerant. Cold and heat hardy. Do not irrigate.

There’s a lot to unpack in this AP article about the common houseplant known as the Pencil Cactus. Here’s the opening:

Sap aside, pencil cactus is nice indoors and out
Lee Reich, Associated Press

This undated photo shows a pencil cactus, the common name for Euphorbia tirucalli, an easy-to-care-for and interesting-looking houseplant, in New Paltz, New York. LEE REICH Associated Press

Pencil cactus is a fitting common name for Euphorbia tirucalli, even though the plant would be useless for writing and is not really a cactus.

OK, so the headline starts right off with mentioning the sap as a downside, but not enough of a downside to stop one from buying it. Maybe! But it is one of the most poisonous of the Euphorbias commonly available for purchase, so maybe it shouldn’t be so easily dismissed as a concern.

Then the headline lets you know that the plant is good outside, and yet the photo accompanying the article was taken in New Paltz, NY, home of an original French Huguenot village, and the truth is it will die die die if left outside through a winter in New Paltz, NY, home of the SUNY New Paltz campus.

Finally, the AP writer writes a pun! Oh the humanity! Of course, its not really a pun, not at all funny, and has no place in such a serious article about a houseplant in New Paltz, NY, home of the Mohonk Mountain House. Nice!

I posted a picture of this Ceanothus last week, but this new picture is even better so you get a double dose.

Ceanothus “Joyce Coulter”

You’ll have to click back to see the plant information that goes with this. And then you can judge for yourself whether it was worth reblogging so soon after.

RoseAnn shares a wild looking cresting Euphorbia myrsinites.

From the Euphorbia Spurge (I guess that’s the name) that I bought there.  pretty cool..

RoseAnn

Pretty cool, indeed.

It’s a 4pack of Echeverias. Why? How? Where? I don’t know and I don’t want to know. It just happened this way and that’s all there is to it.

Lotus crassifolius v. otayensis

Native to California
Herbaceous perennial

Sun: Moderate to Full
Water: Low to Moderate
Size: 3 feet

Furry grey upright stems, clusters of purple and white pea-sized flowers in spring, grey-green oblong leaves.

Epidendrum ibaguense
Reed-Stemmed Orchid

Native to Colombia and Venezuela
Evergreen Perennial

Sun: Moderate to Full Sun
Water: Weekly
Size: 3 to 4ft. tall

Easy to grow, hardy orchid with profusions of Orange and yellow flowers along 6ft. tall stem. Requires regular fertilizer. Light soil mix. Hardy to 30F.

Sarracenia leucophylla “Tarnok”

Native to U.S. Gulf Coast
Perennial Carnivore
Sun: Moderate to Full Sun
Water: Bog
Size: 2 to 3 ft. tall

White hood with green and red veins is pointed and covers most of the opening. Grows in upright clumps. Large red flower sprays spring/summer.

Although it’s not the largest saguaro ever discovered, the colossal specimen along the Dutchman’s Trail in the Superstition Wilderness is a commanding presence. Balancing a massive, Medusa-like crown of spiny arms and isolated in a landscape where neighboring saguaros sport more modest profiles, this impressive plant grabs the spotlight.

But, it might not stand for much longer. An ominous gray scale on its north side and what appears to be a lightning strike in its core may spell its doom…

And then there’s the whole location and hike and map and description information so you too can go and see this mountainous cactus before its gone.

The hike begins at the Peralta Trailhead on Bluff Spring Trail…

Agave “Kichiokan Marginata”

How dwarf? 18″ dwarfed. Sweet! Those bright red marginal spines look like horns. Goat horns. But really those are 2 different leaves with their end spines pointing out and I took the picture at just such an angle to cause it to seem like these Agaves have Goat Horns.

From Tela-Botanica it’s labeled as Hoodia alstonii, which has amazing little yellow flowers. Unfortunately it’s in french so I don’t know what the description says.

C’est Linné qui, en 1754, a créé le genre Cactus dans son ouvrage fondamental Genera plantarum. Or ce genre Cactus n’existe pas dans la nomenclature actuelle. Et pourtant, il est le type de la famille des Cactacées. Son apparition progressive dans la littérature botanique est intéressante, et deux explications sont proposées quant à son origine.

I suppose I could run it through a translation software package and find out, but what fun would that be?

OK, I ran it through the translation software and it must be a mistake. This photo of a Hoodia and this description of the Cactus Family in french do not go together. What now?

Apparently renowned Skeptic Michael Shermer photographs lizrds on his off time, and this time that lizard was found to be eating a cactus. A cholla, even. A very spiny cholla. I hope it didn’t hurt it’s tongue.

Umm, a nice cactus pad for lunch for a Galapagos land iguana, so scrumptious… pic.twitter.com/dynRiqiecw

— Michael Shermer (@michaelshermer) January 17, 2014

These Crown of Thorn spurges come in quite a range of colors. This one is Yellow.

Euphorbia milii “Dwarf Yellow”

We have a lot of new vigorous growth right now since we have had a very mild winter. It’s sunny and warm most days. There’s been no cloudy rainy days at all. It’s like an early spring! And the plants are going nutso for the sunshine. Maybe they’ll be caught in mid growth if winter ever does come and then that would be a bad thing for the plants. They could get damaged.

And just for the fun of it, a Salmon colored one too!

(I like the yellow one better. Less showy.)

Enjoy a 4pack of Sempervivums to go with your Football today.

The Marlborough community is all atwitter as a summer showcase cactus comes into it’s second bloom. Your Marlborough Press-Express was there to capture the community excitement on display.

Joy O’Sullivan’s cactus has flowered for a second time this year.

That’s an Echinopsis there. And it is in full bloom, indeed. Also, I have just found my punk band’s name: Joy O’Sullivans Cactus. Don’t you steal that name from me! I plan on starting my punk band very soon here.

Also known in California as the Freeway Daisy.

Osteospermum “Soprano White”

South African Hybrid
Evergreen perennial

Sun: Full Sun Coastal, Light Shade Inland
Water: Semi-Dry
Size: 18-24″

Showy white lilac daisy blooms are attractive to butterflies. Great for cut flowers. Blooms spring through fall. Hardy to 20F.

Growing succulents in Florida can be a challenge because the counterpart to our dry season is the wet season, making it difficult to sustain the dry growing conditions that succulents require.

And yet they recommend planting:

The Thai crown of thorns blooms year round. Kalanchoe ‘fantastic’ has colorful, mottled leaves. The Fishhook Aloe. Senecio ‘Blue Chalk’ is aptly named. The ‘mother of thousands’ Kalanchoe has a upright, striking bloom. Euphorbia ‘Firesticks’.

That’s a lot of succulents to be mworried about the Florida humidity and wet season. So many potential problems! And yet, a lot of people seem to grow a lot of succulents in Florida, so maybe it’s OK after all.