Cactus Blog 

Finally, Candace shows you how to drill all kinds of ceramics.

Could you tell me what kind of cactus this is we are clueless and would love an answer.

Thank you for your time. Love your BLOG!
rooboy

It’s a Cereus, possibly a Cereus hildmannianus or one of its sub-varieties. It could also be a seed grown Cereus peruviana that has grown elongated from low light and will shift from juvenile growth to adult eventually.
Peter

Hello! Im having some difficulty with one of my euphorbias and my friend, Akos Kokai, suggested that I email you. My devil’s backbone has been growing this layer of powdery white dust for some time now. At first, it was very little and I thought it might be natural to the plant. But now it’s proliferating and killing off the leaves. Do you know what it might be? I’ve isolated the plant and have tried neem oil and alcohol treatments, but it keeps growing back.

Thank you!
Diana

Diana,
It’s powdery mildew, a fungus. It’s pretty easy to cure, and we have some organic fungus treatments that work well, but these plants are definitely prone to it. We can recommend either of two products we carry: Safergro Mildew Cure or EcoSmart Garden Fungicide.

I recommend using one of these at the first sign of trouble. The Pedilanthus will do better with better air circulation and probably less water.
Peter

The San Pedros are some of the last cacti to bloom every year at the nursery. The show has just begun!

Echinopsis pachanoi

And then there were bees.

The bee has landed.

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Turbinicarpus pseudopectinatus

These are generally solitary, from Mexico, and this one specimen from the UC Berkeley Botanic Garden’s Arid Collection is about the tallest you will ever see them, at about 2″ tall.

An Epiphyllum, recently from a cutting, blooms in Iowa, according to Plants are the Strangest People.

Lots of blooming photos from all angles!

Dionaea muscipula has caught a big juicy fly.

Lotus maculatus ‘Amazon Sunset’

Last year’s Lotus, Lotus “Gold Flash”, started blooming by July but this year’s Lotus has taken until late August to get started with the blooming and such.

It’s a very similar flower to the other, but more red. Everybody loves it when a flower is more red.

The UC Botanical Garden has a lot of Pitcher Plants in their collection. Here we see an entire display of just Sarracenias.

Nice!

Today we see one of the flying carnivorous dinosaurs has landed on a Senecio anteuphorbium, so you know it has good taste, perching on this succulent while searching for small prey below.

Urginea maritima in very full bloom. You can see there are lots and lots of reasons for the bees to get excited.

I wonder what the bulb below really looks like? It’s hard to get the bulb and the blooms in the same photo.

Bulb photo.

Gee, how tall is that bloom stalk?

Really tall. So tall that I have to stand pretty far back to get both the bulb and the blooms in the photo.

And if you were wondering what the Botanical Games are, join me after the break… (more…)

John F. sends along a nighttime photo of his night blooming Cereus in full bloom.

Nice!

Nice Dudleya, too.

Euphorbia geroldii has quite the large red bracts surrounding the cyathia.

Don’t you just love it when I use botanical words? Here’s some more info on the Cyathium of Euphorbias. Enjoy.

I seem to have a thing for toys at the store. We seem to have more toys at the store every day. Dinosaurs seem to be a good fit for the store since you can put them in your pots around the garden and they’re cute! Even though the dinosaurs we have at the store are all carnivorous dinosaurs. I wonder if the carnivorous plants would do well with a carnivorous dinosaur in the pot?

Nah.

This Boophone haemanthoides is at the UC Berkeley Botanic Garden, and is bloomed out at this time.

Boophone haemanthoides is found mainly in the west coastal areas of the Western Cape of South Africa, but extends to the Bokkeveld Plateau. These are areas with winter rainfall. It grows in sand or dolerite outcrops on coastal flats or upland slopes. Summers are hot and dry. The bulbs are really large and produce flowers in midsummer with leaves in autumn. This species has varied colors in the flowers, mostly pink to a creamy white.

San Francisco Edition

It’s one of the pink flowering Easter Lily Cactus, and I think it’s Echinopsis eyresii, and that’s what we have it labeled, but then I wonder. What if it’s really E. oxygona? What if I’ve made a HUGE mistake?

As it is, it has those long tubular flowers, and in this particular case it’s hanging off the side of the pot rather than the more standard straight up.

According to space.com,

Mars looks remarkably like the California desert in a new photo beamed home by NASA’s Curiosity rover, researchers said today (Aug. 8).

In the new black-and-white image, Curiosity’s Gale Crater landing site bears a striking resemblance to the desert landscape a hundred miles or so east of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., where the rover was built, scientists said.

“To a certain extent, the first impression that you get is how Earthlike this seems, looking at that landscape,” Curiosity chief scientist John Grotzinger, of Caltech in Pasadena, told reporters.

Indeed. If you zoom in on the photo a little closer…

What is that? Is that a ….

It is! It is a….

Cactus on Mars!

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Mike from Alaska, while travelling along the California Coast, sends along a picture for you to enjoy.

A weird angle, but I think you get the drift, cough cough, so to speak.

Chabot Rd.

Romneya coulteri in the dusk.

These orange blooms are clearly from an aloe. A spotted aloe at that! Which one? Follow me after the break…. (more…)

It’s our latest Safari toys – Carnivorous Dinsoaurs, and you know we’ll be putting them around in the garden, so watch your fingers and toes.

Chabot Rd., Oakland

Cereus peruvianus as a large cactus street tree.

Here’s an unnamed Ferocactus with a late summer bloom. Nice!