Cactus Blog 

Aeonium hierrense We sometimes go to the Berkeley Botanical Garden to get some new ideas. Like this lovely Aeonium. I think we should grow it. Now all we need to do is find some starts of it.

Usually I will check the name out before publishing it, since botanical gardens often have older names. But today I will not. Today I await your corrections in the comments.

Today we seem to have a breakfasty like recipe, featuring suasages and eggs and cactus too.

This is the link to the recipe, but the site seems to be down right now, so maybe you can click it later and see if it’s back up and working.

Boy, this is some lazy blogging from your lazy cactus blogger.

Green Cathedral of South Africa went to Switzerland and wants to share this video slide show with you.

Anigozanthos “Big Red”

At least I’m guessing it’s “Big Red”, or at least one of the various large A. flavidus hybrids. Do you have a better guess?

Photo taken at the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley. That’s the proper name.

Obama is in the garden with a caruncled hybrid Echeveria.

I see that Maria Ly (@marialy) took some Echeveria bloom photos when she was at the store recently.

Nice!

Opuntia subulata, AKA Austrocylindropuntia subulata, in bloom.

I wonder if the fruit is delicious? I’ve never tasted it .

Hi Peter,

I came by the store at the end of June and showed you a few pictures of my blooming cactus I got from you last March. It was labelled a subdenudata but you thought it was an eyriesii since the flowers were pink. You asked for a few photos to be sent to you but I have been too busy and forgetful since then to send them to you, until now. So, please see the attached (I’m sending in two e-mails since I don’t know what the capacity of your e-mail account is).

 

Isolated flowers are still sprouting up and I think a new one is still coming. I think one sprouted what looks like a green fruit after blooming, also (it’s smooth with no needles).

Best regards,

Corey

Corey,

Wow! That’s a slightly different color than the flowers we’ve been getting, but I do think it’s E. eyriesii.

-Peter

Echeveria subsessilis has standard issue red-orange echeveria flowers. That’s how you know for sure it’s an Echeveria and not a Dudleya. However, the do form a long arcing stalk, unlike some other Echeverias that have branched bloom stalks.

A photo of the purplish plant after the break…

(more…)

Dear CJ,
I have a number of cactus and succulent varieties planted in the ground and they are doing much better than when they were in pots.

I am not too happy about the weeds among them.

After pulling all the weeds, should I cover the ground with medium sized redwood chips, clean rocks, or what? What I want is to have something easy enough to move aside to add more plants when needed and also something which will deter the weeds?

Thanks for your help.
David

David,
We recommend gravel or lava, some kind of rock mulch that is rough, not smooth, and will dry out quickly. Also, we can recommend Corn Gluten, either liquid or pellet, after you’ve pulled the weeds as a pre-emergent herbicide.
Peter

Jaxx gets comfortable, as only a whippet can.

Penstemon “Enor” is our latest of the Beardtongues. It has a particularly deep purple colored flower and particularly deep green colored leaves. It’s a very hardy and robust Penstemon that won’t look ratty through half the summer. Hardy down around 10F. Maybe down to 0?

They do need full sun and a fast draining soil, but you knew that. They will keep blooming starting around this part of summer and all the way into the late fall, at which point you can cut them back, but you should still have some nice green foliage through the winter.

For instance, did you know you can make up things and then go looking on the internets and find out that the thing you made up actually exists?

Like a Cactus Peeler.

Yes!

Cactus Peeler (Pelador de Nopales) 1 Unit

La Mexicana Cactus Peeler (Pelador de Nopales) makes it easier for you to peel cactus for your nopalitos! La Mexicana products are made with full analysis of designs and compatability to serve you with comfort in your cooking lifestyle.

I’m guessing you would use it for a recipe like this:

Nopalitos with Tomatoes and Onions Recipe

• 1 lb nopalitos, nopales prickly pear cactus paddles that have been stripped of spines, cleaned, and chopped
• Olive oil
• 2 large cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 red onion, roughly chopped
• 1 jalapeño pepper, stem and seeds removed, chopped
• 1 medium tomato, roughly chopped
• Salt and pepper

As per usual, click through the recipe link to see the instructions that go along with it.

You should try it. (Not the recipe, or the peeler, which you should also try, but I mean make something up and then search online for it and see what it gets you.)

Origanum laevigatum”Hopley’s Purple”

Dear Professional,

Hi, my Name is Nora. I have some really old cacti in the front yard of my house and would like to remove them or sell them. I am not educated about the plants, and during quick research of the plants I became lost in a pool of information on the diffferent types of plants, and removal process. I would like to to post them on craigslist to sell them, but I have no idea what to price them at. If they are not worth much I still would like give the plants to someone that appreciates the fact that they are 32 years old, and very large! They are pretty neat!

  

So I guess my question is, do you have any idea what these plants could be fairly priced at? Do you know anyone that may be interesed in these? Should I just have the gardener cut them down?

Sincerely,
Clueless Cacti Owner

Nora-
You have some very nice cacti!

The large single column is an Echinopsis terscheckii and could be worth a lot, from $500 to $1500 fully rooted in a pot at retail, depending on size and condition, but will be very difficult for someone to dig up and remove without damaging it. It should weigh more than 300 pounds.

The tall multi-branched is a San Pedro, Echinopsis pachanoi and this one would have to be taken in pieces – you wouldn’t be able to get it out of the ground in one plant. The cuttings are a couple dollars per foot, but beware that these are often sold to be ingested as a hallucinogen, so you may want to be careful about posting these on Craigslist.

The short multi-branched is an Oreocereus celsianus and if it can be dug up in one piece and rooted in a pot can be worth $300-$750 at retail, depending on size and condition. But it looks like that would be difficult for it, and it is not worth anything as cuttings.

I hope that is helpful to you.
Peter

We carry an Obama Toy so that you may find interesting plants to place the toy up against, thus playing with the scale. Terrariums work great. Here we see the process in action as we place an Obama Toy in the greenhouse and we see that the Obama Toy works particularly well up against a member of the dogbane family, Apocynaceae.

Pachypodium bicolor is a very expensive plant. Good job, Obama Toy!

Now that’s a nice Lotus.

Also known as Rush Milkweed, or Ajamente.

Asclepias subulata

Native throughout the Sonoran Desert of California, Nevada, Arizona and well into Mexico too. Fairly cold hardy, they will grow 3 to 5 ft. tall.

The flowers are spectacular, the leaves are tiny, and generally they look like bare stems. Hence, we’ve had these plants for a year and nobody has bought them up. Will you take a chance on one?

I see the butterfly has come out of it’s chrysalis, thus completing it’s pupa stage and entering the imago stage – i.e. – it’s a BUTTERFLY!

We found this little guy in its larval stage (i.e. it was a caterpillar) on the Asclepias, the butterfly milkweeds. So you knew it was right at home. Then Rikki jarred it up and… Pupae!

It took awhile, but finally the butterfly emerged during the day, and left the next morning (yesterday).

I wonder if other fancy chocolatiers make prickly pear flavored truffles too, or if it’s just Meeteetse Chocolatier, from Meeteetse, Wyoming.

You can’t tell from the picture, but the description says,

Prickly Pear Cactus Truffle
Prickly Pear Cactus Fruit blended with a dark chocolate ganache and enrobed in a Belgian dark chocolate shell. Sweet cactus fruit with a mild melon-fig taste.

I see today that President Obama is hanging out in the garden in front of a San Pedro bloom. I’m guessing he’s not inhaling.

It’s an Agave in bloom. And you know what that means – lots of local news coverage follows!

Proctor Ave, Oakland.

It’s the continuation of our Obama in the Garden series from this past spring. What happened was that we sold out of all of our Obama figures, so that was that.

Until today!

Yes, that means that we have Obama figures back in stock. And for those of you who were wondering – No! They do not have any Romney figures available and you know we’re in Berkeley right? Liberal Berkeley? Oh yeah, now it makes sense.

When Amica came to visit, and there were more whippets hanging around than you care to imagine. (Although if you come by the store you can say hi to all of them. At once!)

At home

At work

Parodia erinacea

This came to us as a mystery cactus, and then it bloomed, so it was easy enough to see it was a Parodia. But our books list all kinds of Parodias as other names, like this one which was listed as a Notocactus, so I had to know in advance that there was a high likelihood that the Parodia was listed as a Notocactus – and there it was! Then I took out my trusty copy of Anderson and looked up the old Notocactus name and found it was an archaic synonym for the correct name.

So what does our trusty Anderson have to say about this lovely plant with a cephalium? It’s one of those plants that is often partly submerged when found in nature – you can tell because it has that flattened globose form. The fruit, if this is successfully pollinated (we do have 2 in bloom right now!) will be pink. The seeds are bell shaped. And the distribution is Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. Thanks, Anderson!

And it’s only £14.00! And don’t forget that…

Price includes VAT.

Excellent.

Hello,
We’re hoping you can tell us a bit more about this type of cactus, so that we can enjoy it in its full glory. I’ve searched online for care guidance, with no luck.

We purchased a beautiful Echinocereus grandiflora (lemon yellow) from the Cactus Jungle this past weekend. It had three fantastic yellow blooms when we brought it home. We placed it (in its pot) in our sunny yard and gave it a bit of water. After a few days, the blooms closed up and have a brownish appearance. Is this normal? We haven’t planted it just yet, but it is worth noting that we’re in a very sunny and windy location. Hope that’s okay for this beauty!

Thanks in advance for your help.
Vanessa

Vanessa,
Cactus flowers tend to last only 2 to 4 days since they’re from the desert where they lose a lot of moisture very quickly. That’s also why they’re so big and beautiful – to attract the bees to pollinate them very quickly. So there’s nothing wrong with the flowers having finished. A sunny location is perfect for them, and they can handle lots of wind, too. As these grandifloras grow, they will have dozens or more flowers throughout the spring and summer. I recommend adding a bloom food in to the mix in February to get even more blooms after that.

Here’s one in bloom that’s been in the ground a few years (with different colored flowers).

Peter