Cactus Blog 

It’s a lamp, it’s a terrarium, it’s a succulent planter.

And it’s only a thousand dollars from Anthropologie; hence the title of this post.

You’d think for that price it would come with the plants, or at least some tillandsias.

Dani sends along the latest photo of Amica and Jaxx in Santa Cruz. They’re napping.

Apparently cactus in teacups are a theme. Here are a whole bunch more for you to review and enjoy.

Teacup Cacti

Apartment Therapy features cactus in clay pots sitting inside weird teacups.

Bobo Bun’s teacups have cactus on the teacup, not in it. It’s Vintage!

There’s a band called Cactus in a Teacup. So now you know. They’re screamers.

Mesembs in a Teacup in Carlsbad.

Opuntia “Maverick” not getting enough light in a Teacup.

Shall I go on? I shall! (more…)

Lillian has a lovely photo of some lovely cactus in some very ornamentally advantageous teacups.

Click over to flickr to see for yourself.

From Rachel

I always love cat-on-a-cactus videos. LOLCats should have a section just for these remarkably entertaining videos of cats on cactus. Now this is an especially valuable cat-on-a-cactus video since it’s a rare black cat.

Horticulture Week Magazine has featured Aeonium “Atropurpureum”. I suppose that makes it their Plant of the Week.

Whenever I talk to gardening groups or friends people never fail to mention how much they admire the ornamental value of Aeoniums. They belong to the family Crassulaceae, the genus contains about thirty species. These plants are a succulent with woody stems from the Canary Islands, Madeira, and North Africa.

Over the last three years I have really enjoyed propagating these plants from stem cuttings. I have tried propagating from leaf cuttings by nipping off the succulent leaves and simply inserting them into a John Innes number 1 compost, waiting for the leaves to take root. My brief trial at this stage has not yet been successful , but I will return to that method trying various techniques, temperatures, and growing mediums. It would be interesting to hear from anyone who has had success using this method.

I can assure you that we never grow these from leaf cuttings. It’s never worked for us even when a leaf has some aerial roots started. Stem-cuttings rule.

Here’s a sad picture of the Aeonium parent plant in question from Hort Week.

It’s a beautiful plant, just a sad picture.

The mini Phalaenopsises are getting smaller every year. Tiny pots. But lots of blooms.

My day has just been one busy thing or other after another. Especially today, always today. I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t outsource all my blogging today. Tomorrow is another story.

Here’s Candy Sweetstuff’s recent trip to the Huntington. A lot of pictures got blogged. I especially like the Abromeltiella. So big!

If you’ve ever wanted to grow Lithops from seed then you really should be following along as Lithops Stories grows Lithops from seeds.

Here’s an update, and the Lithops seedlings are looking awesome.

I find the links, you click the links. See how it works?

Plantgasm has been planting succulents into pirate heads.

Here’s a photo I borrowed of the pouring of the soil into the pirate heads. Click through for the rest of the photos, including the finished Succulent Pirate Heads.

I must be doing something very important today that I feel the need to outsource my blogging all day.

Here, have another link. Water When Dry has a beautiful branched Aloe ramosissima just recently planted.

I’m outsourcing my blogging today.

Here’s a link for you to go visit. Andrew would like help identifying a potential Aloe purchase, although the consensus is it’s an A. “Carmine”.

Back in the summer the Echinocereus did bloom.

“Neither reasonable, nor fair, nor adequate, nor in the public interest.” Federal court judge Jed Rakoff on a proposed Citibank settlement.

Judges can make things really clear!

The sun is out. The gnomes are out.

Late afternoon sun in the winter is different than the sun any other time of the year. Look, see what I mean?

Faucaria felina

Deeper shadows, darker colors, yellower hues, with bright edges as the sun spews across the tips of the plant.

Thanksgiving morning.

The blooms are almost open.

I predict the first hummingbirds will find open blooms by next Tuesday.

Comedy gold!

“What is this ‘mac and cheese’?”

If you have to deep fry the turkey tomorrow, please do it at least 25 feet from a flammable structure.

Words to the wise, indeed.

They should be in full bloom just in time this year.

I wonder what color the flower will be?

These took Hap a lot of work to get those damn tiny plants inside those narrow-throated glass vessels.

Good job, Hap!