Cactus Blog 

Here’s a cactus cookie recipe.

Ingredients
3-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/3 cups (2-2/3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1-1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Green Butter Cream Icing
Royal icing flowers (about 1 per cookie)

What makes it a cactus cookie? Read the directions!

….Cut out the cactus shapes with a cutter…

I suppose that would make them cactus cookies. But wait, there’s more!

…To decorate frost the cookies with the darker green icing….

Now you know it’s a cactus cookie – dark green frosting.

And here’s a cactus cookie jar.

It’s vintage, and 13″ tall and there’s a little chip on the flower.

Liza at Good to Grow has had some cactus problems recently and asked us for some help. Hopefully everything will be fine with her cactus cuts going forward.

Lots of weddings are featuring succulent centerpieces these days, some have succulent bouquets, and there are even plenty of succulent wedding favors too.

Trust me, we know all about it. We do succulent wedding centerpieces and bouquets all the time now.

But succulents in your teacup? Won’t there still be soil in the bottom of the cup when you remove the succulent to have your cup of after dinner coffee?

This week is clean up week at our succulent production facility (the empty lot where we grow succulents) and the crew has lined up flats of succulents on nice clean tables so it all looks pretty. Hap took a picture of some of the succulents to prove it.

I see crassulas and echeverias and pachyphytums and dudleyas and sempervivums – all succulents in the crassulaceae family. What, no euphorbias?

A place to hang your hat? Do cowboys still hang their hats on a cactus?

The detail is remarkable! In fact if you look closely enough you can see an entire map of the Mojave desert on the underside of the shelf. Actually, what I meant was that the cactus without roots kind of look like pickles. You could easily imagine these are pickle cowboys of the old west during pickle arm-wrestling season.

I imagine the pickles need the guns while they’re arm-wrestling because there’s always the threat that one pickle might try to cheat the other pickle, and then a gun battle ensues.

Maybe I should consider them to be cactuses again and then we can discuss why do the cactus need guns anyway since they have natural spiny defenses. Just sayin’.

I think something got lost in the translation, or a mistake was made, or something, because this quote from Hap in Today’s Garden Center Magazine doesn’t make any sense at all.

28 Quick Ideas To Steal

….

8. Use Local Plants
Live evergreens are great products for Christmas but don’t always hold up well in warmer areas. Cactus Jungle Nursery & Garden’s Hap Hollibaugh recommends using local plants, such as magnolia, for wreaths in the South.

Now it’s possible Hap said something about local plants but why would he have mentioned magnolias for the south? We don’t live in the south.

I suppose I could ask Hap what he said, but then again he’s not here right now and he’ll probably see this later and comment on it, so come back and check out what he really said. Or meant. Or didn’t say.

They look dangerous enough to scare the kids away.

Actually, that’s not true at all. At the store the kids want to touch all the cactus all the time. So maybe you shouldn’t put a cactus around your outlets or your kids will be inexorably drawn to the power outlets and get a bit of a shock.

First Aloe ferox buds of the year. Blooms should be a couple months away still. Maybe sooner. We could check the blog archives for last years blooms.

The 12th annual show and sale of the Bakersfield Cactus and Succulent Society was held Saturday and Sunday at the Golden State Mall (the former location of Montgomery Ward), 3201 F St. It opened to the public at 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The show included 48 different divisions, covering every conceivable variety of dry-climate plant, from epiphytic air plants (Tillandsia) to dish gardens of miniature succulents and even photography.

Missed it again! Maybe if I clear out all these old notices of past shows I can get in front of them and let you know the next one before it happens. Maybe.

I wonder who won the dish garden prize?

The Cactus and Succulent Society of Southern Nevada is sponsoring the Fall Cactus Show and Sale and Art Fair featuring thousands of exotic and interesting cactuses, succulent plants and art. It is from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Oct. 16 at Moon-Sun Cactus and Koi Gardens, 6430 McGill Avenue. Admission is free.

You can buy hard-to-find specimens and plants at a substantial discount.

Missed it by one day! I really should be more on top of these shows and sales around the country.

Nopales are a healthy green vegetable with lots of good healthy stuff in them. Sounds like the perfect time for the supplements companies to move in.

Commonly known as the prickly pear cactus, multi-level marketers are packaging up and selling the antioxidant-rich Nopalea on line as a panacea for everything from reducing free radicals to anti-aging, anti-inflammation and weight loss.

“Nobody is disputing that Nopalea isn’t a very good source for antioxidants, but so are many other food that people can enjoy any time without having to shell out big bucks for slickly marketed packaging,” says Healthhound.org, a leading on line consumer health destination. “Our concern is that some multi-level marketers are claiming that these natural ingredients are not only in extremely short supply, but found almost exclusively in Nopalea.

According to healthhound.org, this is simply not the case. “The fact is that the same type of antioxidants are found in spinach, rhubarb, swiss chard, red and yellow beets and a host of other fruits and vegetables.”

To be clear you should add nopales to your diet. Good fresh green nopales. Cook them up!

We saw this same thing with the appetite suppressing powers of Hoodia a few years ago. A normal succulent that has been consumed for millennia in a healthy way is reduced to an ineffective powder and sold as a cure-all. Oy.

Anigozanthos “Bush Ranger”

Vintage salt and pepper shakers in the shapes of various and sundry cactus?

Awesome! A bargain at any price.

I like the ones with the red and yellow flowers.

Head out to Sand Prairie Conservation Area and there’s sand there, and cactus too.

The sand creates an environment where rainwater drains quickly, leaving everything high and dry. It’s a quality habitat for prickly-pear cactus.

I’ve seen cactus at isolated locations in Missouri and Illinois, but Sand Prairie is covered by an impressive number of colonies in a variety of shapes and sizes. Look for them in the grassy area north of the parking lot, but watch your step!

Indeed.

Bad news on the adorable owl environmental front.

The ferruginous cactus pygmy-owl is relatively rare in the United States, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ruled this week that the 6- to 7-inch birds are not endangered. Photo by Tom Gatz, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

I present this without comment.

Except for this one comment. This is the most ironically composed combination of pewter and jade-like blob featuring a cactus that has ever been featured on Cactus Blog. I’m so proud!

A new Spanish language book about Chilean cacti with gorgeous photos was posted on our facebook page.

Nice cover! Looks like we need to organize a trip to Chile. Who wants to go?

Cactus del Extremo Norte de Chile

Succulents are the latest in green technologies. You can find them at all the best green expos around town.

Save Energy, Water and Money
Pros and volunteers come together to educate the public at the weekend event.

Jasper Kahn Cooke, 3, and his dad, Brian Cooke, examine a succulent plant at the SmartScape Expo in Laguna Beach. Brian Cooke said, “Jasper’s been watching ‘Curious George Goes Green.’ The show talks about composting so I thought it would be cool to bring Jasper here to check it out. We got some free compost and we painted a pot over there.” Credit: Kathy Ochiai

They do seem particularly impressed with the Echeveria subrigidas.

It’s a 14″ tall plush cactus doll. Very nice!

Final Fantasy: Cactaur

I don’t know what this has to do with Final Fantasy, but it is probably the nicest 14″ plush cactus doll I’ve ever seen. Do they have plush cactus dolls in Final Fantasy?

It’s complicated, I know, but sometimes you find South African succulents in the gardens of South Africa, like these Aloes and Euphorbia trees.

Waterwise: A colourful spring border of African daisies, aloes and stately euphorbias at the entrance to Gariep Plants, a specialist succulent nursery in Pretoria. Picture: Michael Marais

And no, this is not an Ironic Post. That last sentence may have had an ironic sentence structure, what with the capitalizing of the word ironic, but the rest of the post is not ironic in the least; except maybe this run-on sentence which may be ironic in the least.

We missed the class on Succulent wreaths and other Topiaries in Sequim, Clallam County, but there is the photo of a succulent snail to tide us over until next year’s class.

Sempervivums and snails are mortal enemies, so it is ironic to see them living together so happily here. IRONIC!!!!!

By the way, I don’t know where Sequim is, although I will guess Washington. To the Google!

….And it’s in WA.

Sequim, WA
The Valley of the Dungeness lies at the northern end of the Olympic Peninsula, in the extreme northwest corner of the United States. It spreads in an alluvial fan from the Dungeness River gorge to the scalloped beaches of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Old Dungeness Community Looking Across the Strait of Juna DeFuca to Vancouver Island Canada

Wow!

Sara’s Stapelias were about to bloom last week, when we helped her identify the plants, and this week the flowers opened.

Yay! Just don’t get too close.

Just Hanging Around, near the Begonias.

Pale coloring – maybe we can identify the species now.

Beetle’s eye view

And the verdict is… Stapelia gigantea! I see from our records that Chris wins the grand prize and Sally gets squat.

It’s not good news.

Hello,

I just spoke with someone about my very unhappy cheiridopsis plant, and she gave great suggestions for getting rid of these mites that are crawling all over it, but suggested sending pictures so you could see if something else needs to be done.

I love this plant so much that I brought it with me to New York when I moved out here, and it seemed to be adapting at least as well as its keeper to the new neighborhood until about a week ago, when I replanted it in a bigger pot. The mite problem had already started, but I didn’t realize it at the time (thought a spider had made a web there). I just used regular potting soil, which is darker and moister than the local Berkeley soil that I used last time I repotted, and also made the mistake of watering it the next day (it was looking unhappy, and since it has been unusually hot here, I thought that was the problem). All of the rotted branches you see in the picture are recent, as in the last few days, so I am really worried that the plant is dying quickly. I will see if I can get some neem oil here, per your suggestion. Should I also repot in cactus soil? Should I cut off the rotted roots? Any other suggestions are appreciated!

Best,
Kelly

Kelly,

I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you but I don’t think your plant survived the transition. You can try repotting into a faster draining cactus soil and spraying for the spider mites, but it looks to me like it’s probably too late.

Sorry,

Peter

I see that Faith took our Cactus Google Challenge and had a remarkable success!

It’s Cactus Toilet Paper.

And this is what she found on the Google.

With a little bit more digging, I also found this cactus toilet paper myself:

Not quite as threatening, but still a very successful foray into the wilds of the Google today.

The Proteas are getting ready to bloom. Nice big cones. It could still be more than a month though before they open.

Protea “Late Mink”

Samuel took photos in Crockett and sent them to Priscilla who forwarded them to us.

It’s Hesperaloe parviflora, and not really a yucca. While closely related to the yuccas, Samuel also took a picture of a variegated Yucca elephantipes in bloom, and it’s a mite bit different.

Personally I like this one better. But then it’s also more common around these parts, so maybe my taste is less refined than Samuel’s.

This is quite impressive, and all in a package about 6″ across.

I suppose it’s an Echinocactus of a sort, and the hat is a cowboy hat of some type. Amazing how naturally that cactus wears that hat.

If you click through, do make sure to check out the other birdhouse option there, the cow birdhouse option there. It makes me wish we were a cow store instead of a cactus store so that we could have a cow blog just so that I could post a picture of the cow birdhouse. But no. I will be satisfied with my wonderful opportunity to post a picture of a cactus birdhouse instead. But still…