No, I don’t understand why someone put a cactus costume on their adorable pet pygmy hedgehog.

I don’t understand!!

Even more amazing is the whole thing is at a site for DIY and they give instructions on how to make your own cactus costume for your pet pygmy hedgehog. Awesome is not the right word I’m looking for, but it will have to do for now.

Just so you know, these cute little animals are illegal in California. I know this because I had one back before I lived in California and I was sad to learn I couldn’t have another pet pygmy hedgehog after we moved here. They are the cutest pet in the whole wide world ever, but nocturnal so not the greatest pet ever. Plus they eat mealworms which was OK since we also had geckos at the time.

I know what you’re thinking – you never know what you will find on the Cactus Blog! Woohoo!

Airplants have become very popular these days. We see this at the store every day. But you know how you know when something has become really popular?

This is how: a glow in the dark giraffe accessory for your Tillandsias, now available on Etsy:

The Arizona Republic features DIY home renovations.

The cactus wall-hanging is made of leftover wood-flooring slats that Michelle attached. She covered the whole piece in contact paper. Then she projected the cactus image onto the piece, drew around the image with a pencil and used an X-Acto knife to cut around the design. She peeled off the background and painted it white, then peeled off the cactus design. She figures she spent less than $10 on the piece. Michael McNamara / The Republic

Seems easy enough. If you have a nice branching cholla that you can put a strong light behind to get a shadow on a piece of paper.

Can you get a cactus through security and take it home on an airplane? My Ngoc To did, as she wrote in the Harvard Crimson recently.

I have a pet cactus, and his name is Earl….

I was a bit nervous going to the airport. I was really afraid that they wouldn’t let him through because I know they usually don’t allow pets or plants on any international flight. But I figured—this is a domestic flight, and Earl wouldn’t hurt anybody … his spines are fuzzy. But just in case something happened, I asked my parents to stand outside of the security line so that I could give them Earl if he couldn’t pass. They waited.

I walked up to the start of the security line and handed my ID to the man at the counter. He saw Earl in my hand, looked at me, and said, “You’d better not eat that thing—I hear they’re poisonous.” He smiled and let me through.

The real panic came at the security line. I didn’t think I could carry Earl in my hands through the scan. I couldn’t put him on the conveyer belt either because a million monstrosities could happen to him—he could get knocked off, he could get confiscated, he could get tipped over or caught in one of the grooves and lose all his soil. Luckily, I realized that I could nestle him inside one of the trays.

I went through the scan and looked back in anticipation at the man overlooking the scans. A few beats passed, and I knew that Earl was safe when the man turned back, gave me a weird look and shook his head. He was trying hard not to smile.

Click through for the picture of the happy cactus. And now you know how to get a cactus through airport security.

Do you have a traveling-with-cactus-story to share?

Apparently gardeners in Ohio are lazy because the Plain Dealer recommends you replace all your difficult to grow plants with the easy to grow Sansevieria.

One reason for the drop in popularity of house plants is that so many varieties were just too difficult or demanding to grow….

Probably the easiest house plant to grow is the… extremely hardy houseplant is sansevieria….

Low light, low water – easy is right.

Size-wise there are two types, low-growing Bird’s Nest (Sansevieria trifasciata) that is perfect for a desk or table, or the old-fashioned taller varieties that look spectacular in an 8-inch or larger pot….

The taller types are definitely old-fashioned, but the bird’s nest types can actually be very modern and quite appropriate even for your well-designed home.

A study by NASA found that it is one of the best plants for improving indoor air quality by passively absorbing toxins such as nitrogen oxides and formaldehyde.

NASA got in the act studying sansevierias too? Nice!

Michele posted this on the Cactus Jungle Facebook Page.

Amazing!

It’s hoses and cable ties to form a basket that looks like a cactus. Here are the instructions on how to make one yourself from the artist.

Ellen from Ledyard near Gales Ferry, Connecticut has an activity you can do with your small children, as long as you have paper and spaghetti.

Cactus

Picture 1 – Supplies

Green paper, glue, scissors, about 20 or 30 spaghetti noodles and something to use as a pattern (I used a wooden spoon)

….

Picture 6 – Finished

These make great 3-D table decorations for a party and they are also a great take-home item for the party too. Have the kids sit at a table and have the cactus cut out ahead of time. That way they only have to take one side of the flat paper and paint with glue. Have them add spaghetti and they have a wall hanging to bring home or add a magnet to the back for the fridge.

You’ll have to click through for the rest of the photos, not to mention instructions numbers 2 through 5. Nice! But I don’t recommend trying this with more than 1 kid at a time as suggested by the author. Getting a bunch of kids together can only mean HAVOC! Spaghetti noodles everywhere! Strips of cut up cactus papers on the floor, glue on the chairs, magnets stuck to the underside of the couch.  And imagine the horror if there were a dog in the room too. Too much!!!

Sunset Magazine shows you how to buy a raised garden bed kit, and how to assemble the easy-to-assemble pieces that are all precut and ready to assemble.

Wow! That was easy!

We’ve seen succulent centerpieces, painted succulent corsages and succulent bouquets. Now get ready for succulent boutonnieres. No! From Aol’s DIY site.

For a boutonniere that has a distinctly modern feel, why not try sculptural succulents? Even better, Ellen Frost of Baltimore’s Local Color Flowers designed it for those who are a little intimidated about the whole idea of going the DIY route on boutonnieres. Here’s her easy tutorial.

And it turns out we’ve seen Succulent Boutonnieres before too. All tied up!

I don’t know how to embed this video since the text around it is all in Japanese, so you’ll just have to click through to see someone who’s known as the Cactus Man in Japan watering a lot of Tillandsias.

Consider it a how-to video.

In a pillow? Yes!

The Christian Science Monitor has the skinny on Succulent Pillows with step by step instructions and step by step photos.

Here’s the result.

I recommend a more decorative pillow. Solid colors make me nauseous.

Mr. Bee from the Carroll Eagle tells you how to graft cactus. He started with an irradiated Gymnocalycium that needed to be regrafted. But first, a little history,

The ancient Chinese grafted plants as far back as 3,000 years ago. Then 2,300 years ago, the ancient Greeks mastered it.

That’s fascinating. Since there were no cactus in China or Greece back then, we can safely assume this bit of history is off topic.

To begin, I used a knife to slice through the base of the red part to cleanly separate it from the green part.

Next, I removed the uppermost portion from a second cactus that was getting too tall, until all that remained was a 1-inch-tall stub still rooted to its pot.

Finally, I grafted the detached red part to the rooted stub of the green part, using a pair of rubber bands to hold the two parts together. Within a few months, the red and green parts will bond.

Sounds good. Any more tips? Like when you use the word “graft” in the instructions on how to “graft” you may leave people unsure what to do.

The secret to a successful cactus graft is to closely align the diameters of the cut parts being grafted, because a close match facilitates the free flow of vital fluids between the two parts.

Now you know.

Want to know more? Here are pictures and complete cactus grafting instructions from the UCC Biology Department. UCC is the Union County College of Cranford, NJ, also serving PA and DE. I think you’ll have to go to the History Department for the Chinese and Greek history part of the lesson.

We had some freezing weather this year, just like they had in Austin according to the Austin Statesman. Damaged succulents are a common sight.

Many aloes and agaves were severely damaged by our hard freezes this winter. Freeze-damaged succulents usually turn a lighter color, almost white, soon after the freeze. Later, the damaged part of the plant will wilt, then turn black with rot. In some succulents, the affected parts eventually fall off.

If the center bud remains green and firm, the plant will likely grow and recover, despite dead leaves. However, dead and damaged parts never will recover, and you can remove them. You should also look for new growth underneath the dead leaves and down in the base of the plant. These pups often can survive under the cover of the dead leaves.

I would add that you should wait for the last storms in the Bay Area to pass through (i.e. wait 2 more weeks) before removing half-damaged leaves and branches. If the leaves are just spotted with hail damage, leave them on the plant until new leaves have replaced them.

On the other hand, if you live in Minnesota and you left your Aloe outside, it’s dead.

Capping off a very lazy day, filled with how-to links so you have to go elsewhere just to enjoy my blog today, I come to you with an entire how-to on planting succulents in toolboxes. No, really, that’s what it is all about if you click the link. Don’t forget to come back though.

In my lazy state today, I pass along this long story of a man who decided not to shave his cactus.

Have a quote:

I considered, since there was already shaving cream on the cactus, if I might just shave it. Why don’t cactuses shave?

I think that gives a good flavor of the rest of the long blog post on shaving a cactus.

She lives in LA and this is what she does in her spare time.

I boiled the cactus in salted water for ten minutes. It kind of looks like green beans, but its slippery like okra.

I sauteed the cactus with the onion and bell pepper in some Pam and a healthy squeeze of lime. I added 3 scrambled egg whites with one whole egg. Quick and easy!

Add some pretty pictures of an omelet in the making, and voila! Blog post heaven!

I think I’m feeling lazy today, so let’s stipulate that I’m only going to reblog news items today.

What does it mean that a particular succulent is poisonous? Let’s talk about Euphorbias…

Do you know what is used in leather polishes and for waterproofing certain products, mixed with rubber it is used for insulation, used in sealing wax, metal lacquers, paint removers and lithographic colors?

It is the milky sap from a Euphorbia. … (O)ne drop of latex material on your skin from one of these plants can cause a rash, the severity of which depends on how an individual reacts to it…

I know several people who have had problems with Euphorbias… All have described the horrible pain in their eyes from brushing with a gloved hand or wiping their face with a shirtsleeve that was coated with sap.

So, poisonous as in painful, but not deadly. Not that I would ingest it, mind you. Euphorbia sap, especially from the common houseplant Euphorbia tirucalli, is a common enough irritant that there’s a known antidote – the tiny leaves of the miniature Aeonium lindleyi. Yes! If you have a lot of Euphorbias around the house, and especially if you have kids too who like to touch your plants, then I recommend have a nice little Aeonium lindleyi around the house. All the Euphorbia growers do.

We also recommend some of the shrubbier Euphorbias as deer-resistant and we like the Euphorbia myrsinites as a gopher-resistant plant and then any of the Euphorbias makes a good cat deterrent too, if you don’t mind them crying a little. It’s bad enough they’ll learn to stay away, but not so bad as to cause permanent damage. Generally.

It’s a Lion!

That’s a Cryptanthus “Black Mystic” and a Crassula “Tom Thumb”. The layering is charcoal, cactus soil and black gravel on top.

Here’s another fancy pants terrarium with a toy gorilla. This one is an airplant terrarium, with 2 types of tillandsias, a stick, some moss, and a gorilla holding on for dear life. All in a glass carafe. How big is the gorilla? about 1 1/4″.

The latest in gorilla-themed terrariums, utilizing Ian’s latest tiny toy find.

Succulents Terrariums How-To.

…..

2. Water the terrarium every two weeks.

3. The water should freely drain to the bottom. After watering, there should not be more than an inch of water visible in the gravel at the bottom.

Read more at Marthastewart.com: Succulents Terrariums – Martha Stewart Television