Those Brits and their famous phallic fascinations. The site is from London, but the cacti are all New World.

Here’s one that I’ve borrowed, but you’ll have to click through to the Environmental Graffiti site to see the rest of their top ten.

Image: Alex T.

A successful Euphorbia repot last night in a San Francisco condo. Wine was involved.

It’s a cactus! cheeseboard from Alessi.

I don’t know what makes it a cactus themed cheeseboard, but I trust Alessi on this one.

Momix.

Ah, yes, now I see.

It turns out that you have to keep your chickens away from your succulents. Good thing we found this out before Hap got chicks.

Bottom line:
You can have a maximum of four birds in San Francisco… Birds on roofs are okay and you can even have a dairy cow in San Francisco.

Wow, good to know. If anyone has a picture of a dairy cow on a roof in SF I’d love a copy. For research purposes, you know.

Free in the yard birds:
Chickens like to eat succulents and anything red like strawberries. You will have to sacrifice a part of your yard for them.

What about free on a green roof birds? What then?

Any ideas what to do if you live in an urban area of Michigan? The Detroit News says you should, “Perk up your outdoor space.” I agree.

Trick it up with accents…. Start with easy-to-maintain plantings like succulents.

That is an easy place to start. But don’t stop there…

Add some:

I cannot in good conscience recommend you watch this cactus cartoon.

My sister’s new driveway and walkway are finally complete.

They live in Austin, if you wanted to stop by and congratulate them.

This is from Nickelodeon. It’s an old cactus bumper. 

I really have nothing to say about this strange remnant video.

Instead, I’ll talk about my neighbor who we almost never see.

And then suddenly there were these news reports about a mummified corpse found in the house across the street. And the daughter is a suspect.

And in a totally unrelated case there’s Bob and Sue. We don’t hear from them very often, usually they send postcards when they’re traveling, but not much else. And then they suddenly got involved in a murder mystery involving their neighbor who died in a red house. I hear the police officer on the case was just arrested for the murder.

What would a frozen cadillac look like? They tried it out in Anchorage, on a very cold day this past winter.

Photos by Hal Gage.

Did I mention I used to live in Anchorage?

From Break.com comes this wonderful new contribution to the history of classical lines of architectural furniture construction. And plants. We’ll be getting right on the project of growing these from seed.

They call it “I’ll Just Stand, Thanks” but I think they should name it “Spike”.

From America, The National Catholic Weekly we find out all about how cactus store water.

In flush times, the cactus drinks up a storm, its pleated exterior expanding like an accordion to accommodate heavy rainfall. In drought, it conserves moisture by growing slowly and transpiring little.

An interesting observation. I wonder why this particular catholic magazine made this observation? Well, there’s probably a spiritual reason behind it. Something along the lines of how we can all learn a lesson from the cactus.

The saguaro has evolved to embrace the rhythms of feasting and fasting that must govern any life lived in harmony with the cycles of the natural world.

Well, there you go.

Cactus Cooler, available online for only $2.95 per sixpack. Perfect for any summer picnic.

Now that’s something to write home about. I wonder why they used pineapple?

Otatea acuminata

One of the best looking, very large, groves of this Mexican Weeping Bamboo you’ll ever see.

I’ve never seen this before. (The tall plant that Hap is standing next to.) We’re going to start carrying it in 5 gallon size.

Furcraea macdougalii

It’s supposed to get to 20 ft. tall, and with the onset of a trunk the leaves start spreading outward. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Apparently there was aloe in the garden of eden, according to this Biblical Garden terrarium.

I can see it in there! Right in front of the aloe tag! You can get this beautiful thing, but no plants are included, only seeds. So the odds of success are lower than you would like for this kind of price.

I shouldn’t be so hard on them. It’s beautiful, indeed.

Time Out New York has this advice for you urban gardeners.

Succulents and cacti will grow well in little earth and need little water, so they are an option for unusual and small containers. Some people may want to use old boots… as planters but I think this is more of a gimmick than a practical growing solution.

Who could argue with that?

It’s a tale  as old as the stars, and it was “inspired” by a cactus.

James told me that he worked in town as a bus-driver, and on his nights off would occasionally head off into the dark deserts of Nevada where he would hang-out, look at the stars, and ingest more than a liberal helping of Lophophora williamsii – or Peyote… (a)lso known as the Mescal Button or the Divine Cactus…

he had been relaxing on a small outcrop of rock late at night when, after the Peyote had well and truly kicked in, he was amazed – yet curiously calm, too – to see closing in from the distance a huge, shadowy entity flying perilously low in the night sky….

As the aerial thing got closer and closer, James could see that it was nothing less than a… giant, bat-winged, bird-like animal… that was black in color and appeared both wet and shiny.

Click through to find out if James saw a military aircraft, a UFO, or a living pterodactyl. Or something even more mysterious…

From the Financial Times we have this lovely profile of a collector gone mad.

Otto Jakob, jeweller

I collect rare succulents from Madagascar. Ones with strange, alien bodies that remind me of the sculptures of Louise Bourgeois….

The most valuable item is my Georg Baselitz portrait. He’d been my tutor at art school…

Personally, I think anyone reading FT these days has gone mad.

More than just green roofs these days there are green walls. Some are decorative while others are more functional for filtering air and reducing heating and cooling costs.

(images via: Archinect)

This outdoor installation, created by ten young architecture and design firms for a newly converted loft building in Boston, transforms a blank brick wall into a lush, green environment. Sedum panels were sewn onto a mesh substrate and fastened to cables for a modern, artistic effect. The prototype is meant to illustrate how Boston’s scattered brick surfaces could become opportunities for zero-footprint public art.

The Santiago Times has an excerpt up, but this is about it unless you’re registered to read the rest of the article.

On a farm in Cajon del Maipo, located just 150 kilometers south of Santiago, a group participated in a therapeutic retreat that included the use of the San Pedro cactus – an ancient mescaline-based drug native to the Andes region. San Pedro is similar to North America’s Peyote cactus. The retreat’s leaders, civil engineer and therapist Ricardo Jiménez and his wife, also a therapist, were charged for facilitating mescaline. The couple is on parole.

I’d read the rest. Anyone with access wanna send me more?

MANDI WRIGHT/Detroit Free Press

El Rancho restaurant server Rosa Isela Reyna carries Lenten dishes Shrimp a la Veracruzana and Dried Shrimp Cakes with Cactus Strips.

I’m sure it’s delicious, although you couldn’t get me within ten feet of that dish, what with the shrimp cakes part of it.

It turns out the word I’ve been using for years, “elonated”, which I learned from Hap, is not a word at all. I think it was a combination of the “elongation” of stems from “etiolation” that Hap mushed together into “elonation”.

In other words, I’ve been telling customers that their plants are “elonated” because they aren’t getting enough sun. It’s easier to say than “etiolated” and maybe I should just continue with our made-up word.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, it’s a lovely selection of solid gold cactus, and other materials too.

And not just Canada, but the frozen Central Plains, if the name of the Central Plains Herald Leader is any clue. I’m cold just reading the article.

Anyway, they recommend sempervivums. Well, of course they do.

Hens and chicks (Sempervivum)…. are capable of withstanding… cold prairie winters.

But are you?

The coolest, quirkiest, must-have piece of art at Mesa’s (AZ) Pita Jungle is a wall mirror framed by cactus skeletons. It’s got a great organic quality that speaks to our desert heritage without screaming, “Get yer Scottsdale kitsch here!”

I vote for kitsch.

Cactus Tumbler

Colorful and fun – these tumblers are created from the bottom of the popular Mexican Sol beer bottle. Perfect for summer picnics or evenings on the patio!

I don’t have a clue why they call these tumblers “cactus.” They don’t look like cactus; they aren’t spiny like cactus; they aren’t colorful like cactus. It’s a mystery to me. In fact, I may just sue them for word infringement. On the other hand, I have borrowed the photo without permission, so maybe that’s not such a good idea.

But  since they are recycled glass, that’s a point in their favor. OK, click the link if you want, and you too can own some fine “cactus” tumblers.