Here’s another picture “borrowed” from the Arizona Daily Star‘s article about David Yetman’s new book, “The Great Cacti: Ethnobotany and Biogeography.”

“They get maybe 20 feet tall. Here they’re growing toward the southern end of their habitat. This is a royal plant. I’ve actually visited this particular plant on numerous occasions.”

The Arizona Daily Star lets us know about a new book with holy-moley-fabulous pictures.

It’s David Yetman’s new book,

“The Great Cacti: Ethnobotany and Biogeography,” is a treasure trove of photos taken by Yetman of exotic, often hard-to-find specimens in Central and South America.

I’m going to be “borrowing” a few photos from the Daily Star, which republished them from the book, over the next few days.

“It’s actually a relative of the saguaro. These grow so densely you literally can’t walk through them. They are somewhat parallel to the saguaro in importance to the local people. . . . They make a salsa from the fruit which is very good, very different.”

It’s a slow blogging weekend.

Maybe I should be out cross pollinating some dudleyas. Would you like some new dudleya hybrids?
While waiting for your answer, I think I’ll be taking a short nap here…

It’s in the mid 90s here. Probably hotter where you are. If you haven’t wilted, this would be a good time to water. And give the plants a drink too because it’s hot out there.

I don’t have much to add to this notice from Chronogram Magazine.

Brooklyn-based quartet So Percussion… sound like all-acoustic techno music. “Percussion,” of course, does not necessarily mean drums. Ethereal bells, glockenspiel, bowed marimba, and toy piano also qualify—as well as aluminum pipes and an amplified cactus.

The Chamber Arts Festival of Marbletown runs on two weekends, from May 23 to June 1, at SUNY Ulster’s Quimby Theatre. (845) 687-2687

If you get to go to the concert to hear the amplified cactus, and get to record it, then do pass it along to the rest of us.

Jumbled words littered with cactus spines taste good on the tongue.

Did I mention that I’m an architect?

And I used to live in Alaska?

The Kansas City Royals started pitching better after a cactus spine incident was resolved.

“I had two different doctors look at it, and neither one said they could find anything,” Gobble said. “After about a month, it’s like the tip of the toe just opened up one day and there it was.”

Out peeked a cactus needle, one inch long, a thorn pretty much leaving of its own accord.

“We got it out of there,” Gobble said, “and suddenly I started pitching better again.”

From the San Diego Union-Tribune, not that I know why the San Diego sports section has an article about the KC Royals. They’ve got their own pitching woes to worry about in SD.

Did you like that short post I posted an hour ago? I thought it was well reasoned, carefully worded, and not so long that you would have to take a break from work to read the whole thing. All in all, a successful short post.

It’s true, the magazine Real Simple, as featured on CNN.com, keeps it real.

Choose the potting mix

If you are planting succulents or cacti, use a mix especially formulated for them….

Choose the plants

Don’t put a cactus and a pansy together in one pot and expect them to get along….

Prepare the pots

Fill the container with the soil….

Pot the plant

Now that’s all good advice. For more of that advice, you can click through and read the rest of the article. Or not. The rest of it is pretty generic, actually.

Sometimes the Cactus Art is art that is made out of cactus and sometimes it is cactus that is made out of art, so to speak. In this case, Margarita Cabrera’s show at LACMA is cactus made out of art. There, I said it. From CindyLu’s Flickr stream.

Apparently serious advice to the US Government, no less.

Larry Niven, the bestselling and award-winning author of such books as “Ringworld”… said a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants.

My eyes hurt. Please make it go away. via Sadly, No!

In Denver they had never thought to plant succulents in a trough before. Never. I find this to be a mysterious use of valuable newspaper real estate. Anyway, it was a TV report. TV9 News.

The newest use for troughs is in growing small cactus and succulents. In the next few years, look for succulents in particular to have a more visible presence…

Whatever plants you select for trough growing, you’ll create unique miniature gardens with great visual impact.

It’s good to know they are catching up to the rest of the world in Colorado.

Tis true that most cactus are spiky

So too is my nephew named Mikey.

When walking to school

He fell into a pool

Filled with cactus, so he screamed out “krikey!”

In this video, cactus are being used improperly. Please, do not do this with your own cactus at home, it’s not fair to the cactus. Please be kind to your cactus. You know, I’m rambling, when you’ve probably skipped ahead to view the video anyway.

Now I know that you’ve finished watching the video, I can continue with my harangue. Where was I? Oh yeah, please stop harassing your cactus. We should all be kind to puppies and kids and cactus. Practice kindness on your cactus.

The thousand+ entries of the blog archives are fully restored, over here, plus I’ve imported this year’s entries to the new blog. Good stuff.

Well, I’m working on getting the archives back. And redesigning this page. And posting too. Always with the posting.

Yay! We’re back. I wonder how long it will last.

Peter

Well, that wasn’t pleasant. The site was down for the last day. Is it back yet?

Happy Passover

via atrios

Debra Lee bBaldwin has an amazing sense of style when it comes to succulents. Here she’s created a bouquet of succulent flowers.

Photo by Debra Lee Baldwin, author of Designing with Succulents

I’m still working on fixing the slow blog problem, although it seems to be working pretty well this morning.

Reader Andreas has given me a clue. Soon, soon enough, I will have the problem resolved, or my name’s not Jeremiah.

Next, I have to deal with the evil Earthlink people who are screwing with my connection. Did I mention that they’re evil? And they smell.

So here’s an image for you:

Sedum pachyclados

So I wasn’t able to fix the blog yesterday. It is still slow loading for now. Does anyone know how to upgrade Serendipity? I have to call in the professionals. In the meantime, here’s a picture.

Pereskia grandifolia

I’m trying to fix the blog software issues. Hopefully, I’ll have a newly minted, fast blog up and running. Hopefully it will all work at this same address, so you won’t miss a thing. Wish me luck.

We’re not at the garden show this year. Last year, we shared a small booth and had our plants featured in the eventual grand-prize-winning garden. This year, not so much. Some designers have come by and purchased some plants for their show gardens, like a beautiful large Ceanothus “Ray Hartman” that should be in full bloom at the show, but no features this year. We’re just too busy.

We’ll visit the show, of course, and I’ll post pictures too.

News these days is that the Cow palace won’t be around much longer. I wonder where the garden show will go?

Reader Bob Davis sends us yet another photo of a church sign. This time it must be for a sermon, because no self-respecting church would host a sale for cactus AND rare plants.