Robot

Robot Cake

The first was made by my brother and the second was made in Australia in honor of the robot.

Yesterday I featured some Cactus Stamps on this here Cactus Blog, and they were postable!

Today I’m featuring Cactus Stamps that are rubbery. And there are three of them for me to feature! All are handmade, or hand-carved as the case may be, and available on the Etsy. Three is a good number, you should buy them all.

Apparently Tara on Etsy will post these older stamps along with some others on a handmade postcard and send it off to you.

Sweet deal!

Today’s Spider of the Day is a Black Widow and was captured by Anne. She’s taking it home for a pet.

Aaaaghhhh!!!!!

Agave “Black Widow” is our newest addition to our Agave family. It comes to us as a cultivar of Agave schidigera. Yay! Generally solitary, these might get close to 24″ across. More likely 18″. They are quite filiferous and strongly variegated.

And I found this strange music video from a company that produces this agave.

Nice!

A stunning Crassula perforata variegata and a couple Echeveria hybrids are glowing even on this cloudy day.

Can you help me identify the disease on the cactus picture attached?

Thanks — Rich

Rich,

It looks like it is a form of “Rust” which is a fungus and is usually treatable with Neem Oil, a natural dual purpose fungicide and insecticide that is easy to use.

Take care,

Hap

Cercis occidentalis

Southwestern US/California Native
Evergreen tree

Sun: Full to Partial
Water: Winter rain, summer drought
Size: 20ft.

Careful not to disturb roots when transplanting. Magenta flowers in Spring. From rocky soils at foothills. Bright green kidney-shaped leaves.

Now through the 10th.

Our plants are at the Chive booth. We love Chive and sell all their products, and now they are selling our products too! At the Chive booth! in Philadelphia! PA!

Fenestraria aurantiaca is the classic strange succulent in the Mesemb family. Related to the Lithops, these are also very low water plants. We recommend keeping them out of full sun and watering every 3-4 weeks. With more sun and more water they can grow quite big, relatively speaking, but then they are very rot prone and most people will find that a higher water level schedule will kill them. Harsh!

The Fenestraria genus includes only two species: Fenestraria rhopalophylla (with white flowers) and Fenestraria aurantiaca (with yellow flowers), which in time have gained various hybrids, with very beautiful flowers (red and orange).

It also appears that F. aurantiaca is no longer considered a separate species, but is a subspecies of F. rhopalophylla. So I guess I better get all my tags updated.

*snap*

ta-da!

Nice and red from all that sun!

Actually its a succulent and its at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. But the postcard comes from Michigan.

Desert Botanical Gardens, Papago Park, Phoenix, Arizona. The Boojum Tree, or Cirio, is a native of Baja California, resembles an inverted carrot, with very small branches. This tree is a member of the Candlewood family, which also includes the Ocotillo.

Keith’s latest creation featuring Dendrobium kingianum, Scleranthus biflorus and a few Cryptanthus “Minor.”

Close up! You can almost feel that Australian Astroturf.

just a cute cluster of sempervivums in this little square pot.

This has gone through a few makeovers since it was first put together, but I think it has finally grown out of its awkward stage and into a beautiful mixed pot.

Linda Estrin Design shared a succulent heart.

Happy V-Day.

It’s 5pm and this Fockia crispa is ready to get out of here

Testing out my new iPhone app on this Cleistocactus strausii!

It’s a Good Luck Beaver, by local artist Jeff Pidgeon, visiting our Happy Succulents.

Pseudobombax ellipticum, or as we prefer to call it, Bombax ellipticum. I’ve never seen one this size bloom, and just the one flower.

Nice!

Rikki working on one of her signature terrariums.

Beautiful!

This is apparently from an episode of the Power Rangers called Ep. 20: The Toxic Flower Cactus of Death.

Nice!

A cactus that attacks it’s owner?!?

Oh the Horror!

You can read the whole 5 page horror story about the attacking cactus. I especially like the part about it being a misunderstood cactus – a loving cactus that just loves too much.

Sent in by Trey at The Golden Gecko. Thanks Trey!

I see that the Garden Rant’ers have finally discovered the made-in-america hoses we carry – by Water Right. Good stuff.

Euphorbia royleana

Apparently this plant has the common name of Churee. I don’t know anything about how it got that name.

The plant itself is from the Himalayan regions of India. It has stunning leaves which we find always drop off on us.

Here’s a closeup of the blooms with a new leaf started right behind.

Euphorbia royleana will grow tree like to maybe 8ft. tall, slowly. The branches all tend to grow fairly vertically, around 3″ diameter.

Moderately poisonous like most Euphorbias, mostly its milky white sap is a bad irritant. But don’t ingest, please.

These are hardy to about 28F, however we find they cannot handle our normal winter rains so we keep them under cover in Berkeley. They make a great potted houseplant since they can handle fairly low light levels and very low water levels, without eventually growing as tall as some of the other columnar euphorbias around that will hit the ceiling of your home.