I don’t know anything about the Chicago Flower and Garden Show, except that it starts this weekend. Are there succulents? I don’t know! Are there orchids? Who can say! Are there proteas? Snapdragons? Chocolate bunnies? Only time will tell…

…and anyone else who gardens in San Francisco  too. CBS Channel 5 is reporting that organic compost being given away by the city is anything but. Don’t read this report while eating.

It’s called biosolids compost and its being given away by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission for use in school and community gardens, and homes. But… that material is actually treated sewage sludge….

The problem is what often comes with it: toxins, from businesses, hospitals, heavy industry.

“Flame retardants, heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, steroids, hormones, PCB’s, all kinds of nasty stuff,” said Paige Tomaselli with the Center for Food Safety….

(T)he position of one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s own experts: “This material should be kept away from the public,” said Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at the EPA. “The EPA did a study a year ago of sewage sludge from all over the country and found large amounts of hazardous material in all of the sludges,” he said.

via La Vida Locavore.

That’s not good.

It’s a very foggy morning here in Berkeley, same all week, and yet…. The redwoods are doomed. As if the loss of 95% of their habitat wasn’t enough, now it’s the loss of summer fog.

“The redwoods along our coast are highly dependent on fog as a source of water during the summer when water in the ground is scarce,” Todd E. Dawson, one of the study’s two authors, said in an interview. “Foggy nights are needed to rehydrate the trees that can’t tolerate long droughts.”

Mature redwoods are unlikely to die if the decrease in fog persists, he said. But fewer seeds are likely to sprout, take root and grow to maturity.

The map included with the article shows Berkeley being redwood habitat, and yet the redwoods were all cut down here long ago. Our house was built out of local redwood timber in 1920. So all we can say is, less fog in Berkeley might not be such a bad thing for the redwoods that aren’t in Berkeley anymore anyway. Further north, on the other hand, is a disaster in the making.

Christian Democrat MP Jan Mastwijk suggested that rose growers might like to send Ms Van Wijk a cactus for Valentine’s Day. He accused her of “deceiving the public” and dismissed her claims as “far too black and white”.

© Radio Netherlands Worldwide

Ooooh, busted. I bet there’s a whole story behind this little quote. A war between the cactus and rose growers of the Netherlands, perhaps?

I see that Fort Myers has a new public garden, at the Lakes Park.

A plant in the Cactus and Succulent Garden blooms at Lakes Park in south Fort Myers. (Amanda Inscore /news-press.com)

And I see they have aloes too. Good times.

They’ve also added community garden plots so the retired people living in condos can grow their own tomatoes.

“In my condo, we can’t have anything but potted plants. I miss growing my own tomatoes,” said Hurt, a retired Indiana teacher.For $50 a year, she’ll be able to do that in one of 53 plots, with soil provided by Lee County. The public garden area is arranged in a radiating sunburst pattern of raised beds – some of which are accessible to wheelchairs.

Now that’s service. My parents are retired just up the coast in Sarasota, where they don’t do any vegetable gardening. In fact, it’s probably for the best they don’t have access to something like this community garden, since they tend to kill every plant we give them, including the tillandsias which is very unusual since they’re in Florida where the tillandsias grow wild.

There’s a new group in Austin, Texas set up to Save the Cactus.

Now that’s a sentiment I can get behind; we should all help the environment by getting behind a cactus to save it. Pick your favorite! Save a cactus!

About 100 grass-roots supporters trying to keep the iconic Cactus Cafe from closing met on Saturday with plans to save and make profitable the landmark music venue.

Oh, well, I guess that’s a worthwhile cause too, what with Austin not having a lot of other music venues in the city.

Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge

In 2002, there were only about 21 Sonoran pronghorn left in the United States. But their numbers are rising as researchers have collaborated to carve out a home on a wildlife refuge, expand the herd with a captive-breeding program and help the animals reclaim their range….

in 2002, their entire range went dry… Pronghorn can also eat cactus to survive, researchers have found. They will eat chain-fruit cholla, which is 85 percent water, Hervert said, but it doesn’t provide a lot of nutrition.

In 2002, biologists watched as the last of the herd was reduced to eating cholla, slowly starving to death and more than likely within a few weeks of dying, Hervert said. “It was hard to watch.”

When rains finally came, the herd stabilized, but the agencies watching the animals knew that something had to be done.

All around are potted succulents.

Rodney McMillian inaugurates Susanne Vielmetter’s expansive new Culver City space with a dismal show, scattered and slight. The sculptures and video feel like diluted outtakes from the artist’s ongoing, resonant meditation on American history, race, power and the body.

Roughly 100 potted succulents, cactuses and ferns fill the floor of the large main gallery.

Not a good review. Seems like a strange subject for an installation. But then I’ve been out of the art world for a decade now, so things may have changed a lot since Damien Hirst’s use of dead carcasses.

I sure hope we get to go to the orchid show this year. It’s been a few years since we’ve had the time on a weekend.

Oh well, maybe next year.

How did I miss this story from 2 weeks ago? It seems like it would be right up my alley.

Halle Berry is set to launch her new signature perfume ‘Pure Orchid’….

Pure Orchid is believed to have fragrances of jungle cactus flower, blackberry creme and tonka bean.

Maybe we should carry it at the store? Would you buy perfume from us?

Have a picture of Halle Berry, but not with cactus, because that would be too much.

This seems like a good program to go to. And Davis isn’t really that far, especially if you drive a Ferrari.

Join the Cactus and Succulent Society of Pakistan? The meetings are in Karachi. It’s a large group with more than 60 members.

And they have photos, too.

Nice Stapeliad.

We here at Cactus Blog try to bring you all the news from around the world relevant to Cactus and Succulent lovers. So let us know if you’re in another part of the world with less than prominent coverage of your work. It can’t hurt.

These, and more cactus and succulent stamps, are available from René Geissler, Kingston Road, Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, England.

I think these are quite beautiful. There are lots more on the site. Here’s another collection.

That’s one heck of a nonsense headline, and yet it is correct. Read on…

Abby Lowell / Juneau Empire
A trio of salmon fly patterns are tied on a “cactus hook” which was cut from a fish hook barrel cactus… a “cactus fly” that his father, Bob, tied about thirty years ago with barbs cut from the fish hook barrel cactus. The cactus is most commonly found in Arizona and northern Mexico.

Here’s another shot, with fisherman.

Could these heavy rains presage even heavier rains to come?

Discovery News has this story of a team of scientists modeling a, “MONSTER ‘FRANKENSTORM'”,

The recent California storms left the state battered and bruised, but that could just be a taster of things to come.

Nice.

And what has a monster storm looked like in California in the past? Like this one:

Oy, that’s not good. The Great California Flood of 1862,

transformed the Sacramento Valley into an inland sea, covering the tops of telegraph poles with steamboats passing over the farmlands to deliver goods and rescue survivors. The Santa Ana River formed two large lakes – one in the Inland Empire and another in the flood plain of Orange County. Probably the only definite high water mark in Southern California is at the Aqua Mansa, just south of the present city of Colton. Hydrologic studies at Aqua Mansa, document a discharge in 1862, three times the magnitude of anything since.

Of course, driving to Sacramento in winter normally the Sacramento river basin is usually flooded and looks like a lake. Even if that hasn’t happened in the last few drought years, it’s not uncommon. That’s why they don’t build houses on flood plains. Or shouldn’t.

A Franciscan manzanita, thought to had been extinct in the wild, is moved into position from a flatbed truck at the Presidio in San Francisco as a team of workers and park officials watches on Saturday.

Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle

Our favorite beach is being battered by the storm-driven waves. Buildings hang in the balance.

Our sometimes neighbor in Berkeley makes the news again.

From the Isle of Wight County Press Online, we find out that the Ventnor Botanic Garden had trouble with a recent freeze.

A split pipe, by the garden’s main water tank, resulted in a number of succulents becoming encased in ice — a casing which, ultimately, became their tomb.

At the entrance, a couple of the giant barrel cacti have split and the sap inside has turned into a much larger volume of ice forcing a gentle explosion, if there is such a thing….

“We will just have to wait and see what lives and what dies and act accordingly.

“But for the moment, at least for a few days, we have been able to enjoy the beauty of beschorneria, dodonea viscosa purpurea and popsicle set in ice and the beautiful but sadly deadly massed succulent display.”

Frankie Muniz lost his giant cactus when it fell over. He then posted before and after pictures.

Such are the miracles of the internet that I know of this, and now you know of this.

Triangular manhole covers in Nashua, NH. How unusual.

Staff photo by Don himsel
Manhole covers in Nashua are unique for their triangular shape. The shape never caught on in other cities. Most covers are circles, because they can’t possibly fall through their own hole onto a worker….

Fascinating!

Those brainteasers often say that a circle is the only shape that can’t fall through its own hole, but that’s not true.

In fact, any polygon with an odd number of sides would work…

It must be winter around here, what with all the posts having nothing to do with cactus.

The National Weather Service says we’re in for more rain:

Good thing we’re closed on Tuesdays.

I was thinking of turning this blog into a weather blog. What do you think? Todays forecast: Rain, etc…

First the bad news.

The Bay Area is in for one of its wettest weeks, with a series of windy storms expected to drop 8 inches of rain on San Francisco…

And the good news.

The dark clouds, though, may have a thick silver lining: Meteorologists expect 5 to 7 feet of powder in the Sierra Nevada, enough to bring the snowpack up to 100 percent of normal for this time of year.

That, in turn, may help to replenish California’s reservoirs next spring and ease the effects of a three-year drought.

On the other hand, we are a drought tolerant nursery…

The rain started last night and should last 10 days or more. The weather report is for 10 days more than 50% chance of rain. I feel like I’m in Seattle or something. And then at the very end, they are forecasting a partly sunny day with only a 20% chance of rain.

It’s my blog and I’ll whine if I want to. Read More…

Sometimes, late at night, I miss writing all those top ten lists from before the new year. So here’s one last one for you, to get you through the 2010.

Top Ten Crappy Cactus and Succulent Photos from Before I had a Decent Camera or Any Idea of What I was Doing

02/04 Carnegiea gigantea

06/04 Cleistocactus azerensis

06/04 Dudleya greenii

08/04 Pereskia grandifolia

09/04 Dioscorea macrostachya

10/04 Bursera simplicifolia

01/05 Aloinopsis villetii

01/05 Euphorbia leucodendron

03/05 Aloe reitzii

03/05 Opuntia violacea

And 2 more bonus photos… Read More…

Heat generated by the Univ. of Notre Dame’s high-performance computing department is being used to heat… the Ella Morris and Muessel-Ellison Botanical Conservatories and Potawatomi Greenhouse in South Bend, Ind. The waste heat generated by working servers is piped into the greenhouse where it is used to keep succulents and other desert plants warm.

I see the Robots we featured in our art exhibit last month have gotten some online tech attention. From Coolest Gadgets and Gizmodo.

We still have a small selection of the robots available at the nursery thru spring, or Lipson Robotics sells them via etsy.