The experts in San Luis Obispo have some advice for you.

“Too many people equate succulents with the desert, which in turn equates to no water,” said Wilkinson.

He urges people to consider desert conditions where torrential downpours punctuate long dry spells.

“When you water your plants, soak them, then soak them again, then let them go dry,” he advised….

Wilkinson’s best advice: learn about a plant’s specific needs when you buy it. And don’t be afraid to try something new in the garden.

I can give out advice too, you know, but I can’t force you to follow it. Here try this one:  Planting plants that bloom at different times of year in your garden will create a garden that blooms all year long.

Taken right out of an article, presented without context, here we have today’s Cactus Quote of the Day.

IT’S not every day a leprechaun is spotted with a giant cactus in Ayr town centre.

Now that’s from the Ayrshire Post, but as usual, we at CactusBlog are dismayed at the lack of photo evidence. Do we believe this outrageous claim of cactus and leprechauns? No, I do not. They are toying with our emotions.

Let me get out the google and see what I can find.

Indeed, the google has been kind to me today. But I don’t think they’re in Ayrshire anymore.

After years of demolition and construction, the dusty corner of Spring and 2nd streets suddenly gave way to a burst of green space…

With palo verde and Australian brush box trees, beds of flax, rosemary and succulents and narrow ribbons of tufted fescue, the park, designed by Melendrez, an L.A.-based landscape and urban design firm, is exactingly modern in design, made to complement the building that rises in its midst.

Why don’t they publish pictures? I don’t understand. Now I’m going to have to do some googling.

This story from back in May has a picture.

This article shows us a prize-winning succulent arrangement, and expresses surprise that a succulent arrangement even won, but the article does not tell us what the competition was.

At a recent competition in Mississippi, a container of colorful succulents entered by a local nursery stole the show.

The winner was a surprise to many of us horticulturists. We knew there is a succulent trend, but we weren’t sure whether the trend could win over the gardening public.

I guess the succulent trend has finally hit Mississippi.

Oddity of the Day.

An entrepreneur has come up with a way to foil monkeys who steal underwear from washing lines.

Ray Liddell has stopped the thieving barbary macaques of Gibraltar by selling a plastic spiked device – called The Cactus – which can be fitted to fences to make life difficult for the cheeky primates.

‘The monkeys are everywhere,’ said the 38-year-old, from Hartlepool.

No pictures.

CHRIS HILLOCK/ Taranaki Daily News

CACTUS QUEEN: Ngaire Ward has a passion for prickly plants. Mrs Ward has been made a life member of the New Plymouth Cactus and Succulent Society.

“This is a great privilege and I really hadn’t expected it.”

Low water gardening is coming in to fashion everywhere, even in the fashionable districts of Palos Verdes.

Local homeowners facing mandatory water rationing can learn much from the newly installed beds at the South Coast Botanic Garden on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Pedra Furmall, assistant gardener at the South Coast Botanic Garden, takes South Coast Fuchsia Society members on a tour. (Photo by Meredith Grenier)

If Coco + Kelley were inspired by succulents in their fashions this summer, so why shouldn’t you be? Do you think you’re better than them?

Here on the cactus beat, we see some pretty crazy things. People eating cactus, for jiminy crickets sake! But this beats all.

China Kangtai Cactus Biotech Inc., a vertically integrated grower, developer, manufacturer and marketer of a variety of cactus-based products in China, announced today that the company has successfully completed the trial production of cactus-based cigarettes.

If offered, I will refuse to carry them in my cactus store. On the other hand, if you have a good importer of cactus based vinegars from Italy, let me know.

I wonder what the packaging will look like? I imagine a mini-saguaro sticking out of a cartoon camel’s mouth.

Some rare September thundershowers hit the Bay Area this morning. Be careful out on the roads, you know, since they’ll be slick, what with 6 months without rain. And don’t bother watering your cactus this afternoon, they’re already wet.

Generally I like a few bees around the nursery, flopping around in the cactus flowers, but not like this.

The woman said she was in the yard working when a swarm of bees started attacking her near… Cactus, authorities said. She was able to call 911….

“The lady had been stung probably 300 to 400 times prior to our arrival….” At least three officers each had about 50 stings.

So now that CCD has declined, the bees are back to marauding the countryside? Rampaging through the cities? Unacceptable!

From Sunset Magazine we find this picture of a garden design by Molly Wood in Costa Mesa that cleverly uses a succulent border of Sempervivums.

The Ithaca Journal recommends eating cactus.

Improve the variety of your diet — try some exotic produce.

Nopales or cactus pads are often used in Mexican or Southwest dishes.

But they don’t tell us where you can find it in Ithaca. Maybe you have to go all the way to Tampa, because I don’t think your regular safeway in Ithaca is going to stock nopales.

Last week, Enchiladas Mexican Restaurant (opened)…, bringing downtown diners yet another option.

Chile verde con nopales ($10.95) is a classic Mexican dish that combines spicy pork chunks with a flavorful sauce of green tomatillo and cactus (yes, cactus).

I’m sure it’s delicious.

Bug Fest Philly ’09 is underway and featuring the adorable cactus beetle.

Guests are invited to come hungry since there will be a cooking demo of how to prepare grasshoppers, crickets and dragonflies.

Oops, that’s not the part I was looking for…

Other bugs of interest will be Cactus Beetles, which use cactuses for both food and protection

That’s more like it. No photos, so let’s go to the google and see what we can come up with.

Here we have a beetle in the collection of the St. Louis Zoo.

This beetle lives in the hot, arid deserts of the American Southwest. It spends most of its life cycle in and around various cactus plants, especially those in the Opuntia family. It relies on the cactus for both food and shelter. Females chew “wounds” in the cactus and lay eggs in the openings. The young beetles (grubs) feed inside until they emerge as adults.

Nasty looking thing.

in Stockton, California.

Stockton Cactus and Succulent Society

Have you ever wondered how to move and/or relocate… extremely large mature cactuses or succulents? This month’s speaker, Mark Muridian of Fresno, is going to show how it’s done….

This month’s meeting will be held Aug. 27 at 7 p.m. at the San Joaquin County Building.

Good stuff for the Central Valley.

Here’s our own little secret to moving big cactus: Use carpet scraps to wrap the plant. Also, if someone asks you to remove an Agave americana, just tell them no.

The Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, clearly the victim of a changing newspaper marketplace, recommends you plant agaves in your front yard.

(The) century plant, as agaves are commonly called, has many appealing qualities. Its spineless, sword-shaped, thickened leaves unfold in an open, slightly flattened rosette while maintaining a rigid conical center — all striking architectural elements….

In summer, provide ample water to keep agaves from shriveling and be sure to fertilize in poor soils. Although these are succulent species that store water, they must have sufficient supplies during the growing season so they can hoard it for later use if needed.

Good advice, but no pictures.

From the BBC News comes a heartwarming story of making money off cactus in  Sbouya, Morocco

It is just after dawn in the hills above the Moroccan hamlet of Sbouya and a group of women are walking through the thousands of cactus plants dotted about on the hillside, picking ripe fruits whenever they spot the tell-tale red hue.

But these woman are not simply scraping a living out of the soil.

The cactus, previously eaten as a fruit or used for animal feed, is creating a minor economic miracle in the region thanks to new health and cosmetic products being extracted from the ubiquitous plant.

Waterwise Santa Barbara offers a cdrom (really?) telling you to plant succulents, natives and other drought tolerant plantings. I wonder if they have the same information posted to their site? That would be easy.

Now this is exciting news – a cactus cooking contest down in Monterey.

D’Arrigo Bros., Salinas, Calif., is holding a nopalitos — cactus leaves — cooking contest Sept. 16 and is seeking submissions for the event….

The company is asking for recipes to be sent by Aug. 29….

First prize is $750; second prize is $450; and third prize is $150, and photos of the winners and their recipes will be posted…

Dust off those nopal recipes, and despine those pads. I’ll be sending in my cactus fish sauce with capers recipe.

I suppose I should have a comment on these sedum mats being developed by Altman. Maybe when they’re ready for sale and I see one in person I’ll write something. In the meantime, here’s a photo from the LA Times.

At the Mariposa Street offramp, which lets onto Pennsylvania Avenue, there’s a new garden locals are calling the Pennsylvania Garden, and they just got a bunch of large agaves installed.

Those sure are big. I hope they don’t bloom too soon.

At the Clark County Fair, i.e. Ohio, the winners have been announced in the Springfield News-Sun:

Open Class Flower Show
Mary Kate Picolo, cactus or succulents (more than 1)

No pictures were taken, so we’ll never know what Mary Kate won for.

Cactus and succulents come to Ohio, by way of Minnesota, via Ohio.com.

Dry gardens were all around us last week, as a group of Ohio State University horticulturists traveled to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum just outside of Minneapolis as part of a teaching and studying tour.

A succulent planting at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. (Denise Ellsworth/OSU)

NPR has the report. From 89.3 KPCC

Nopalitos: taming the prickly pear cactus.

Apparently the new eco-conscious gardener in Australia is planting succulents to replace their old fashioned cottage garden.

Yay!

You read that right, they’re making patented hog feeds out of cactus in China.

China to Launch Patented Cactus Hog Fee

Over 65% of all meat consumed in China is pork….

The cactus hog feed market shows huge growth potential….

Studies have shown that Kangtai’s cactus feed substantially increases productivity…

I wonder when they’ll be marketing this special hog feed to the American market? Our pigs could use healthy natural feeds. And then they’ll have to come to me to supply all their cactus, since there are a lot of hogs that need feeding.

In Phoenix, the Cactus Doctor apparently gives away free cactus, according to ABC15.

David Mills

The Cactus Doctor stands next to a 6-foot saguaro he just transplanted in his nursery.

I’m skeptical. The report actually tells you to go to your local nursery and ask for free giveaways, discarded plants. That’s crazy talk.

Anything we discard, we give to a school or nonprofit.

These are among the more delicious of cactus fruits. Scripps News has the whole thing covered.

Among the most promising fruits for arid-zone American gardens is the apple cactus, Cereus peruvianus. This large, branching treelike columnar cactus produces some of the most delicious and beautiful fruits for gardens….

Due to the fact that the apple-cactus fruit does not have spines or glochids like that of the common prickly pear, it makes a far better residential fruit plant….

Whether you live in city or country, apple cactus is a great choice for drought-ravaged regions.

This article mentions that they are pollinated by bats, but only in passing. In fact, these are the notorious night-blooming cereus. The blooms are open one night only, so you have to have more than one plant happen to bloom the same night, and then you have to have bats. Now here in Berkeley, there are plenty of bats, but only up in the hills and not down here in the flats where the nursery is. So we do not get fruit. This is a problem with urban areas.

So I disagree with the conclusion that this is a good fruiting plant for drought-ravaged cities.