We missed this year’s stinky arum at the Huntington.

Click through for the video and all the pictures and the t-shirts, and even to buy one of your own. Plus – they get questions!

Delores Sgambati stands next to her Century plant that has started flowering in her yard.

Photo by Mike Spencer

Apparently there’s an Indian actor named Cactus.

Here’s the evidence for this hypothesis, an article in the Times of India.

Actor Sabyasachi Chakraborty, who is also a part of the video along with Prosenjit Chatterjee, Antara Chowdhury, Cactus and others, says, “As human beings, it is our duty to help them.

So Cactus is not just the name, but the name of a “human being”.

Here’s the photo.

I hope Cactus is the one in the middle.

The Alessi Cactus! Fruit Bowl is now on sale at New York stores.

I wonder why you should care about this. It is a pretty design, and not just a cactus name, but it does look like a cactus design.

Gardening Gone Wild is having a photo contest, entries due 7/22.

And the prize is a collection of 8 luscious succulents, cold hardy all, from High Country Gardens.

This month’s theme appears to be Flowering Trees.

In British Columbia this weekend? Then don’t miss the succulent class.

Saturday, July 18, 10 a.m. Container Gardening With Succulents with Faye Ford. Succulents grouped together in a container resemble a tiny, perfect tapestry of colour and texture. Faye will show participants how to create their own unique planting. Cost of $35 plus GST includes all supplies.

I think it’s in Victoria, but I can’t be sure.

It’s dragonfruit season! Yay! It comes from the hylocereus cactus, a few different species and colors but this seems to be H. undatus.

How to eat Dragon Fruit. The simplest way to eat Dragon Fruit is to cut the Dragon Fruit in half and scoop out the juicy sweet flesh with a spoon. Dragon Fruit makes a delicious fruit juice and can also be added to salads to give them a touch of the exotic.

Cactus can be so different than what you expect – here we have a cactus growing very nicely in the jungles of Thailand. Well, this looks more like an orchard, but it’s still pretty wet there, and these cacti are thriving and providing a lot of delicious dragonfruit.

A Press Release out of Salinas, California reads:

Root 68 will feature in July some of Andy Boy’s newest specialty products such as cactus pear balsamic vinaigrette,… cactus pear vinegar, cactus pear sorbet and more.

I wonder what Root 68 is? And Andy Boy? Will they sell these at Berkeley Bowl? I keep looking for cactus pear vinegars there, since they have a huge selection of specialty vinegars, but nothing.

With a little bit of the googling, this is what I find.

Root 68 is a produce store in Salinas.

Andy Boy is a grower.

Then who is putting out these vinegars?

Debra Lee Baldwin tells you all you need to know about barrel cactus in the LA Times.

10 ways to use barrel cactus in water-wise gardens
No. 3: Their shape can contrast nicely with taller columnar cactuses.
Photo: Debra Lee Baldwin

As usual with Debra, the photos are to die for. And the sharkskin agave is cute too.

The big event in Jackson takes place today, so get to the airport and fly in to Memphis and get over to Jackson before the day is over.

Memphis-area gardeners… flock to Summer Celebration at the University of Tennessee’s West Tennessee Research and Education Center to hear speakers, see tough plants that thrive in the heat and buy a few to take home.

Sedums can stand the heat, so they don’t have to get out of the kitchen. This unusual display, done with donated items, is a focal point of the event.
Carol Reese/Special to The Commercial Appeal

Those sedums sure do look delicious in muffin pans. But they’re not.

And if you click through to the article, you’ll also see some very large succulent planters – they used old satellite dishes as containers. That’s what we should have done when we moved in to the old satellite dish farm in Berkeley – planted them up!

From the St. Peter (MN) Press comes this tale of cactus in a northern climate.

These yellow-pear cactus plants, which is growing strong at the Steve and Natasha Pettis residence on the 200 block of West Elm Street, are thriving in the early-summer heat as they have displayed a full bloom of yellow flowers.

I love local newspapers. That baby doesn’t seem to be all that thrilled with the cactus patch.

It’s that time of year again, in Marin. Time for the Marin County Fair, through Sunday.

The Marin Independent has this preview for you.

Flippin Flapjacks (Kalanchoe thyrsiflora) are among the succulents in the Dr. Seuss Garden at the Marin County Fair. (Provided by Forest and Kim Starr)

Coreopsis gigantea a large treelike shrub whose clusters of large, yellow flower heads have been called ‘daisies on steroids.’ (Provided by Stan Stebs)

That’s a very strange photo of the coreopsis to use, what with the caption talking about the large daisy flowers and the picture showing all the dead blooms. Someone should deadhead them. But we do like us some C. gigantea, the California native version of the common midwestern perennial. It’s originally from the Channel Islands, but has spread along the Southern California coast. It’s a good choice for a “Dr. Seuss Garden” since everyone around here calls it the Dr. Seuss plant.

So go, to Marin, that is.

Even in Baltimore they need to think ahead to an arid August.

Succulents can help you avoid the inevitable late-summer garden battle

A garden of succulents is created in a strawberry jar from Valley View Farms in Hunt Valley. The plants are a good way of approaching the area’s long, hot summer. (Baltimore Sun photo: Susan Reimer / June 15, 2009)

I had no idea that was as true in Maryland as it is in the Bay Area. So you could learn a thing or two from the good people who bring you crab cakes, for instance:

1. Plan Ahead when gardening so that you don’t have a bunch of dead plants at the end of the summer.

2. Plant Pretty Succulents in strawberry pots for wonderful and beautiful effects that can be enjoyed indoor and outdoor year-round.

3. Did I mention that succulents can help you with items 1 and 2 above?

At the intersection of marijuana and cactus one can get hurt. Out of Florida comes the crime report.

An undocumented alien jumped out a window and escaped during a raid Tuesday night on a marijuana grow house in Levy County…. Task force members said Lopez was… in his bare feet when he was last seen… running across a field dotted with prickly pear cactus plants.

All together now: “Ouch.”

The NYTimes is featuring succulent containers from Claverack, N.Y.

Stewart Cairns for The New York Times
An agave is the star among hawkweed, allium and hens-and-chicks.

Nice containers.

They’ve planted some Opuntia fragilis in a parking strip up in Washington.

Volunteer Janet Mullen shows where a third cactus bloom is starting among the collection of Sequim cactus in the planter strip outside the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center, 1192 E. Washington St. Photos by Brian Gawley.

If you click through the link you’ll get to see a close-up of the cactus and the flower. I’ve never seen such a large patch of O. fragilis. Usually they’re tiny scraggly bits and pieces with dead spots and weeds; really just a horrible nasty mess. Although we do sell some wonderful little pots of the stuff at the nursery. Anyway, clearly that doesn’t apply to this patch. It appears to be lovingly tended.

Cacti need about half the quantity of water required for keeping citrus and subtropical fruits such as mango.

That is interesting, as more of the world becomes arid over the coming decades. I wonder what this is all about?

Cactus Sun says a wide array of foods can be produced from cacti…without leaving any trace of thorns.

More importantly, cacti need very little water. And they are ideal for developing countries with arid climates that endure droughts…

Ahhh, very good. Plant more edible cactus, save water, and eat a hearty meal of cactus pads and cactus fruits.

A cactus-based sugary syrup has become the latest darling of the alternative-sweetener world.

Once mostly unheard of outside natural food stores, agave syrup — made from the same Mexican cactus that yields tequila — suddenly is getting celebrity endorsements, competing for shelf space at mainstream grocers and is a must-have cocktail ingredient.

“If I’m going to be making a premium margarita, agave nectar’s got to be riding shotgun,” says Food Network star Guy Fieri, better known for his greasy spoon affection than his natural foods know-how.

Now I’m a big fan of agave syrup, using it for cocktails as well as for cooking, but having been in the cactus business now for a while I feel the cactus pedant coming out. Look out.

Agave is not a cactus. It is a succulent in the lily family (liliaceae) or at least the agave family (agavaceae) depending on who you ask.

Agave is a genus within the family Agavaceae, which is currently placed within the order Asparagales. Agaves were once classified in Liliaceae, but most references now include them in their own family, Agavaceae.

But definitely not a cactus, for it has no areoles.

Science!

I suspect this is a drug related article, but then I think that’s probably the best explantation for Michael Crichton.

From Palestine, TX

You meditate and talk to cactuses? Oh, you’re weird. Chances are, Michael Crichton didn’t actually talk to a cactus, but he got some sort of experience out of it, so who’s to say what actually happened?

Yeah, that’s so true. I mean one person says he talked to a cactus and the other person says he was on a drug-fueled bender. Who can figure this puzzle out? It’s a mystery, alright.

What’s interesting is that this was published in a regular daily newspaper. And they wonder why they’re a dying business, but I’m not bitter.

Another Agave blooms and dies, and the press takes notice. This time in South Carolina. I should probably have an entire separate category for these news items, they’re so common. At least this one includes a photo.

Impressive.

Brenda Turner stands with her 20-year old Century Cactus in the backyard of her West Marion home. Recently, Turner’s plant began sprouting the spike filled with buds. Once the plant blooms, it will die.

I wonder why this is news? I mean, I know why I post it – it has a photo, and it has the spectacle of a “legitimate” newspaper writing about a single succulent in someone’s backyard, but why does the newspaper publish it? Maybe this is the very cause of their impending demise.

Anyway, congrats to Brenda for getting into her local paper with a dying plant.

Apparently cactus is the new metaphor for men. You know, Men are from cactus and women are from roses. This could be a lot of fun if it catches on.

How will the words of the Rose show real feeling for the Cactus?  Will the subconscious give away in some trait in tone, inflection, or voice stress that may betray a lack of feeling or true respect from the Rose’s years of constant cultivation as opposed to the years of harsh desert conditions faced by the Cactus?

And that was from a real newspaper, the Jacksonville (FL) Times-Union.

Alert the good folks at Guinness!

A cactus plant that has grown in SDM College of Dental Sciences premises near Sattur in Dharwad is looking for a place in the `Guinness Book of World Records’.

Known as `Cereus peruvianus’ in botanical terminology, the 77-foot plant is still growing….

The college authorities have erected a tower to support the plant. Incidentally, the current world record stands in the name of a cactus in Narayanpur of Dharwad. The cactus grown at Pandit Munji’s house in Narayanpur was 72-foot tall when it made an entry into the `Guinness Book’ in 2004. Now that plant has been reduced to 56 feet as it has broken.

A very interesting article about a very interesting plant. But no picture. I wonder what I can find on the googles?

Nothing. Oh well, maybe I should google harder.

Astrophytum (Digitostigma) caput-medusae, the Medusa’s Head Astrophytum, is one of the most spectacular recent discoveries in the succulent world. Photos By Kevin Belmonte and Paolo Panarotto

Wow, that is impressive. Can I have one?

It’s a vinaigrette from Salinas!

And they have a music festival too. Click through to hear all about it.

Equally zesty are D’Arrigo’s salad dressings: Cactus Pear Vinaigrette is wonderful… A dash… zests up a colorful and healthy side dish of green lentils, red quinoa, green cauliflower, feta cheese, parsley and chives (pair with 2006 Tondre Grapefields pinot: a divine toast to the Central Coast).

Jim Averbeck with the blooming cacti on his back patio Wednesday morning. – Pat Kuhl/BND

I find it interesting that blooming cactus are such big news that they make the newspapers. Yesterday it was an agave and today it’s echinopsis (probably).

I wonder where Belleville is. I would guess Indiana. Should I read the whole article and not just look at the pictures and report back to you? OK, hold on…. Read More…

Yay!

PICTURE BY ROBERT DAVIS Derek Ayland, of Oxford Road, Gloucester, is proud of his 40 year old finger cactus which flowers every year.

I agree.

“I like to call it Cactus Time, it’s a really beautiful time of year,” said Mr Ayland, who has 12 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren.

I love the fact that blooming agaves get full newspaper treatment, all around the country.

Georgia Lind’s century plant is 12 feet 7 inches tall, says groundskeeper Bill Hardy. Once it blooms, it will die. Bob Pennell.

Usually its the A. americanas in the last throes that get a reporter’s attention. This time it’s a A. parryi. Very nice.

Now this is a one-of-a-kind find.

Some of the art that can be seen at Smartshop’s ‘Forge the Future’ fundraiser includes, on the left, ‘Sonoran Cactus,’ a paper-pulp lamp by Elizabeth Faust; and on the right, ‘Steam Punk Blacksmith,’ a found object sculpture by Alex Drummer.

Too bad it’s in Kalamazoo, Michigan, because otherwise, I’d be all over it. And the cactus too.