The Baltimore Sun has a feature on the addictive properties of following the latest “health” trends…. I mean an article about the latest health benefits of Aloes, which I heartily endorse.

“Aloe is part of my overall health and beauty philosophy,” says the Pikesvilleresident, who typically keeps an aloe plant handy for cuts and mild burns. She also purchases packaged aloe products at stores such as Whole Foods Market.

“I buy aloe liquid by the gallon, keep it in the fridge and drink a few ounces cold. It tastes like fizzy water,” she says. “I’ve noticed my digestion has improved.”

Impressive.

The New York Times gets plant questions.

Q. I’ve been trying to plant moss between the paving stones on my terrace, but it keeps dying. What am I doing wrong?

A. There are a lot of reasons this temperamental little plant might not want to grow in your garden…

Many plants will thrive in tight crevices (including)… rock-hugging succulents.

There you go! Succulents are the newest addition to the New York Times’ list of acceptable terrace plants for New York.

Even in Seattle they’re trying on some drought-tolerant plants for size. I wonder if that really means they’re not getting 150 days of rain per year anymore?

Plant choices… make a tremendous difference to the sustainability of your garden….

Water-storing succulents and sedums,… spiky red hot poker (Kniphofia)… are fine examples of plants that don’t need you very much.

Some gardeners complain that drought-tolerant gardening limits options and looks dull, but some true drought lovers are very showy plants.

A pretty basic beginners guide to drought-tolerant gardening, but for Seattle, it’s a good start. I give them 16 points.

Sometimes a plant can touch the hearts of a local community. In Michigan, a christmas cactus was chosen to live on in a museum.

The large, 40-plus year-old Christmas cactus plant now seen in the Starkweather Art and Cultural Center (SACC) has had its fair share of notoriety in Romeo.

The plant, native to Central and South America, gained popularity while literally hanging out in what was formerly Fred’s Market on Bailey Street. The former owner, Paul Ruggirello, said the plant garnished attention as customers came in to shop.

“When I told people I was retiring from the store I had so many people ask where my plant would go,” he said. “A lot of people seemed interested.”

After the store changed ownership in 2007, the plant was given to the mother of SACC administrative assistant Alycia Devins, who helped replant it and take care of it before it was moved to the art center.

Unfortunately there aren’t any pictures.

Yuri, currently at the Department of Zoology, University of Otago in New Zealand, sends along this interesting story from the Los Angeles Times.

Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

PALM DESERT

Over the last six months, there has been an epidemic of thefts. Officials say they have lost nearly $20,000 worth of the plants. The main target is the golden barrel, which, depending on its size, can fetch anywhere from $100 to $800 each.

The problem is so bad that surveillance cameras have gone up near large concentrations of cactuses in urban landscaping, and authorities expect to implant microchips into the barrels soon to track their whereabouts.

Now that’s a lot of microchips for a desert community. We microchipped Benjamin.

Reality TV Magazine has an article with the headline:

Wipeout Contestants To Include A Break Dancer And A Cactus Farmer

Now that’s what I call a headline. So you’re probably thinking they’re referring to me, and my time as a reality contestant, but no, that’s not me at all. And I don’t even have to read the article to know that. But if you want to, here’s the link.

An interesting story in the LA Times about long-time residents in Los Angeles. I think the newspaper is always interested in people who have lived in LA for a long time. I lived there for 6 years, and that seemed pretty long too. Not as long as these people, who are well known in the neighborhood for their activism and their cactus garden:

A colleague had told me a year or so ago about Tovar and her husband, both of them longtime activists and neighborhood historians. He told me about the amazing cactus garden at their 100-year-old Lincoln Heights home.

I’d always meant to go see Nancy and Rudy Tovar, sit on the front porch and hear their stories.

But I almost waited too long.

The cactus is still there, towering scarecrow stalks of it, and Nancy is feeling a little better after the last round of chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. But Rudy has had to move into a home in Rosemead…

When the World War II veteran moved into Nancy’s house, which turned 100 this year, his first move was to get rid of the lawn. He planted cactus and a brown turkey fig tree and raised chickens that laid blue, green and brown eggs. The lone rooster was so feisty they named him Macho Man.

They loved sitting on the front porch with their antiwar signs, with the cactus flowers in bloom, neighbors strolling by and planes circling over City Hall on the long loop to the beach.

The Chicago Tribune is inspired by the upcoming olympics to write about competitive gardening. I took an interest in the competitive succulent gardening section, of course.

Among the women of the Lake Forest Garden Club, the competitive spirit may be less muscular in its expression, but it is no less intense. Earlier this year, four of them spent months nurturing a jewel-like miniature landscape of junipers and succulents inspired by an Afghan rug woven in a traditional Persian garden design. The effort won their club a blue ribbon, defeating five other North Shore clubs in the Show of Summer, held at the Chicago Botanic Garden in June.

Good for them. They got written up in one of the largest newspapers in the country because of their skill putting together little itty bitty succulents with junipers. You just never know what the premier news writers in this country will find news worthy.

We love us some news roundups! and some exclamation points too! We do!

First up we finally find some pictures of the artificial cactuses! (since they’re artificial, I don’t think they’re “cacti”) being built to provide homes for the cactus wren at the Audubon Society.

Photos courtesy Irvine Ranch Conservancy.

Next up we have a desert newspaper telling us about how to make your desert garden high-style by using succulents! Well, that’s nuts! It’s not a possibility, it’s a requirement to have succulents, or the garden just isn’t stylish at all. Get with the program!

Low on water, high on style

“I got rid of a lot of lawn and all the ficus trees and then converted my yard to desert landscape”… Karvelis didn’t want to use tropical plants but his yard is still very colorful.

“People think of desert landscape as sand (and) rocks… but there are lots of flowering plants that work with little water.”

Now you know what it takes, so you too can get with the program.

And apparently succulents are getting even more popular in South Carolina! (since they’re experiencing a drought there too.)

“Drought is as common as thunderstorms and hot summer days…”

Use the right plants for the right spots… One suggestion is to use plants that hug the ground and have thick succulent foliage.

We agree.

And finally, we find that succulents are also becoming more popular in Washington too! Who knew?

The town of Methven somewhere in New Zealand is set to reap the benefits of a cactus programme. Well, who wouldn’t? I think you should get your town to start a cactus programme and then you too could reap the benefits.

Look at those smiling kids and their benefits-reaping. They’ve earned some very valuable cactus certificates.

Children in Methven will now have the opportunity to reap the benefits of a Cactus programme similar to the… Ashburton course.

Methven’s youth mentor Debbie Cameron will begin the programme there with the help of Ashburton youth support worker and Cactus co-ordinator Kerry Kampjes.

Wow.

Now, if only they told us what a cactus programme was, then we’d really be set to set up our own.

They eat them some weeds in South Dakota, if a noted local herbalist can be believed. Apparently, they even eat wild succulents, although they remain unnamed at this time. If I were a reporter I would call this person up and get a quote and ask for some names. Good thing I’m no reporter.

Dumdey, a certified herbalist and nutritional herbologist, had foraged the grasses, plants, flowers and succulents from her own herbal garden as well as the open fields and trails found in the Black Hills and near the Wyoming border.

“These plants can be found in your yards and along roads, but I would be careful about what I harvested,” she said.

Some might call me chicken, but I’l stick to the tried and true – well-cooked pork products, like bacon and ham, but especially bacon. 

Actually, we’re have an employee barbecue tonight and we’re not serving any pork at all. Local veggies, turkey dogs, and chicken sausages. Plus if Hap remembered, maybe some hamburgers too.

Have you noticed that my headlines are getting wordier? It may be that I’m getting a little punchy. I usually like very short, abstract headlines. But not right now.

Anyway, on to the fantastic news that I’m rounding up from around the world, to you. You’d be amazed at all the cactus and succulent news I ignore, only blogging the best of the best. (Yes, I know, shocking isn’t it.)

First up is an expensive spa treatment in South Carolina that includes smearing cactus on your face. ABC News reports:

On this weeks Wrinkle Free Wednesday we’re heading to Wisteria Salon and Spa who are doing their part to Go Green (with) a fully Organic Facial…

The ingredients include Argon, from Argon trees… and cactus.

Next up is some news you can use. So the Huntington Garden in SoCal has succulent classes, and if you’re in the area, the collection can’t be beat, so you might want to check it out. I’m just saying.

Aug. 14, 2:30 p.m. “Succulents for the Home Garden,” at the Huntington Gardens, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA 91108, (626) 405.2100.

John Trager, curator of desert collections at The Huntington, will discuss how to bring unexpected beauty, color, and diversity to the home landscape with succulent plants. A plant sale will follow the talk. Free.

But you don’t live in Southern California. You live in Denver, so what’s available for you? Well, Denver’s own Channel 9 News is on the beat:

KUSA – Gardeners love to plant. While lack of rain and high heat have curtailed most planting, one group of plants can still fulfill your creative urges: succulents. These desert plants lend themselves to a project during high summer.

One likely project is to plant a dry land garden in an old strawberry pot.

Now that’s just sensible.

Now for the big news: If you want your own local cactus news updates, then you know, send along those updates to me and I’ll blog them for you. Because that’s just the kind of cactus blogger that I am.

It’s a fine and clear but cloudy Monday morning. Today we’re going to the SF Gift Show. I hate the gift show.

Anyway, the San Francisco Chronicle tells you how to plant not just plants for your drought tolerant garden, but ones that will be fire-safe in the hills as well. Because it is basically true that if you stop watering your garden, your plants are more likely to provide tinder for a fire. Except for succulents. And a few other plants too.

Keeping the fuel load away from your home – and that means trees, heavy shrubbery, wooden decks and fences – is important, he said, but that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice privacy and or go without a garden or patio….

Even in drought conditions, a garden maintained with mulching and careful water use can offer a good defense against an encroaching fire, Egbert said….

California native plants are good for the perimeter beyond the cottage garden, where they add to the buffer and attract birds and butterflies, he said, and he favors “low stone walls that host bowls of succulents like ruffled leaf echeverias, blooming sedums and native dudley(a)s.

“Succulents are ideal fire-safe landscape candidates, with their thick water-retentive leaves and often-colorful waxy surfaces. The walls themselves help to reduce the spread of low flames and blowing sparks as permanent firebreaks.”

That was a large excerpt. I hope the writer, Laura Thomas, Chronicle Staff Writer, doesn’t mind.

Apparently we were a source of information for this article Cacti look sharp in local gardens from the Fort Myers (FL) News-Press.

It’s a nice article about cactus in Florida, so we approve. It would have been nice if they had called us to ask us questions, but it’s always nice to get credit when the website is used for an article. They also have some good pictures, so it wouldn’t hurt to click through.

Which is to say that many cactus and succulents do every bit as well here as hibiscus and heliconias do.

In fact, Florida has a number of native cactus species, some of which are found nowhere else on Earth, such as the Keys’ semaphore cactus. Plus, many exotic cactus and succulent species flourish here too….

They’re very easy to propagate from cuttings, he says. “In other parts of the country, people have to buy special soil to root them, but here, we’ve got it made — just stick them into the ground (provided it’s well-drained) and they grow.”…

— Sources: Richard McConville; cactusjungle.com; The University of Florida

Now I’ve been to Florida, and I’ve seen a few scraggly cacti around, but with the humidity the jungle cacti and tillandsias do best.

Here’s some more news in digest form about the wide world of cactus and advertising and coin collecting and food coloring too. Something for everyone. Plus I relate a story from my youth.

The Tunica (MS) Times has a cooking column, with a chatty host. In this column, they’re featuring pineapple chunks and sausage for something called “Hawaiian Combo.” But first the writer tells us about her cacti.

Most of the plants I keep in the upstairs sunroom are cactus or succulents because I forget to water them.

Good to know. Next up, those “Cactus Kid” ads for a new soft drink I featured recently…. Turns out they’re being protested for glamorizing teen pregnancy, or something.

The ASA has received 11 complaints that the ad is offensive because it normalises or glamourises teenage pregnancy and that it is also irresponsible for suggesting people should drink Oasis instead of water. There are also concerns about whether the female character is a minor and that the ad has been scheduled inappropriately.

Oy. Get a life.

Anyway, next on the agenda is nice. From France we read about antioxident food colorings in your diet.

The potent antioxidant activity of pigments from beet and cactus pears may be the key to their potential, suggests a new review from Brazil.

Red dyes in nature, don’t you know.

Lastly, I would hope you’re still with us, because this next one is super special to me, since I’ve been covering this story since the very beginning. Or else I’m just a little punchy putting together such a fabulous news roundup for you. Anyway, the Arizona State quarters with the Saguaros on them have an error.

So the next day, I decide what the heck, and have my local dealer pull a couple of rolls worth out of his mint bag. I got them home, and found about 1/3 had the “extra cactus” covering the designer’s initials (JFM) and 13 out of the 80 had the “extra cactus” covering both the initials and the date.

Wow. Big news in the numismatist world, indeed. I remember back when I was 12 and started collecting stamps and there was an error on a stamp from Botswana, and the philatelist world was up in arms.

My Mom recently sent me a package that included some foreign stamps I had collected and forgot about a long time ago. I was only 12 at the time. She was cleaning out the last of my stuff at the house, and that was the end of it. Now what do I do with these?

Partner and occasional co-blogger Hap got mentioned in a Houston, Texas newspaper. Here’s the full quote:

In 2005, I wrote a similar column about a cactus in an oak tree. We saw it in Fredericksburg, Texas. Back then, I spoke with Hap Hollibaugh of Cactus Jungle in Berkeley, Calif., and he said most likely the prickly pear was “simply an advantageous grower.” Seeds sometimes germinate in odd places if they find enough nutrients.

I’ve been remiss in bringing you the latest in cactus news, so here’s a classy and informative roundup of all the latest.

A woman in Jackson, Michigan sees a prickly pear cactus bloom, right in her own front yard. Good times. The newspaper as always likes to cover the phenomenon of cactus in bloom for local color.

“Before this year I could count the blooms, there were so few of them. This year I can’t keep up with it. One (petal) had 11 blooms all the way around the edge of it,” she said.

Some good news for the cactus wren.

MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Olson, the science and stewardship director at the Irvine Ranch Conservancy, has helped build 14 structures out of plastic pipe, flat-headed needles and barbed wire that are meant to simulate the knotty, thorny, succulent clusters that the wrens call home.

Olson and a crew of staff and interns began erecting the structures around Irvine’s foothill country Tuesday, close to real stands of cactus inhabited by the wrens.

“Half of it is getting the birds to nest in it,” he said as he loaded the structures into trucks. “The other half is to get them to nest successfully. Between the wind and the heat and the snakes – I hope this works.”

The El Paso Times, like other newspapers in Texas, likes to remind it’s readers that you can legally buy peyote from some vendors.

A sign in front of Mauro Morales’ Rio Grande City home announces his business for everyone to see. “Peyote Dealer,” it proclaims in large block letters….The slight, 65-year-old Rio Grande City man is one of only three people in the United States — all in Starr and Webb counties — authorized to harvest and sell the psychedelic cactus.

But as overharvesting continues to threaten peyote’s growth range in Starr County, he may not have much of a business for long — and Native Americans may lose their access to a substance that drives their religion.

Shall we try one more for today? How about a touching story about a woolly cactus in Santa Cruz?

This cactus can be made from fleece or felt, with pins doubling as cactus spines

One of our occasional customers has recently been inspired by Berkeley cactus gardens to create some cactus-inspired clothing. From Women’s Wear Daily:

CITY BY THE BAY GETAWAY: New York designer Koos van den Akker has found his ideal vacation spot, allowing him to keep a daily schedule sewing his signature collage sportswear for sale in his namesake Madison Avenue boutique. His summer getaway is in San Francisco in a seventh-floor fashion school classroom at the Academy of Art University, where he’s a designer in residence for two months. It’s a post of his own making, where he’s essentially created a West Coast atelier….

Koos had just explained to a student about the textured effect created when fraying fabric into strips and some of the principles of using collage in apparel. He then turned his attention to a coat he’s sewing for his boutique — a design inspired by cacti he’s seen in dry East Bay gardens. “The bright light in the Bay Area also reflects in my work,” said Koos.

I’m feeeling inspired myself to make some clothing-inspired mixed cacti pots. I wonder what it will be?…

In today’s cactus news (actually a couple weeks ago, but then nobody has ever called me prompt) we have a cactus picture with hats from the Casa Grande Dispatch.

Photo Alan Levine

And the caption, in the newspaper, really is this:

“I don’t know how many times I’ve told you boys to use the bathroom before we leave the house. OK, you’ll have to go behind that bush, but watch out for your shoes.”

I don’t know why, so stop asking me. Click through and see for yourself, and then write a letter to the editor. You have the power to stop this.

Yesterday I blogged a cactus toy in the news. So now I’m blogging another. I’ve contacted the manufacturer to see if we can carry this one at the store.

It’s a squeeky toy cactus. Presumably for dogs.

Actually, this is one we bought for Benjamin last year and he loved it.

From the Arizona Daily Star comes a news story featuring a cactus toy. It’s a balancing toy, or something. With little wooden parts.

I suppose you won’t get stuck with any cactus spines playing with this cactus, but you might get splinters. I suppose that’s inappropriate for me to say about a product I haven’t tried out. So I take it back. Not only won’t you get any spines with this cactus, you also won’t get any splinters. There. Well, that’s it for the cactus toy news for today. Check back tomorrow to see if there are any other news stories about cactus toys to report.

The night-blooming cereus flowers once a year, and, for the best performance in town, Tohono Chul Park is the place to be. The park, at 7366 N. Paseo del Norte, has more than 350 of the native cactus on its grounds, the largest collection in the world, Tohono Chul communications coordinator Glenn Nowak said.”They’re starting to open now. You can see them starting to show a little color,” Nowak said around 4:30 p.m.

Peniocereus greggii, the night-blooming cereus

Wow.

…. was started with seeds smuggled out of Nazi Germany in a matchbox. It sounds practically mythical, but that’s what Israelity tells us they learned from,

this wonderful old gardening book by Walter Frankl the other day

Here’s the quote in question.

The first importer of the many ornamental cacti you can now find at virtually every nursery in Israel today was a man called Israel Hebel, from Darmstadt in Germany.

He was a bank clerk by profession, and an amateur gardener and cacti lover by hobby.

When Hitler came to power, Hebel managed to escape Germany for Palestine, but the Nazis forced him to leave all his possessions behind. The only thing he did manage to smuggle out, however, was a matchbox full of hundreds of tiny cactus seeds.

The Hexham Courant has a list of very fine reasons why you should be planting succulents in your UK garden.

Well, not a whole list, mind you. Not even a list at all. More like one reason tucked into an article about something else entirely.

GARDEN pests are not all green and wriggly or brown and multi-legged. Some have just two legs, strong arms and an un-marked white van.

These garden pests are not after your tender succulents; they crave your top-of-the-range Hayter, your granite Japanese pagoda, and your bronze planters.

We in the North East spend almost £100m annually on our gardens – that works out at £100 for every household. And every year a percentage of us lose our carefully-selected garden additions to thieves.

One home insurer, Sainsbury’s, estimates its average payout for theft from gardens is nearly £300, and warns people to take action now.

That is something I never thought about, planting succulents because the thieves don’t want them. Good to know.

The Arizona Daily Star lets readers take over the paper and publish articles, pictures, crossword puzzles, musings, meanderings, and mappings.

Here we have a cactus in bloom submitted by Melissa Bowersock.

Apricot Glow (orange) and First Light (pink) are among the varieties of hybrid Trichocereus growing in the Bowersocks’ yard.

Suncalc tells you how much sun you’re getting. You didn’t know how much sun you were getting? Then this is the tool for you.

On the other hand, what do you mean you don’t know how much sun you’re getting? I don’t understand. Are your sunglasses too dark?

Who are the customers for this product? Gadget-mania leaves the kitchen and comes to the garden. Oy.

Yesterday I posted on a report on the loss of desert habitat in Arizona and Nevada. Today the San Francisco Chronicle looks at soon to be lost habitat in California.

The Woolyleaf ceanothus would be at risk if California’s climate becomes much hotter, a study says. Photo by Michelle Cloud-Hughes, special to the Chronicle…

If temperatures rise rapidly in California this century, up to two-thirds of the state’s native plants might lose large swaths of suitable habitat, according to a new study….

“The pace of climate change in the next 100 years poses a very serious threat to California’s native plants,” said David Ackerly, a UC Berkeley biology professor and an author of the new study published in the PLoS One, the Public Library of Science.

Scientists know that plants can respond to changing climate over thousands of years, Ackerly said. “But in less than a century, there is very little chance for plants to establish new populations and to migrate to keep up with these dramatic changes.”

What can you do? Small – stuff and big stuff.

Interesting how such beautiful pictures can really change a discussion. Usually we see pictures of bears and tree frogs and other endangered animals. But plant pictures can be just as powerful. I’m really kind of dazzled by the blue.

A cactus in Chico, CA threatens to topple over and is frightening the locals.

“I worry about it all the time. I worry about it falling over,” said Schroeder.
Because of its outlandish size, the cactus has become a land mark at Casa de Flores. Especially during the Spring time when it is in bloom.

“Oh we love it, we think it’s one of the most beautiful things we have in this park,” said resident Peggy Moak.

“Oh yes, it’s beautiful,” added Virginia Nolan.