The Washington Post visits the famous architectural something-or-other.

Arcosanti was started in the 1970s by Italian architect Paolo Soleri, a spitfire who seeks an alternative to a car-dominant, hyper-consumerist society….

“Arcosanti is both a success and a failure….”

The property sits on 15 cactus-strewn acres.

So that’s how they do it! Eco-living is determined by how many cactus you have strewn about! Good enough for me. No need to read the rest of the article.

I did like the correction appended to the article.

A previous version of this article incorrectly said that Steven Spielberg was inspired by the architecture of Arcosanti. It was George Lucas’s team that drew inspiration from the desert designs for the “Star Wars” movies.

Nice.

Who says you can’t make wine from Cactus? Just ask the Coppola winery, up in Napa. From Wine Spectator:

(Francis Ford) Coppola has… supplied the obtuse travel diary of one 26-year-old “Nick,” who has been sent to Europe in search of wine-based adventure and discovery, with decidedly mixed results. Here’s Nick on Luxembourg: “…um, anyone know what language they speak in Luxembourg?”

Wait, that wasn’t the cactus part of the news. Let me see, here it is, further down in the article, below the picture of the cactus. It turns out that Coppola has nothing to do with the cactus wine at all. I must have just wanted to name drop on the blog to increase hits.

Anhui Cactus winery is currently marketing a range of drinks made from a combination of Languedoc vins de pays and cactus juice. The red and white wine drinks, sold under the label “Cactus,” contain 5 percent of the prickly plant’s juice—not a lot, but enough to knock your socks off. “It’s similar to a cactus-flavored Campari,” said company spokesperson Eric Lathan. Chinese drinkers, who prize cactus juice for its nutritive and energy-giving qualities, purchased more than a million bottles of the brand last year. Lathan added, “You can pick up the [cactus] aromas straight away and the attack on the palate is really surprising.”

Who wouldn’t want to replace your lawn with 10,000 succulents?

Xeriscape landscapes are kinder to the environment and less expensive than lawns because they don’t require a lot of watering.

For many yards here, succulents and cactuses achieve all of the above without soil amendments.

Mitch Kessler has 10,000 of the plants in his North Tampa yard. “They’re eco-friendly and require almost no care,” he says.

My parents live near Tampa in the winters now. They have no yard at all, what with living in a condo. But they do have lots of Tillandsias in the trees on the property.

Anyway, that article was from the Tampa Tribune.

McClatchy News has a simple and unassuming article about going green in Texas, referring to LEED certified homes and such. But what I was interested in was the clear and unambiguous competition between cactus and bamboo. Which is greener? Which will win out for more points in your LEED certification process that your architect can check off the list?

“It’s pretty much an experiment,” says Ward, 52, of his new home…

“Cork, stucco, wood, cinder block, steel, laminate … they’re just used in a more precise way.”…

Low-maintenance mass plantings of cactus and native grasses add subtle texture, and a few potted plants such as bamboo and succulents blend well with the home’s tactile exterior.

Aha! We have a winner! The cactus are planted in the ground while the bamboo, poor things, are stuck, even confined, in pots. Over time, the entire yard will be overtaken by the prickly pears, while the bamboo will eventually outgrow the pot and die. It is very sad to see a competition like this get so brutal, so very very brutal.

(T)he Center for Creative Photography’s… current exhibition (is) “Debating Modern Photography: The Triumph of Group f/64,”

Then there are the unique close-up observations of plants and flowers — cactus and aloe and succulents and buds and blossoms by Brett Weston, Noskowiak and others. These images of humble, simple objects, simultaneously detailed and sparse, slow us down, call us to a peaceful attentiveness….

They favored using the f/64 aperture lens setting, the one that provided the greatest depth of field, the most detail, the sharpest focus. They used large-format cameras and made contact prints on glossy gelatin silver paper.

This was revolutionary.

In late 1932, in San Francisco, a group of these photographers — Group f/64 — held its first exhibition at the de Young Memorial Museum. The show included work by group members Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Willard Van Dyke, Sonya Noskowiak, and Imogen Cunningham…

From the Arizona Daily Star

The Tuscaloosa (AL) News likes cactus and succulents for your container garden. I think I should collect a list of all the newspapers that think you should make a succulent container garden. I wonder if it’s all Martha’s fault. She was first, of course, recommending them a year ago.

Container gardening is a rapidly growing garden trend….

A shallow dish or saucer is fine for cactus and succulents.

See, it’s a trend. I blame Martha Stewart.

North of us got a bad freeze last weekend. The SF Chronicle says that Sonoma and Napa Counties got into the 20s. We got down to about 40, maybe the high 30s, which was very cold for us this late, but no frost. Our succulents have come through it just fine. I didn’t even know they had such a freeze just a few miles north of here until the paper told me so.

The worst spring cold snap in more than 30 years is threatening to wreak havoc on the wine industry as three recent days of frost have killed grapevine buds up and down the crucial North Coast vineyard region.

Poor little grapes, frozen before they even had a chance. I hope this doesn’t disturb the bees. We’ve had a resurgence of bees at the nursery this year, what with all the new California Natives we’ve been growing. They love the Ceanothus griseus.

It’s true, there are succulents in Iowa.

I know this because I read the Davenport Library Info Cafe online newsletter. You should too, you know.

Gwen Kelaidis’ Hardy Succulents will open your eyes to the many forms, varieties and colors succulents come in, and will show you how to integrate them in your existing landscape. She also offers tips for how best to grow them, the best varieties for cold regions, and combinations for container gardens.

Well, I guess that was obvious – it’s a library newsletter, so they’re not talking about succulents in Iowa, they’re talking about books in Iowa. Books about Succulents. Good grief, what was I thinking reading the Davenport Library Info Cafe newsletter? Will someone please get me some coffee this morning?

It turns out that the Las Vegas Water Authority is trying to get local residents to use less water. Who would have thought? I wonder if they’re trying to get the casinos to use less water? Hardly. Just local residents, it turns out. The LV Review Journal has the story.

The SNWA Landscape Awards honor creative and beautiful water-smart landscapes. Aestheticism and plant selection are key judging points, so if your landscape is mostly rocks, consider upgrading it…

OK, but who can do the landscaping for you, so you don’t have to, before you submit your landscape for an award? Why, here’s that info…

Q: Can you give me a name of a reliable landscape contractor to put in a xeriscape landscape?

A: Go to www.snwa.com and look under landscapes for a list of “Water-Smart Contractors,” who are SNWA trained and certified with emphasis on water conservation and installing proper irrigation systems. If you have questions about contractors you are considering, contact either the Nevada State Contractors Board and Better Business Bureau.

Now you know everything you need to know about Las Vegas.

It’s probably enough already about Home Depot, what with all the insults being thrown around here. So on to the Cactus. The Providence Journal has some article or other about Broadway star Mandy Patinkin and his Cactus Farm in Rhode Island, or something like that.

Well, I guess that wasn’t the topic of the article at all. I’m just a little distracted, what with this whole Home Depot theme I’ve attached to these posts all day long. What if they sue me? Will I take down these posts? Will I step up the insults? Will I start a new site called homedepotplantssuck.com? Only time will tell…

I think I mentioned earlier that today is Pick on Home Depot Day here at the Cactus Blog. I don’t know why. It’s not like I have anything particular to say about them. Well, I do, but it’s probably not printable in a family blog. (Which is why it’s good this is not a family blog.) But first, we have these lovely terrestrial bromeliad blooms making big news in the Liverpool Daily News, which I believe is in England.

Odd that they would say it’s in the cactus family, when of course it’s in the bromeliad family. I know the news will call any spikey plant a cactus, which one could see as a colloqiual reference, but actually using a botanical reference seems a bit too much of an error.

Anyway, we were talking about Home Depot. Here’s one thing they do wrong: they overwater the cactus so that you have to buy them within a day or two of them arriving or they’re already half dead. We get people at the nursery bringing in the cactus they bought at Home Depot, and they’re half-dead. So you know, you’re rescuing the plants you buy from Home Depot, so you better be ready for the extra work. And it’s just like buying a puppy from a mall pet store – you’re rescuing the poor thing, but then they just fill in behind with another poorly bred dog, thus encouraging bad practices down the line. You should find yourself a reputable breeder, whether you’re buying dogs or plants.

That whole paragraph really went off the rails. I find it entertaining when I write in a run-on sentence kind of way. I hope you do too.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reviews a new book on succulents:

I haven’t read it, but I do know that nobody at Home Depot has read it either, because they’re illiterate there, and they wear funny clothes, and they don’t like healthy plants either. Yes, that’s right, they prefer sickly plants at Home Depot, because that way they know that I’m really just writing satirically and not even a little bit trying to libel them, even though they really do prefer ugly plants at Home Depot. And they eat cheetos too.

The Orange County Register recommends Agaves for your garden.

AGAVE ATTENUATA: The soft succulent is easy to propagate.

Photo: CHAS METIVIER, FOR THE REGISTER

Did I mention that you can get agaves at all your quality local nurseries? And places like Home Depot almost never have any good ones? Those guys are just sad. Now that’s a real specimen plant that you just won’t find at a place like Lowe’s either.

The Houston Chronicle recommends planting succulents and then go ahead, line it up on your railing, because its easy.

Yeah, whatever. Just keep buying those plants from your local independent garden center, or I’ll be very upset with you. Home Depot is the devil. There, I’ve said it. Now what are you going to do?

And don’t think I say this just because I own an independent garden center myself. Of course, I think of it more as a small local specialty nursery, but Home Depot has been the devil long before I ever started gardening. And they smell bad too.

In West Palm Beach, FL, WPTV News closely follows the story of a dove that nested in a cactus. This very important local story, oddly enough, did not make the national news channels. Not even Foxnews. So I am rescuing this story from the trashheap of news stories heaped up on that pile of, well, trashy stories, and printing it right here, right now, for you.

Good lord, who cares.

Chrysler is paying for cactus on the streets of Detroit. That’s just a mystery to be solved.

Oh. Never mind.

More cactus news from England. This time the North Devon Gazette is giving you advance warning of a show coming up. I wonder if it’s the same show that was mentioned in the previous article. Probably not. I bet North Devon and Newbury are hundreds of miles away from each other. But then, I don’t really know, now do I? Fortunately, I have this tool I like to call the internet. So, here we are, google maps, and it turns out that North Devon is near Plymouth, while Newbury is near Reading, which of course means they are a couple hundred miles apart, and thus are probably not sharing a cactus show.

What was this entry supposed to be about? Oh yeah, the North Devon Garden Show.

There you go.

Newbury (England, UK) Today has the story of a man and his cacti; for today is the day that the local newpaper features the local residents and their local hobbies gone wild. Photos are included, so we residents across the pond can be sure of that we read is true.

The incredible collection of cacti and succulents amassed by Dylan Collins is one the biggest in the south. And part of it is going to be on show from this week as Mr Collins launches his new venture – a plant nursery called Down 2 Earth at Lower Henwick Farm off Turnpike Lane, Newbury….

Mr Collins, aged 39, has… inherited some from the collections of his mother and grandmother.

I see what they mean.

Domino Magazine’s Ivette Soler has learned the harsh lesson of the Agave life cycle.

(M)y prized variegated Agave attenuata – I bought it about eight or nine years ago at a cactus and succulent show…. I had a coronary – it was a $150 succulent in a one gallon pot….

And then came the freeze (last year)… I was so devastated I cut the melted leaves of ooze from the stem and stuck the pot somewhere in the dark recesses of the garden.

I stumbled upon that pot yesterday. Look at it. Pups. Plural. Meaning more than one. And gorgeous.

Now that’s what I call a variegated agave. And a happy ending. Maybe she should be selling some of those pups on ebay, or offer them to me, direct.

The Green Valley News and Sun is happy that it’s finally April, so they can plant the cactus, and watch them bloom. In black and white.

Beaver Tail Prickly Pear bloom in mid-to-late April.

MARY KIDNOCKER PHOTO

Watch what happens in May after they’re done blooming – I’ll bet you they eat them in the Green Valley of Arizona.

In El Paso they fret over wintering plants. So they build them a greenhouse or two. And you would do well to follow suit, so you too can have happy and healthy cactus this time of year. And hothouse tomatoes too. From the El Paso Times.

We just got a desert tortoise, sort of a rescue. I hope our red-foots like her.

Succulents and Art come together at a Brewery in Los Angeles, or something. The LA Times confuses me.

Holly Tempo’s small but aesthetically balanced and ordered garden of specimen plants in metallic containers. Her flowering palette begins with yellows and oranges and reds and moves to purple as the seasons change. (Photo: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

I see aloes. Do you see aloes? And crassulas too.

The cactus quail return to Colorado, so it must be spring. While not as famous as the swallows who have already returned to Capistrano, it’s all good.

Via the Pueblo Chieftain

Now what I want to know is where to find a good jasmine tea in Wichita.

Big News on the Marianas, according to the Marianas Variety:

There are no pictures to prove the truth of the three-flower claim.

They’re still wearing winter coats in Kansas, so the Wichita Eagle tells us.

I wish there were some way we could bring some of our California sunshine to those hardy souls in Kansas still wearing winter coats. I know, let’s vote for Obama!

Well, sure, Kansas already voted back in February, but what about Nebraska? They’re waiting for the good weather to arrive in May before voting. Smart move, Nebraskans.

They go for the experiments in Scottsdale, AZ, so I’m told, by the Scottsdale Tribune.

I don’t know what any of this means. It’s a deep and abiding mystery why General Petraeus is saying today that we still have to wait to see if the surge is working in Iraq.

Time to start rationing water in the dry West. The Las Cruces (NM) Sun-News is urging you to stop wtaering your lawn, or better yet, to replace it entirely.

Now I want to be sure we all understand that if we want to have the opportunity to plant cactus in our gardens, then we all have to do our part to support our local cactus stores.

What is it about the Japanese and tiny things? They like to miniaturize everything, including the plants. In this case, the succulents.

From Fashionably Cute comes this tour of a new store in Tokyo called Solxsol. Well, that’s what they say, but I can’t verify the details for you since I am not in Japan, and don’t plan on going there next January. I suppose I could google them, or call someone to verify, but the pretty picture is proof enough for me, for I am a blogger.