Cactus Blog

Saipua has been mixing plants for clients. Here’s a picture of a peony and a Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi and some other stuff too. A very particular style results.

Special early Thursday edition.

And it’s on such a soft and fuzzy plant, no less.

Uncarina peltata

It’s a shrubby caudex that will grow to 10 ft. tall. It will have golden trumpet flowers with a spectacular purple throat, I assure you. Stayed tuned for more photos as this bud opens, petals wide open.

We grow these indoors here. Maybe you can have them outdoors where you are. Where are you? These Uncarinas look to me like they’re from the Arabian peninsula. Maybe I’ll go check that out for you. Hold on while I google it.

Nope! They’re from Madagascar, like every other fantastical plant on the planet.

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.

Gardening in Central Florida shows what can happen to a cactus, even in central Florida: It Blooms! This is some type of Echinopsis. Hard to see the plant behind the flower to know for sure. But it’s sure pretty.

…How do you repot a succulent?

It’s my long-awaited and eagerly anticipated tour-de-force instructional video. 2 minutes long! Unfortunately, Brad begged out of playing the lead at the last minute, so I had to take over. And Bob was asking for too much to use one of his older songs, so the editors did the best they could, and I think they did a fantastic job with the material I gave them. Oy, the material I gave them…

And now you know.

Yesterday the flower almost opened, but not quite. Now it’s fully open.

Echinopsis pachanoi

Pretty spectacular giant white blooms.

Danielle’s little nopal grew an arm, as documented on Danielle’s Garden Blog. It’s very precious, so be careful not to disturb it, or the whole thing may break off and then where would we be?

Ferocactus pottsi

These barrels are from Mexico and get around 16″ across, plus a whole lot taller eventually. We’re not really sure what species this is, but we’ve done our best looking through all our sources to identify it as F. pottsi. We waited for the blooms, which are yellow thus ruling out F. diguetii, to be sure.

I like this picture of the buds better than the picture of the yellow blooms I have. Kind of looks Eastern Orthodox.

I may share the bloom photo too; who can tell for sure what I’m thinking.

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

It’s late in the day, and this flower is trying to open before evening, but it won’t make it. Tomorrow….

So for now it has taken on this very weird floppy partially open look.

Echinopsis pachanoi, San Pedro Cactus

From Peru, so they tell me. This plant is very popular with the college students here in Berkeley, not that I would know why. We recommend you plant it in your back yard, where the college students won’t find it.

Maybe tomorrow if the bloom is fully open I’ll take another picture. Would you like that?

Here we have a lovely spotted flower coming out of some standard-issue green stems with little spiny pointy things.

Huernia guttata reticulata

Shall we look closer?

Click the closeup for a bigger closeup.

Now this little gem is an easy to grow, easy to bloom plant from South Africa, Western Cape, that rewards with many thick green 3″ stems. They form a dense mat that can produce many of these flowers with variable sized spottings. Some have big red spoltchy spots, while others have tiny little fine spots. All have that very interesting structure inside, protected by some little bloom spines! They are a carrion flower, and so attract beetles and such. It’s a ground hugging bloom which is how I know it’s for beetles and not flies.

We keep them indoors where the beetles don’t find them, because that’s just the way we are.

It’s true, the Old Man Cacti all have blooms too.

Pilosocereus leucocephalus, also known as the Woolly Torch

Variable columnar cactus from all over South America. Gets the woolly, or hairy, “cephalum” near where it’s going to bloom. It’s an indication of sexual maturity in the plant. However, unlike true cephalum which are thickly hairy at the top or on one side only, this cactus will get a full column of hair up and down, with just a little extra dollop of hairiness near the bloom spots. It’s special. Also faster growing than the Oreocereuses. Will get over 20 ft. tall.

This is not a plant we are selling at the nursery. This picture is from my front yard garden. I had to bring the black backdrop home from the store to take this photo. But I forgot, so I found a piece of gray construction paper and used that as a backdrop and then made it black in photoshop. You’d never have known if I hadn’t told you.

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?…