Cactus Blog

There aren’t any succulents in this green wall, but it’s EDIBLE! and that’s cool too.

Atlanta Botanical Garden

The design is a fulfillment of the possibilities of CROP CIRCLES! and that’s cool too. There’s a crabapple orchard, a vegetable amphitheater, espaliered fruit trees, and more. Reach out and pick a piece.

Pt. Reyes Lupines threatened by invasive beach grass, with the help of a cute little native mouse.

It’s a battle between an invasive plant and a native plant, but with a new twist. The two plants, European beachgrass and Tidestrom’s lupine, are not in direct competition, and yet the beachgrass is helping to drive the lupine over the cliff.

European beachgrass provides cover that allows a timid deer mouse to get close enough to the lupine to snip off stalks of lupine fruits without being nabbed by overflying birds.

How cute is that little mouse? This cute:

Awwww…..

Scientists from the University of Arkansas announced at the Ecological Society of America annual meeting the results of a study that showed genetically engineered pesticide-resistant canola growing like a weed in North Dakota. They found that up to 80 percent of wild canola in their sample from various North Dakota roadsides contained genes that conferred resistance to either glyphosate (the active ingredient in Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready pesticide) or gluphosinate (from Bayer’s LibertyLink seeds).

But it gets better, er, worse. The scientists also found wild canola with both properties. And as lead scientist Cynthia Sagers observed in an accompanying news report, “these feral populations of canola have been part of the landscape for several generations” — plant generations, mind you, not human generations. Still, this is not a new phenomenon. It’s true that biotech companies do sell seeds with multiple forms of pesticide resistance, so-called “stacked trait” seeds. But these wild canola plants managed this interbreeding feat all by their lonesome.

So, these genetically engineered plants — which, when out in the wild, are considered weeds — are cross-pollinating and transferring “alien” genes that confer pesticide resistance. The next step in the chain is for the canola to interbreed with other related weeds. Suddenly, the prospect of our nation’s bread basket infested with superweeds becomes very, very real.

Can you plant a roof with sedums and sempervivums and other green roof succulents AND still have room for solar panel? Well, they’re doing the research in Oregon, and the picture seems to imply they’ve already reached an answer.

Heather Noddings/Portland State Vanguard
Eco-roofs: Eco-roofs are being studied at PSU through a grant from the National Science Foundation.

If you can’t plant a green roof, it turns out, painting your roof white is a pretty good step.

via Having White Roofs Would Save the U.S. $735 Million per Year | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World.

Lion cubs in the Santa Monica Mountains.

The harissia cactus was introduced as a pot plant over 100 years ago and has since spread throughout a lot of Queensland.

The Banana Shire Council’s rural services coordinator Gordon Twiner says they are working with landholders to try to get on top of the cactus which is spread by birds.

Foreign languages, even when in English, are odd and confusing. Did you know the cactus was a “pot plant” in the “Banana Shire” and that “landholders” want to be “on top of the cactus”? Interesting. Let me translate that for you using google translate, into german and back to english. We get this:

The harissia cactus was introduced as a potted plant over 100 years ago and has since spread a lot of Queensland.

The Banana Shire’s rural services coordinator Gordon climbing plant, it says landowners are working to try on top of the cactus, which is spread by birds receive.

That didn’t work out too well. It did translate “pot plant” into “potted plant” and “landholder” into “landowner” so that was good. Now if only we knew what this “Banana Shire” was and why the people there want to sit on the cactus?

The Harrisia cactus is a night-blooming cereus known as the Moon Cactus (Harrisia martinii). Hard to know why it would be considered a dangerous weed from that photo.

The blooms are stunning! This can’t be a problem cactus to anyone.

Here we see why it’s a problem when it has escaped into the Australian wilds. Indeed that does look like a problem. If someone wants to send me some cuttings, I’ll be happy to research the plant.

It’s French.

With a curvy green roof… Wave House has a double-skin polycarbonate glass facade and a vegetated surface to shield against summer heat and winter cold.

According to architect Patrick Nadeau, the plants, which include…  succulents… were selected for “both for their aesthetic qualities as well as their natural resistance and minimal need for for maintenance.”

The italics are in the original, tho’ I don’t know why. High concept architecture.

Limahuli Valley on Kauai’s North Shore, with its green-mantled spires of volcanic rock, starred as Bali Hai in the movie “South Pacific.” The Limahuli Garden, one of five units of the National Tropical Botanical Garden, occupies 17 acres of this improbably gorgeous place; an additional 985 acres preserve remnant upland forest….

Limahuli’s signature plant is the alula (Brighamia insignis), a lobelia relative that could have been a Dr. Seuss invention; it’s been described as “a cabbage on top of a bowling pin.” The alula’s natural habitat is the precipitous Na Pali cliffs, where only a few individuals remain. No one has ever seen its pollinator in action; some speculate that it may be the elusive green sphinx moth, or something even more rare, if not extinct. Botanical garden botanists have rappelled down the vertical cliffs to hand-pollinate alula plants in situ. Alula has been successfully propagated by Martin Grantham at San Francisco State University, among others – but is hard to keep alive. An attempted introduction at Kilauea Point is looking unsuccessful. It really misses its cliffs, where it’s being displaced by the likes of invasive sanseveria, the familiar houseplant “mother-in-law’s tongue.”

The SF Chron didn’t include any pictures. Here’s a picture of one of our plants:

Flower closeup after the break… (more…)

A simple gray bird on a towering saguaro with astonishing creamy blooms, from Living the Scientific Life.

Image: Terry Sohl, 8 May 2008 [larger view]

Glue traps for mice and rats.

It started innocently enough as an attempt to get rid of some pack rats around my home – a frustrating process as many Tucsonans know well….

I purchased two large glue traps, which are coated with a scented sticky substance that attracts rats or mice, which then get stuck.

The traps worked as advertised, catching three small pack rats. But I was horrified to discover that one trap also held a Western screech owl, an adorable species about 8 inches tall, which has had its habitat hammered by development. It wildly flapped its wings, trilled and barked, in a futile effort to escape.
Now what to do? An Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum staffer told me to call Janet or Lewis Miller at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northwest Tucson. Janet told me to carefully wrap the bird in a towel and bring it in….

Lots of human activities maim birds and animals but one of the worst, according to the Millers, are glue traps, which ensnare screech and elf owls, Gila woodpeckers and cactus wrens….

Lewis first used mineral oil to dissolve the sticky substance on the screech owl’s feathers and beak; then Janet used a small dropper to feed it liquid electrolytes to replace those lost by the bird during this horrific experience. A volunteer readied a cage in a warm area. A wash with Dawn dish soap will follow and plenty of feedings over the next couple of days. As of this writing, I don’t know whether my screech owl will survive.

Even with the development crash in Nevada, the edges of Las Vegas are still growing. This time into protected cactus territory.

A state-protected cactus may become a thorny snag for a developer with plans to build a subdivision near Red Rock Canyon….

But growing on the hillside land is the Blue Diamond cholla, a stubby, big-needled cactus that is among 24 plants the state considers “critically endangered.”…

Public opposition to Rhodes’ plan is growing among those who want to protect the cactus.

Well now that is a first – a group of Nevadans trying to slow development encroaching on the desert!

Blue Diamond Cholla is Cylindropuntia multigeniculata and the picture is from Bird and Hike, plus they have a dozen more photos including bright yellow flower pictures of the Blue Diamond. Nice!

We feature a lot of drought tolerant plants on the cactus blog. Cactus, for instance. But it turns out there is another solution for plants – becoming a nomad; getting up and going where the water flows.

It’s a nomadic plant from Mexican artist Gilberto Esparza. (via good blog, images from plantas nomadas)

It’s good news in the Southern Tablelands of Australia – the amphibians are making a comeback.

“Extinct” yellow-spotted bell frog found after 30 years

OK, so if you read the article, they’re not making a comeback so much as hiding out and doing their best to avoid people.

From CNN we find out a common herbicide used in the US but banned in Europe may be the leading cause of falling amphibian populations.

Atrazine, a weed killer widely used in the Midwestern United States and other agricultural areas of the world, can chemically “castrate” male frogs…

Farmers in the United States continue to use atrazine on crops The herbicide has been a long-standing favorite among corn, sorghum and sugarcane farmers because t is affordable and can eliminate the need for tilling it is affordable and can eliminate the need for tilling the soil. Tens of millions of pounds of atrazine are used each year in the United States.

Life on the Balcony went to Knott’s Berry Farm, the other amusement park in Anaheim, and found green roofed trash cans! She let us post a picture, but I think there’ll be more photos on her blog soon, too.

Here’s another green roof project in Orange County.

The commissioners recently approved funding for a green roof for the Sustainable Technologies Building and a wastewater recycle system to serve that building and the (Central Carolina Community College’s) Chatham Community Library, which is also going up at the campus…. “The commissioners felt that sustainable technologies are a critical part of CCCC-Chatham,”

Of course, that will be Orange County, NC.

Well how about this one, another green roof in Orange County.

it’s Hartford’s Hollander Center, a LEED-EB candidate that recently broke out the first green roof in Connecticut’s capital city.

OK, so this must be from a green company based in Orange, CT. Shall we try one more time? One more attempt at a green roof in Orange County?

Duke Medicine’s commitment to sustainabililty has reached new heights with Duke University Hospital’s recently completed green roof project.

A green roof features vegetation planted over a waterproofing membrane. Besides being nice to look at, green roof vegetation can enhance the energy performance of a building by mitigating heat.

Well, at least they’ve established a succulent farm for new green roof projects in North Carolina.

Last year, Duke Medicine helped sponsor the creation of a local sedum farm in Orange County, North Carolina. The farm is growing the pre-cultivated mats with sedum species more indigenous to our climate.

There’s that Orange County again! Curse you google!

Well, back to California, apparently the Irvine Medical Center has a green roof, but I can’t find a photo.

Could these heavy rains presage even heavier rains to come?

Discovery News has this story of a team of scientists modeling a, “MONSTER ‘FRANKENSTORM’”,

The recent California storms left the state battered and bruised, but that could just be a taster of things to come.

Nice.

And what has a monster storm looked like in California in the past? Like this one:

Oy, that’s not good. The Great California Flood of 1862,

transformed the Sacramento Valley into an inland sea, covering the tops of telegraph poles with steamboats passing over the farmlands to deliver goods and rescue survivors. The Santa Ana River formed two large lakes – one in the Inland Empire and another in the flood plain of Orange County. Probably the only definite high water mark in Southern California is at the Aqua Mansa, just south of the present city of Colton. Hydrologic studies at Aqua Mansa, document a discharge in 1862, three times the magnitude of anything since.

Of course, driving to Sacramento in winter normally the Sacramento river basin is usually flooded and looks like a lake. Even if that hasn’t happened in the last few drought years, it’s not uncommon. That’s why they don’t build houses on flood plains. Or shouldn’t.

Rat-eating plants do exist! Nepenthes attenboroughii.

“The plant is among the largest of all carnivorous plant species and produces spectacular traps.” Co-discoverer Stewart McPherson

And another picture from io9

Growing succulents for green roofs is becoming a big business. We’ve sold some, but you really need to work in large volumes, and we’re too urban for that.

On the other hand, Southern Maryland seems like it would be the perfect place.

John Shepley shows one of the many green roof plants grown on the farm. (Photo by Maryland Newsline’s Lindsay Gsell)

Rows and rows of small sedums, delosperma and other green roof plants sit below, soaking up the sun in their newly insulated home.

These plants have been the sole focus and cash crop of the farm since 1998. Nearly a million of them are grown each year for green roofs around the country, says Shepley, a former electrical engineer who is now co-owner of the business.

The National Aquarium in Baltimore, the Walter Reed Community Center in Washington, D.C., and Radio Shack’s World Headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, are among the farm’s more than 400 clients.

Wow.

“This review shows that the Obama administration has not substantially improved the dismal record of the Bush administration in providing protection to the nation’s critically endangered wildlife,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity….

“Continued delays in protection of these 249 species is a failure of leadership by Interior Secretary Salazar,” said Greenwald….

Florida semaphore cactus: The Florida semaphore cactus has been waiting for protection for six years. It is a large prickly pear cactus from the Florida Keys that was thought to have been driven extinct by cactus collectors and road construction in the late 1970s, but was rediscovered in the mid-1980s. Much of its historic habitat has fallen prey to development, destruction, and fragmentation. Only two populations remain.