Cactus Blog

Learn how to draw a desert landscape with How Stuff Works.

You too can learn to draw this:

And how do you do that?

In this section, we’ll show you how to draw this desert cacti landscape. You can draw it freehand while looking at your computer monitor, or you can print out this page to get a closer look at each step.

Here, we’ll show you an illustration of each step and then give you a description of how to draw it. Follow the red lines in each illustration to learn…

OK, that is not what I want to learn how to draw. I would prefer to learn how to draw this Zombie Cactus, Pepito, from kitsunekei1.

Alas, there are no instructions.

Cactus in the desert can have wide spreading shallow roots. But what about in wetter areas like here, this winter?

Cactus Museum has this to say.

Roots: Cactus roots help to gather and preserve water in several ways. In some cacti, shallow, extensive root systems spread laterally away from the plant (e.g. some prickly pear roots spread 10 to 15 feet away). In brief showers which only wet a few inches of soil, the shallow roots help the plant maximize water intake from a large area.

Cactus roots also change characteristics as the water supply fluctuates. After a rainfall, existing dehydrated roots become more water conductive and new rain roots are formed to help soak up water. In times of drought, the rain roots shrivel and fall off and the existing roots dehydrate. The shrinkage of the existing roots creates an air gap that helps to prevent water in the roots from escaping back to the soil. A corky layer on the roots also helps to prevent water loss.

Now that may be true in the desert, but we have found in a densely planted garden where there is water down in the (fast-draining) soil (that you’ve added or amended in your garden), the roots can be deeper. Competition between adjacent plants will cause roots to try deeper than wider, and when they find water down there, which they won’t in the desert but they will in your garden, they’ll want to stay down there.

In fact, we notice that they will go down until they hit the water table in winter, and then they’ll rot off back up to the drier parts of the soil, which also tends to match up with the depth to which you amended your soil to make it faster draining.

This will then cause them to spend the early part of spring growing new roots before they start growing new branches. Every year this cycle repeats, and if you haven’t amended your soil deep enough, then eventually the cactus will fail.

The Lesson: make sure you have amended your soil to be fast draining deep enough that the roots will have plenty of depth to establish and survive the winters. For larger cactus, we recommend at least 2 feet of depth, and don’t crowd them too close to each other either. Give the roots room to grow above the winter water table.

I share with you this video.

DoitYourself.com has instructions in growing barrel cactus from seed. It seems very complicated. And you need lot’s of tools. I wonder if we do all of this when we grow them from seed?

Grow a Barrel Cactus from a Seed

Tools and Materials Needed:
(long list deleted in this excerpt. click through for full info.)

Step 1 – Collect Seeds
Step 2 – Remove the Seeds from the Pods
Step 3 – Soak the Seeds
Step 4 – Prepare the Potting Soil
Step 5 – Set the Seeds
Step 6 – Distribute the Seeds
Step 7 – Wait for Germination
Step 8 – Transfer to Pots
Step 9 – Final Positioning

Wow, that’s a lot to keep track of. I wonder how the plants do all that themselves in the wild?

Here’s a picture of a barrel cactus seed pods.

You can see the “seed pod,” also known as the fruit, in the back to the left behind the bloom. I was looking through all my ferocactus photos, and that’s the only one I can find with a fruit in the shot. I normally focus on the flowers or the spines.

The fruit from the Cereus peruvianus is called a Cactus Apple, and the St. Petersburg Times has a reader who knows how best to eat them.

Paul Zmoda has been growing the (Peruvian apple) cactus at his research facility, Flatwoods Fruit Farm in Riverview. He says that aside from eating the pulp fresh, he recommends serving frozen thin slices sprinkled with sugar and lime juice. The pink peel can also be candied. Paul thinks that the rind might even make good sweet and sour pickles similar to watermelon pickles.

Our plants don’t fruit, since they need to be pollinated by bats and we don’t have bats at the nursery.

You can buy seeds from Trade Winds Fruit, and see what they have to offer in all kinds of tropical fruits, even though this is not a tropical fruit.

They also sell Saguaro seeds.

What does it take to grow lithops? Let’s see what the Deseret News out of Utah has to say.

My friend Clark Moorten, a desert-garden authority, recommends that I keep a misting bottle near the lithops. “If you just can’t stand it and must water them, wait a week, then spray them with the mister,” he says.

Misting is important because much of southern Africa, from the east coast of Natal to the pointed Cape Horn, experiences a long dry season. In the brutally dry west coast of the Atlantic, the dry season is even longer. However, heavy coastal fogs travel inland, often at night, to lay down a thick layer of dew. Plants here have evolved to utilize this airborne moisture during a long drought. It explains why regular watering regimes during a dry season are a killer.

Well that’s what I tell everyone around here: Mist! Don’t water! I suppose that means if you’re growing your lithops outdoors in the Bay Area, close to the coastal fog belt, then you don’t even have to mist them at all. Just be sure to have them under cover during the winter rains.

Identifying lithops species can be very difficult, what with the hundreds of subspecies. You generally have to wait for the plant to flower, and then you can try to match the leaf markings and the flower color to pictures in a book. Good luck with that, I always say. We have identified about half the species we carry. Sometimes we leave off the subspecies name, just because the names can get too long for our labels.

We also grow them very small, which is how they grow in nature – basically invisible among rocks of the same colors. Some people like to grow them bigger, which means more water, but then they’re very prone to rotting out quickly. So we do not do that.

Here’s a small one that hides well in our lava mulch.

Lithops aucampiae ssp. koelemani

And here’s one that doesn’t hide well in our red lava mulch. Maybe we should find some green rock.

Lithops lesliei ssp. lesliei v. albinica

And here’s my favorite lithops bloom photo. It’s the one I use for greeting cards.

Lithops schwantesii

It’s probably a ssp. schwantesii, but that seems excessive.

Sometimes we find little bite marks out of them – the mice like them it turns out. So then we lay out little no-kill mouse traps, and check back every day for live mice that we release down the street. If you forget to check a no-kill trap for a day, it becomes a kill-trap.

I don’t give a lot of gardening advice on this blog, unless someone asks a question directly. But here you go.

If you like to take cuttings of your plants and propagate new ones then you should know that we’re taking our final cactus cuts of the year so they’ll be rooted before winter – any later than this and they’ll rot away to nothing.

Phew, that was useful.

Maybe I should make a video.

From Austin (TX), home of the Austin Jaspers semi-pro basketball team in the Texas Grass League, comes a nice concise set of instructions for growing cactus from seed.

I wonder if Hap will agree with their instructions?

Ever wonder how to prepare cactus fruit? I found this article from the San Francisco Chronicle’s archives, 5 years ago.

Tasty cactus pears keep fans a-prickle

It’s a good idea to process the fruit outdoors. Slit the top across but not completely off. Cut parallel incisions into the skin lengthwise, taking care not to cut into the flesh, then pry apart the skin and reach fingers in to pull out the fruit. Photo, 2001, by Catherine Yoshii

That picture is the key to the whole operation – it really explains it all. Now if they would just do an article about mangos.

The Examiner, whatever that is, has a nice article about lowering your water usage. This is a nice complement to this morning’s article about drought tolerant plants.

Cactus and succulent gardens, when thoughtfully designed with paths, boulders, rocks, even sculptures, can become a maze of fascinating texture and color, created in diverse scenes. California natives can be selected to be as ornamental as any other flowering plant….

So, now’s the time to do a little research into drought tolerant landscaping. Don’t be limited by preconceived ideas.

I always say read 2 articles before making all your decisions. Now you have the 2 articles at your fingertips.

From Santa Rosa comes instruction in not watering your garden.

In light of the water crisis, the Sonoma County Master Gardeners have put their heads together to compile a list of super-drought-tolerant plants….

These tend to be natives or plants that originated in Mediterranean climates not unlike California that experience only minimal rainfall in summer…

Among favorites… are manzanitas, of which there are varieties not only native to California but native to Sonoma County….

Another plant that will take water neglect is Dudleya, a native succulent, similar to echeveria.

They put together a good list of locally climate-appropriate plants. Go check it out.

Have you got any tips for potting a (large) E.Trigona? I just can’t get my head round how to do it.

How can you tell that a plant is underpotted? What should I look for?
Thanks,
Mike

Mike,
We generally like to see as much plant mass above the soil line as potential root mass below.

Repotting euphorbias is difficult. They have a caustic white sap (latex) that is very dangerous, and with all those branches banging against each other when you repot, the likelihood of getting it on you is high. So what we do is wear a lot of protective clothing, including goggles and gloves, and pack between the branches with bunched up newspaper to keep the branches from scarring each other.

Then you use a tool to separate the roots from the sides of the pot. Lay the whole thing flat on a tarp on the ground. With 2 to 3 people, gently ease the plant out of the pot. Generally you don’t want to disturb the roots too much for succulents, but if it is completely pot bound, then a small amount of root massage to redirect the root tips is recommended.

Place the plant into the new larger pot (we recommend terra cotta) with fresh fast-draining cactus soil so that the top of the soil line stays in the same place. Fill around with more soil, and you’re done. Don’t water for 2 weeks to let the roots heal, and the plant should begin to thrive again.

Good luck,
Peter

This was a follow-up to a previous question about an underpotted plant.

A good discussion of the topic. Here’s an extended quote, if nobody minds.

These succulents, some spiny, some smooth, in shades of silver, green, red and lavender, are arrayed on a lengthy, three-tiered light stand, each level equipped with four 48-inch, 40-watt full-spectrum bulbs purported to resemble natural light….

Most species I have tried (there are more than 1,000 cactus species) decline gradually over a period of 18 months to two years. A few, however, including species of Mammillaria, Melocactus, Echinocereus and Gymnocalycium, have thrived.

Among the non-cactus succulents that flourish under fluorescents are species and hybrids of Haworthia, Aloe, Edithcolea, Adromischus, Agave, Aeonium, Crassula, Sedum, Echeveria, Euphorbia, Gasteria, Graptopetalum, Kalanchoe and Sansevieria. Others, such as Stapelia and Senecio species, do well if given occasional R&R on an east-facing windowsill.

More species listed at the article, if you click through. We also suggest to people in offices to make sure their full spectrum bulbs are within 12″ of the plant, because the UV from them dissipates quickly.

Now you too can be guerrilla gardening in just 5 easy steps.

1… Remember that affixing “ninja” to anything is practically guaranteed to lead to success in all you do.

2… No general takes the battlefield without first harnessing his chi.

3… go for sprouts at the very least.

4… your fine guerrilla acting skills have got you convincingly portrayed as a city employee.

5… perennial plants… are easy to maintain.

I may have shrunken those 5 pieces of advice down a little bit. You’ll just have to click through to see for yourself.

Finally, A short video on how to prepare a nopal recipe. This is actually a very difficult skill to master, and this video is amazingly clear, so pay attention.

It’s from the Kitchen Caravan. How delicious.

Hi Peter & Hap,
 
In August I finally had success in fertilizing two of my Echinopsis.  Now the fruit has dried and opened.  What do I do with the solid clumps of seeds to prepare them for planting?  How long are they potent?  When is the best time of year to plant them?  What supplies will I need to pick up the next time I stop by your store?
 
Thanks,
Maya

Maya,

Your seed can be freed from the dried fruit mass by gently rubbing it on a paper towel until the seeds separate from the dried fruit. Then you can sort of blow across them and usually the fruit bits weigh less that the seed and it blows away leaving the seed. Start with a gentle puff and see what it will take so the seed doesn’t go flying! 

When you have the seed separated you can plant it all or save some for later, as long as you keep it dry and cool. Most cactus seed can last for years and still sprout. We start our seeds early spring, so in the next month or so it is a good time of year to plant them. We use domed seed trays filled with cactus soil, we scatter the seed on the surface and then barely cover with crushed Horticultural Charcoal (this acts as both a cover mulch and helps keep algae and mold growing on the soil under the high humidity of the domed seed tray. the charcoal also has chemicals in it that make the seeds think there has been a fire and it is a good time to sprout). 

Next we mist the tray heavily with water, cover with the dome and put under lights or in bright, diffused light in the greenhouse. An east facing window will also work. But be careful if you use a west or south window as they can cook the contents of a covered seed tray. 

Good luck and happy planting.

Backpacker Magazine reveals the secrets of camping, including getting water from a cactus in the desert.

FIND WATER ANYWHERE

Make a solar still… Stuff a plastic bag three-quarters full with green vegetation (grass, cactus). Place it on a sunny slope with the vegetation at the top of the incline, so evaporated moisture drains to the bottom. Either way, a quart-sized bag will yield two to three tablespoons in average conditions.

That’s not a lot of water, but it’s not nothing either. Let’s hope you never have to try this minimal technique.

Not much going on in the news. People are focused on other things this time of year. Maybe a christmas cactus or two, but that’s about it. Well, let’s look a little deeper and see if we can’t find something in news.

Well, now this is interesting. Giant Jeans Parlor has turned a breadpan into a succulent trough. I’ll bet they drilled holes in the bottom, and then you’ll never be able to use it for bread again. They do have instructions along with this nice picture I’m borrowing:

Now it looks like they have an Aloe, a Anacampseros, and a Fenestraria (aka Baby Toes) in there. I’d worry about the baby toes getting too much water, but with a little careful care, it should do well.

From Athens, Georgia they get questions about growing cactus from cuttings.

I have some cactus growing in my yard and I would like to propagate it so I can have it in other parts of my yard. When would be the best time to do this and how?

- Lauren M., Watkinsville

I am guessing that you have some sort of prickly pear cactus in your yard. The best time to propagate this cactus would be in the spring when the plant is actively growing. Your cactus is probably going semi dormant with cold weather approaching. In the spring, use a sharp knife and cut off whole individual pads at the node (where the pads meet). Place these cuttings in a dry, shady area for one to two days to allow the cut to heal or scab over. Once, the cut has healed, place the cut end in shallow soil or sand for rooting. Make sure the soil does not stay too wet or the cactus will rot. It could take several weeks to a couple months to establish a healthy root system. Once the pad has rooted, dig it up and move to the desired sunny area in your yard and enjoy.

It’s getting a bit late in the year to be planting cactus in the ground. So what now? What can you do? Why you can plant them in indoor containers, that’s what you can do.

Container cactus gardens allow homeowners… to have the pleasure of a small piece of the desert up close…

Several key elements are required to create a successful succulent or cacti container….

(D)esign is probably the most important element in creating a beautiful container.

Oh that is so true. For instance, if you choose a cheap red container from Ikea and a cheap plastic cactus from Home Depot and some cheap plastic rocks from Walmart, well then you have come up with a bad design scheme and should not be let anywhere near a container.