Cactus Blog

The Arizona quarter is finally being released, with the famous Saguaro design.

Isn’t it lovely?

I see some Opuntias on there too, plus what is that I see in the background? Why, I think it’s a sunset! Yes! Yes it is a sunset! And here I thought the sun set over the Pacific, as viewed from California, not over the Grand Canyon. What were those numismatists thinking?

Whether you eat relish or not, you must give props to the winners of the Taste of Wilmington.

The secret ingredient - cactus - showed up in a relish, a spring greens salad, a ceviche and even a sugar cookie dessert.

I ate cactus last night at Casa Poblana in Emeryville. The steak was tough, not as good as usual, but the nopale was delicious, and the margarita was fantastic.

The Austin Statesman wants you to know that this is now cactus flowering season in Texas.

Mike Leggett/AMERICAN-STATESMAN Despite a dry spring, this claret cup cactus is in full bloom in Kerr County.

This spring hasn’t been much for wildflowers, but there are all the signs it’s going to be a great year for cactus flowers.

It’s true, the cactus are blooming in Texas. How do I know? Well, I read the Austin Statesman, that’s how, duh.

The East Bay Express reviews the Oakland branch of one of our favorite local restuarants, Cocina Poblana in Emeryville, and isn’t thrilled. They do like the nopales though.

Cocina Poblana belongs to the bourgeoning genre of Mexican restaurants that focus not on burritos, fajitas, and enchiladas, but on the more complex regional cookery of this food-centric nation….

Emeryville’s Cocina Poblana, which opened in 2006, helped bring this trend to the East Bay. Now proprietor Lito Saldaña has opened another, more upscale location among the chain stores and restaurants of Jack London Square. But… only a few of the venue’s dishes attain the sophisticated, dynamic, virile heights of gustatory Mexico….

Another entrée, the huarache Azteca, involves a dried-out platter of masa piled with refried beans, grilled cactus, grated cheese, and a few salty shrimp.

Well, I don’t know about the shrimp version of the huarache, but the chicken huarache at our local hangout is quite good. The grilled cactus is crisp, and tasty. And the margarita menu is top notch. Maybe we’ll go there for dinner tonight.

It’s true in this season of giant echinocereus blooms that some of them are bound to make the news. The Green Valley News and Sun published this picture.

JERRY MARRION PHOTO
Cactus king
An estimated 30 blooms make this cactus (ecinopsis genus, trichocereus species) in Esperanza Estates, a wonderful reason to appreciate the desert.

I’d pay money to see that.

I’d watch out for cactus if I were in Scottsdale. You never know when they’re going to jump out and hit your car.

Cactus has run-in with speeder

NORTHEAST VALLEY - Morning drivers had to contend with desert scenery on Wednesday as town officials worked to remove a cactus knocked onto Shea Boulevard by a speeding car.

A Maricopa County sheriff’s spokesman said a speeding driver lost control on Shea between Fountain Hills and Palisades boulevards during morning traffic Wednesday, jumping the median and knocking a cactus into the roadway.

No injuries were reported and the driver, who not identified, was cited for speeding.

Sometimes the cactus in Arizona not only jump, but they’ve been known to crawl as well.

Well, it’s official. That last sentence was literally the stupidest thing I’ve ever typed. Do I win a prize?

The Palm Springs Desert Sun is quite familiar with cactus.

Of the three species of Mammillaria cacti found in the deserts of California, Graham’s nipple cactus, Mammillaria grahamii, is the rarest. Like the other two species, it is seldom more than 8 inches in height and blends in remarkably with the coarse sands and gravels on which it grows. Unless it is in bloom or in fruit, Graham’s nipple cactus usually goes completely unnoticed.

Unlike the other California Mammillarias, however, Graham’s nipple cactus does not typically bloom in spring but rather in summer, after a major thundershower. As such events are quite unpredictable in the California deserts as a whole, the cactus is restricted to those few mountains in the southeastern part of the state where there is a chance of summer rain.

It’s rare to find an article like this in a newspaper. usually you find articles about how some family’s 20-year-old cactus in some unknown town has finally bloomed and all the neighbors come over and call the newspaper and they print it on the front page as the big local news of the month. But here we have some real-life botanical information that even my cousin Mark Blotner in Newton, MA would find interesting. Well, maybe not, but Melissa might.

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?