Cactus Blog

It’s Spring, which means it’s blooming barrel cactus season.

Ferocactus glaucescens has paper-thin petals

Ferocactus pottsi has vivid red and orange petals

And a bonus, new spines glow red on the Ferocactus robustus

Aporocactus flagelliformis is a South America epiphytic cactus, pendant to 4ft. long or so, that grows particularly well in cactus soil in a hanging basket. This one is covered with a lot of pink flowers right now. And a few weeds poking through that are hard to get out of the pot since these stems are very spiny.

It’s the continuation of cactus bloom season around here, i.e. Spring!

Opuntia basilaris x santa-rita is a nice low spine hybrid that has remarkable fully saturated flower colors. We have a number of very nice plants out right now. Enjoy them!

These are going to grow about 2 feet tall, and spread quite a bit wider if you let them. We find they are hardy down at least into the mid-20s, and lower if you keep them really dry. These are very popular with the pollinators as they have a lot of pollen. Bees appreciate them.

Parodia leninghausii is the Golden Ball Cactus from Brazil. Central stems can grow as tall as 24″, surrounded by a host of smaller golden balls. While small the form is clearly ball shaped, but when taller they are slanted apically which is different than most other cacti. Unique! Also hardy into the mid 20s or so.

Delosperma “Fire Spinner” is a very low growing, slowly creeping, member of the hardy Ice Plant Family, i.e. Aizoaceae. In case you were wondering why they are called “Mesembs” along with the Lithops and such, they are part of the Subfamily Mesembryanthemoideae. That’s a mouthful.

While a mat-forming groundcover may not be the most unique plant in the plant world, they do have a sparkly glistening coating on their green leaves. So that’s cool.

For some reason the “Fire Spinner” name is a registered trademark, so I probably should figure out how to include one of those r in a circle thingy’s appended to the name. But on the other hand this plant also seems to be called Delosperma “P001S” with the Fire Spinner part not even being part of the official name of the plant at all. Hard to know! This may mean something to someone or not.

As might be expected, these are hardy below 0F.

How could I forget this one?!? The bestest Cape Daisy of them all.

Osteospermum “Sunny Xena” so named because of the famed Xena’s famed sunny disposition.

Oooohh!!! Nice Echeveria “Violet Queen” hiding in that mixed wall panel with the yellow flowers poking out.

Aaaahhh!! Nice Sedeveria, an interesting enough intergenic hybrid, hiding in that mixed succulent pot with the yellow flowers peeking out. Hypertufa pot by Urban Farmgirls of San Francisco.

Osteospermums are easy to grow in the Bay Area. You can pretty much ignore them and they make nice mounding perennials with lots of spring and summer flowers. They’re called, generically enough, Cape Daisy since they come from South Africa. And they’re daisies, i.e. in the Aster Family, Asteraceae, a very popular flowering family that includes Sunflowers, hence the other name of the family, the Sunflower Family. Daisies, Asters and Sunflowers!

These particular daisies are more closely related to the Calendulas, as they are included in the Calenduleae Tribe within Asteraceae.

Osteospermum “3D Double Purple” so named for the obvious reasons.

Osteospermum “Mara” is a pretty copper daisy.

Osteospermum “Nasinga Purple” – Now finally we get to the famous Spoon Flowers! So named for the obvious reasons.

Osteospermum “Nasinga White” has been the most popular of the Cape Daisies here at the nursery this spring.

This is a color we’ve never had before. Here we see this Echinopsis Hybrid with two blooms about to open in the early morning.

Here we see this same cactus in the afternoon after it has fully opened. (Moments later the plant was purchased and taken away!)

We don’t have an official name for this particular hybrid. What would you call it? “Ice Cream”? “Mill Valley”? “Fork and Spoon”?

It’s cactus bloom season, also known as Spring. Part 2.

I hope you are still enjoying these pictures of cactus flowers because we have a few more to share, right here on the cactus blog.

Echinocereus viridiflorus is the infamous green-flowered cactus, Green Pitaya, from the Plains States. That’s right – it’s native to a range from Texas to South Dakota, even found in a corner of Wyoming.

Opuntia erinacea, possibly a subspecies of Opuntia polyacantha, is the Mojave prickly pear. That means its a California Native!

Yellow flowered Echinocereus grandiflora “Sunshine Yellow”

How many flowers are there on this one yellow flowered cactus? A Lot.

Pretty!

It’s cactus bloom season, also known as Spring. Part 1.

I hope you enjoy pictures of cactus flowers because we have a few to share, right here on the cactus blog.

Echinopsis chamaecereus is the renowned Peanut Cactus

Epiphyllums are the seriously underrated Orchid Cactus

Echinocereus “White Lightning” is photographed in front of a Tequila Agave.

The prettiest Echeveria of all is:

Echeveria lindsyana

Wow! If I didn’t have a nursery, and thus have a whole bunch of these Echeveria lindsyanas already, I would for sure buy that.

Some facts for you: From Mexico, as is typical of these Echeverias in the Crassulaceae Family. Hardy into the lower 20s, but probably not all the way down to 20F. They will form small dense clumps of 6″ rosettes. And they’re pretty. Oh so pretty. They feel pretty and witty and bright! And I pity any Echeverias who isn’t lindsyana tonight!

There are a lot of very Hybridized Echeverias on the Echeveria market. Some are from the 1950s and some are more recent. But they all are growing right now in our very spring weather. Every single one of them. And they are all showing great color in our very sunny spring. A lot of color!

Here are some that we like. I don’t have most of them named so I’m not including names with these, but some of them we do know the names and others I’m sure you also know the names, so there’s that.

Here we go!

Don’t forget to click your favorites to see a slightly bigger picture.

And we’re off again!

Wow, those are some colorful succulents. I couldn’t possibly have more. But I could! I do! And these are all out at the nursery right now. And even more than I’m showing here! So many that I couldn’t hold them all in this blog post.

On to the rest….

Phew!

The Echinocereus grandifloras are in full bloom this weekend, so you know it’s spring out here at the Cactus Jungle.

We call this one “Amber Peach”

Rikki insists this one is “Tropical Pink”

I named this one “White Lightning”

In case you were wondering, these are all hybrids. They are intergenic hybrids between Echinopsis and Echinocereus. You may see these on various websites and at certain nurseries under various and sundry names. Some call them Trichocereus Hybrids or Lobivia Hybrids or Tricho-Lobivia Hybrids, however current taxonomy puts all Trichocereus and Lobivias into Echinopsis.

You may also see in certain quarters where they insist on particular cultivar names. However we have gotten our original parent plants for these hybrids from the original hybridizer and he does not name them himself. So we are free to call them by our own cultivar names. If you have better names for them than we’ve come up with, we’re happy to take suggestions!

Cactus bloom season has begun and first up are a couple of whitish-yellowish flowers.

Parodia crassigibba has highly variable flowers, as you can tell if you click the link. Maybe this is a different Parodia? Maybe it is the same?They do vary from White to Yellow to Pink, so it is quite possible

Parodia sellowii on the other hand is only supposed to get yellow flowers. So I must have it mislabeled. What shall I do to try to correct this horrible mistake? Obviously nothing before I post this. [Editor: It's Gymnocalycium uruguayense.]

Euphorbia characias “Portuguese Velvet”

European hybrid
Evergreen spurge

Sun: Moderate
Water: Drought tolerant
Size: 12″ to 18″ tall w/24″ tall bloom stalks

Thick velvety grey green leaves on full stems. Large bloom sprays of green bracts and mixed brightly-colored blooms. Grow from seed and offsets. Deer-resistant.

People usually like to see Hoya photos that feature the wax flowers since the wax flowers are always so pretty. But I like to feature photos of the leaves.

That’s just the way I am.

Hoya macrophylla “Variegata”

Hoya nicholsoniae

Pelargonium ferulaceum is a shrubby member of the Geranium family that will form a twisty caudex and get sweet little flowers. Easy to grow, hardy to around 30F, this plant is now on your list of favorites. You can thank me later.

A very nice clump of Lithops in late winter splitting mode. You can really see the mimicry effect with the red rocks around them. Don’t water when they’re splitting like this. You want to make sure they absorb all the moisture out of the older leaves into the newer leaves, otherwise the new growth can be choked off.

And it’s a Gymnocalycium!

Dendrobium kingianum is hardy down to around freezing around here, and works well both inside or out. It blooms late winter, as you can see, through spring.

We grow them in orchid bark, or as we prefer coconut husk chunks. I think we will be watering weekly indoor, and every 2 weeks if they’re in a shady spot outdoor. Fertilize every month. Easy!