While just about everyone I know has dandelions growing in their yard during the summer months, I have cactus sprouting up. Here’s one:
Here’s another:
They’re growing at the base of a pine tree:
I’m amazed by these baby cactus but I have no idea what to do about them. Am I supposed to leave them and let them grow, or treat them like dandelions and pull them from the ground?
If you know me, or if you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know I was a gardener in New England, I wrote a garden column for several years, and now it’s been a good four or five summers since I’ve had a garden. I have some strange sort of azalea lining my Wonder Wall, but for the most part my backyard is desert terrain. Here’s a section of my backyard:
Last summer and over the course of the winter I’d planned digging up that patch of desert this spring and filling it in with rich soil and raised beds for a garden. I ordered giant alliums and lilies from a catalog, studied what perennials I should buy at the garden center, and designed an herb section so I could get back to using fresh herbs in my cooking. Then in March a friend asked if he could park an old Volkswagen there for 8 or 9 nine months until he gets around to fixing it and selling it, and before I knew it my garden plans evaporated into the dry El Paso air.
That being the case, another summer is here and I have no garden. There’s a lot of dusty dirt though, so I guess I’ll have to settle for these little cactuses sprouting up around my yard. Does anyone know about cactus? What the hell are these things? Do they have a name besides cactus? Am I supposed to water them? Will I grow to love them? Can you make scones out them, like with lemon thyme? Can you put a bouquet of them next to your bed like with zinnias and black eyed susans? Or would that be asking to poke my eye out in the middle of the night?
@ Wendy – I love garden blogs. Cacti can have really beautiful blooms and they are easy to maintain because they don’t need a lot of maintenance. They can grow and duplicate pretty easily too. They make special Cacti soil that really helps them flourish so if you can dig one up without spiking yourself put them in small pot and put the cacti soil in it and then it will grow and sprout new cacti. Really cool – of course I prefer the flowery/herb garden but cacti are pretty cool too!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cacti
@ Aimee – Well thanks, Aimee, but I hate cactus. You and Cody are alike, maybe it’s a generational thing, but you both like it and I have no idea what you see in it. I will try your idea, though, but mostly because I have no choice. Thanks for the info, I need it.
I only like one kind of flowering cactus and it’s the one my mom has in her living room that blooms pretty pink showy flowers a couple times a year. Other than that, I’m in the Wendy camp and have no love of the thorny things. The only thorny plants I like are roses because some varieties of them don’t have many thorns and their fragrance far outweighs any potential pricks. LOL.
Now there’s a “weed” that’s gonna give some “pushback”! You gotta at least respect those cacti for being able to survive in the 0% humidity.
Are they prickly pears? Some bird maybe crapped the seeds onto the ground whilst perched in the tree? I would say if they’re no danger to anyone leave them and see what they do. Thorns or not.
We have these horrible wild rosebushes that literally rip my flesh as I drive the mower past them. They don’t even have nice flowers to offer.
Nice pictures Wendy thanks for posting them.
@ Little Miss – I think your talking about a “Thanksgiving cactus” or a “Christmas cactus” which are the only cactus I’ve ever known before moving here. I like those too.
@ David – They’re not prickly pears. I don’t know what they are. But you’re probably right about the birds planting these cactus in my yard. Another one came up today. I’m shocked at how quickly they spring up. It seems like an overnight process.
It should now give some of those who have the beleive that in places like this, health issues are no handdled with herbs at all. However I think herbs give the best solution to health problems.
I’m like you, I only know about Christmas cacti. Is cacti the plural of cactus? Don’t know that either.
@ John Brown – Well John, I have no idea what you’re talking about but I’m guessing you’d like me to take a look at your store. Unfortunately you are in England and I am in El Paso, Texas, so I probably won’t be buying anything. But I’ll come take a look.
@ Joan – I think cacti is correct, but it makes me feel weird to say it so I’ll keep calling them cactuses. For some reason cactuses, though wrong, feels less awkward to me.
I am laughing so hard at your comment to John Brown, I can hardly stand it. I didn’t know what he was talking about either.
I posted a comment some time back, but it may have been dumped in your spam because I had a web link in it.
All I can remember about what I wrote is the suggestion that you grow the Agave cactus so that you can make us all some tequila!