Home & Garden

As springtime progresses, more flowers open up. We have several types of opuntia (prickly pear) cactus in the rock and cactus garden west of the house. The first flowers to open are on the beavertail cactus which have pink flowers. Now the other opuntia are starting to show their yellow flowers.

Most of the cacti in the garden were started from a single paddle while a couple are native to that patch of ground and a couple others are transplants. The cactus whose flower appears above is a hybrid in that it was started elsewhere from a paddle and has been transplanted to its current location a couple of years ago when we were preparing to have the RV drive concrete poured.

All of the opuntia out in the west side lot are thriving. None meed much attention although we did trim up one of the lawyer’s tongue cactus which was spreading too wide with several paddles laying on the ground. That cactus, and a couple of other offshoots elsewhere out there were started from a single paddle that we planted in a barrel in the courtyard before relocating.

The best part of a cactus garden is that it does well if you ignore it. We do, however, drizzle some water on a couple of ocotillos from time to time. One of the transplanted ocotillos is doing very well this spring, with leaves and some cane-tip flowers.

We didn’t get any flowers on our Argentine Giant cactus last year although every year before that since we planted it, it had at least one flower. This year, it definitely is back to flower production, this one being the first to open with several other bumps on the cactus that look like they are going to be flowers.

I took this photo late this afternoon when the flower was almost completely open. Maybe we will get nighttime pollinators again like we did two years ago. Click on the image to enlarge.

Two of the hedgehog cacti in front of the house had open flowers today, one on each. The flower in the image above is on the hedgehog cactus that we transplanted to the front from way up near the back property line where we seldom go to enjoy and take pictures of the flowers. Now that it’s out front, we will likely get to see all the flowers open.

We have a total of four clumps of hedgehogs out front with another in a pot out in the courtyard. The potted hedgehog and two of the ones in the ground out front have flower buds, but two others have none that I can find. Bob was on the hill yesterday and reported that the two clumps up there also have no buds and appear to be dormant.

As flowers continue to appear in our little desert plot, I will continue to take pictures of them and post them here. Click on the image above to enlarge.

Echinocereus triglochidiatus is the binomial name for the Claret Cup Cactus. I must admit that these beautiful flowers are not in our garden, but are in a xeriscape garden in a local shopping center. I would like to have some of this variety of cactus in our rock and cactus garden someday.

From Wikipedia:

Echinocereus triglochidiatus is a species of hedgehog cactus known by several common names, including kingcup cactus, claretcup, and Mojave mound cactus. This cactus is native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, where it is a resident of varied habitats from low desert to rocky slopes, scrub, and mountain woodland. It is most abundant in shady areas.

There are a number of varieties of this highly variable cactus species, but not all are universally recognized. In general it is a mounding cactus, forming bulbous piles of few to hundreds of spherical to cylindrical stems. It is densely spiny and somewhat woolly. The showy flower is a funnel shaped bloom up to 8 or 9 centimeters wide and bright scarlet red to orange-red tepals. There is a thick nectar chamber and many thready pink stamens at the center of the corolla. The flowers are pollinated by hummingbirds.

Click on the image to enlarge.

This flower just opened today on a little Opuntia Basilaris planted out front in the red rocks just above the road and below the garage. This cactus is a transplant from another part of the property behind the house.

There are other flowers opening soon or are already open; the lemon tree has blossoms and my golden barrel cactus has a flower opening soon. The plum tree is sprouting leaves and has many open flowers.

Desert springtime is just a very pleasant time for flower lovers. We plan to show a lot of the flowers as they appear.

We purchased these Bottle Brush shrubs last spring from a local (overpriced) nursery to replace the Cleveland Sage shrubs that had a propensity to partially die and then grow partially back. Very ugly in the courtyard. But now, the new shrubs have green foliage and are making red flowers just in time for the Christmas season. These have already attracted bees and hummingbirds and a few of the remaining butterflies.

Once these shrubs have established themselves, they should expand to about the same size as the old sage bushes, but seem to be considerably less messy and less work to keep them pruned to a size appropriate to the courtyard environment. Click on the image to enlarge.