Home & Garden

Spring is again upon us and it is now in full effect. Most of the cacti on and around the property have already, are currently or will be, making their appearances shortly.

This pair of cholla flowers opened today just behind one of the retention walls that we had built here last year. At that time, we asked the contractors to be as minimally invasive as they could be to the flora and fauna near the work areas. They did a great job!

Our desert springtime is the best time of the year (even though we love the summers, heat and all) with the flowers on the trees, cacti and our landscape shrubbery. More pictures to come! Click on the image to enlarge.

Bob and I went to a local nursery today looking for replacements for some failed sage brush in the courtyard. We finally bought some bottle brush bushes in five gallon pots that we will put in the ground in the days to come.

While we were there, I (of course) took some photos of the flowers that were opened on various cacti and other xeriscape flowering plants. I have been posting photos of pink flowers here this spring, since the pink ones seem to open first. At the nursery, there were other colors, too, most noticeably the red Claret Cup Hedgehog flowers and some bright yellow flowers on a barrel cactus that had neither its nickname nor a binomial designation, so it is a generic yellow-flower-producing barrel cactus at this point. Click on either image to enlarge.

We also bought another echinocereus cactus similar to hedgehogs that we have, that will produce red flowers. There are numerous flower buds on the cactus that will likely open soon. We need to pick a place to plant this cactus but will probably wait until after the flowers com to put it in the ground.

I don’t usually hike up into the hill behind our house, but today, Bob told me that one of the “hidden” hedgehog cacti up near the back property line had open flowers. So, I took my camera and foraged my way through the rocks and desert brush to get to a spot under the two palo verde trees up there to take this photo.

This is one of two clusters of hedgehogs still up on the hill (we brought one down to the front of the property last winter). There is a third, but it is actually on the neighbor’s property to the north. The other hidden cluster has buds on it, but is not in bloom yet. There are also many unopened flower pods on the cactus in the photo. Click on the image to enlarge.

In what is getting to be an annual tradition, here is the post recognizing the first spring cactus flower in our xeriscape garden. Of course, this is a Beavertail Cactus Flower (opuntia basilaris) growing just behind the wall out front by the road. The pink flower bud we saw this morning opened into this nice flower this afternoon and it already has attracted bees and other pollinators.

This is the last year for this cactus since it is one of those that developed a fungus or something that gives the paddles a circular depressed area that is discolored. We have other beavertail cacti, including one we imported from California, that are planted in the rock and cactus garden, so there will undoubtedly be more of these brilliant pink flowers next spring as well. Click on the image to enlarge.