I have lost track of how many times this spring and summer that this Bishop’s Cap Cactus has had a cluster of flowers, let alone how many flowers per cluster. All I can say is that the cactus likes it here and we like his flowers. 🙂 Click on the image to enlarge.
Lawyer’s Tongue prickly pear cactus is also known as “Cow’s Tongue,” “Donkey Ear” and opuntia engelmannii var. linguiformis. We collected a specimen that was laying on the ground under a larger plant in the wash running through one of the local parks. We placed it in a pot of native soil from our wash last summer. I think it likes it here because it quickly grew two new pads the first year. Now, it is almost time to re-pot it or maybe put it in the ground.
We found WufStuff, a very interesting website that describes this cactus and has a lot of good information about prickly pear cacti in general. Excerpt:
A common sight in Arizona gardens is the Cow’s Tongue Prickly Pear. Folks like this cactus because of the unusual shape of the pads, which strongly resemble a cow’s tongue. It takes little water, and has yellow or orange flowers in the spring that form along the margins of the pads, followed by numerous red fruits.
The cultivating of these cactus requires only that it be planted and left to grow on it’s own, no fertilizer, no watering, nada, nothing. Best grown on land useless for growing corn and other Cattle feed stock. After a year or two, the pads are ready to eat and the fruit is ready to harvest if so desired. After each feeding the cactus is left to grow another meal which happens quite quickly in the desert lands of the Southwest.
Click on the image above to enlarge.
We stepped out a while ago to take the dogs for a little walk. On our way down to the road, we saw lightning and heard thunder from this cell west of us. One of these days, I’m going to get lucky and snap the shutter just as a bolt of lightning is visible. You can see the rainfall in the distance behind the big (new to us) saguaro outside the courtyard. Click on the image to enlarge.
When the landscaping crew installed the replacement saguaro today, our two miniature pinchers (Cabela and Beethoven) were totally concerned about the activity going on out front. I snapped this photo of them atop the love seat while the work was in progress. Click on the image to enlarge.
We went out on the patio last evening and I saw something yellow on the cholla across the RV drive to the west. I thought it was a cholla flower, but it’s really late in the flowering season for new buds. But, there it was.
I looked for flowers on the other cholla on the property and could not see any. I also looked for more buds on this cholla and, likewise, found none. This one flower is very pretty, though. Click on the image to enlarge.
A few days ago, Damsel posted a photo of the courtyard in bloom. I was looking through the archives from about a year ago and found a similar photo of the courtyard as it then appeared. I made a mini-slideshow using the two photos to compare then and now. Of particular note is the Cleveland sage growth in just a year. Click the image to alternate between the two.
Today was grocery shopping day and, as usual, we brought some flowers home. These are Topaz (left) and Vendela roses. They are looking gorgeous in the crystal vase on the sofa table in the great room. Click on the image to enlarge.