Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Home & Garden

Up Close and Personal – Saguaro Needles

up-close.jpgWe planted a couple of smaller saguaro cacti near the entrance to the RV pull-thru. These, unlike the 13-foot “big guy,” are only about four feet tall. We call them LG1 and LG2 (LG for little guy). This is a close-up I took of LG1 this morning. Click on the image to enlarge.

All three saguaro cacti were delivered and planted by David Morales, a cactus farmer in Congress AZ. Dave has been on “Dirty Jobs” on the Discovery Channel transplanting a 20 footer to a private home. He also has planted several saguaros for George Strait, the well-known country and western entertainer.

26 Jul 2011 by Arizona Home & Garden Photography

Pride of the Courtyard

This brightly colored flower grows on three shrubs in our courtyard. The shrub, red bird of paradise, a.k.a. pride of Barbados, will produce these pretty flowers all summer long. Come November, we will prune these back to just a foot or so while they go dormant until next spring when they will bounce back with twice as many flowers.

Anyone who has read our blog for a while will know that these flowers are my favorites. Click on the image to enlarge.

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25 Jul 2011 by Arizona Flowers Home & Garden

Argentine Giant Cactus Flower

We weren’t sure about the name of this cactus, so we asked the garden shop that sold it to us. They said it’s an Argentine Giant Cactus. I looked it up on-line and found the Latin name, Echinopsis candicans. Yesterday, it produced another beautiful white flower. We already had three other flowers earlier in June. Click on the image to enlarge.

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We missed posting yesterday due to out-of-town visitors.

P.S. Happy Birthday to Cap’n Bob.

22 Jul 2011 by Flowers Home & Garden

Happy Fishhook Cactus

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A single flower opened on this little cactus last week. Today, it has five beautiful pink flowers. Click on the image to enlarge.

I found this reference to the little cacti that dot the hill behind our house at BirdandHike.com:

Common Fishhook Cactus (Mammillaria tetrancistra) is a small, mound-shaped cactus with short, thin white spines that nearly cover the plant plus longer, darker, fish-hook shaped spines that stand out from the body of the plant. In early summer, red to lavender flowers emerge from the side of the stem that are nearly as large as the entire plant.

19 Jul 2011 by Arizona Flowers Home & Garden Photography

Thresher Thief

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I guess we won’t be harvesting any of the saguaro fruit this season since the birds seem to gorge themselves on the fruit before we can get them to ripen on the cactus. This is a curve billed thresher helping itself to the pears on the saguaro this morning. We call this the “Skut Farcas” bird because of the yellow eyes – YELLOW EYES!! (Reference – “A Christmas Story” – a quotation by Ralphie.) Click on the image to enlarge.

14 Jul 2011 by Arizona Critters Home & Garden Photography

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