4/21/11

Look What's Blooming

Hey everyone!  A couple of you have said you were having trouble navigating my blog & couldn't leave a comment.  I have checked with Google, they did a "test comment" & everything worked fine.  I'm hoping it was just a short glitch, but if you are still having problems, please let me know via my email:  castebner@aol.com.


So what is blooming here in the desert?  Well, in all fairness, we have lots of pretties in full bloom, but as our temps rise, that will be changing.  If you've never seen the desert in bloom, it is truly a beautiful sight.  Sorry, I haven't been out to the desert to take any pics, but we have one  lone cactus in our front flower bed.  I don't know the name of this cacti, but it strongly resembles what is called a Peruvian San Pedro.  A friend gave me one piece of this years ago, & it didn't do anything for quite some time.  Finally it started to grow & produce another stem, & then a few years ago we had our first bloom.


The Man & I were working in this front flower bed last Friday, adding the rock, & this is what the cactus looked like at that time.  These little fuzzy pods were all over the stems.



This is looking down into the center of the plant.  You can see more of the pods & lots of baby stems.  This area gets full of debris from other plants, but until The Man hauls the outdoor vacuum around here, I'm not touching it.  Do you see all those things that look like thorns?  Well, let me tell ya', they are very sharp thorns!


Sunday morning, those fuzzy pods had turned into these.


Tuesday morning, we had our first blooms!


The bees and hummingbirds love this.


This is what we see from our front porch.



And this is what we had Wednesday morning.


 Aren't they just gorgeous?  The color is so incredible.  Sadly, they only last about 2 days max, so you must enjoy them while they last.


All of this growth has come from one stem or stalk (whatever you want to call it) in less than ten years.  That might not seem like much growth, but you have to remember that things grow slowly in the desert.  Well, unless it's a weed!  We usually lose one of these stalks every year if we get a lot of rain all at once. The root system on cacti is extremely short, so when the cacti fill up with water, they topple over.  Every time that has happened with this cactus, we get 3 or 4 little ones to take its place.  Nature's evolution.

Hope you enjoyed the little cacti tutorial.  Thanks so much for stopping by, & please come again soon.
CAS

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14 comments:

  1. HOW PRETTY, I WISH THESE WOULD GROW IN NEW JERSEY

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  2. I've never seen cacti in the ground blooming, thanks so much for showing them on your post. I must say they are beautiful in bloom, I enjoyed looking and reading about them♥

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  3. Hi Cas! It's my first time to see a blooming cacti! They are all so pretty and refreshing to look at. But I got a bit sad when you mentioned that they only last a few days :-( If that's the case, I;ll have to content myself over the pictures.

    Have a great weekend my friend!

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  4. They are sooo pretty! I love the blooms.

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  5. That is SO NEAT! It's amazing the miracle within a plant. Who would ever think looking at a cactus, that it would have so many beautiful red blooms?
    Wishing you a happy Easter.
    Babs

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  6. What a gorgeous cacti! I had a small one that looked a lot like that but it only lasted a year before I killed it. Happy Earth Day!

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  7. How pretty! I am glad you got nice pictures of them so you can enjoy them after they're gone. Your pictures truly are gorgeous. Maybe you could print, frame, and enjoy all the time!

    Easter blessings!
    Ricki Jill

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  8. Thanks, everyone, for leaving such nice comments. Hope you are all having a wonderful Easter!
    CAS

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  9. Your blooming cacti are beautiful. I enjoyed reading about them.

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  10. They're beautiful!

    By the way, I am passing the 'Versatile Blogger' award to you. I know you have this 'Award Free Blog' sign on your page, haha but I really love your blog so I included you in my list anyway :)

    http://ofpinksandfairytales.blogspot.com/2011/04/blog-award.html

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  11. Fascinating. Makes me want to take pics of the blooming things in our yard. I love this time of year for that reason! We don't have any cacti, believe it or not! But, don't worry, a number of our trees do have thorns... ugh. Loving all of the colorful blooms! Thanks for your sweet comment today!!

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  12. The blooms on the cacti are beautiful! I have always thought they would be the ideal plant for me because I constantly forget to water my plants.

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  13. Gorgeous blooms!
    So interesting how they react to too much water. I didn't know that!
    Who would have thought a little brown furball could turn into such
    lovely red/pink blossoms.
    Nature is awesome.
    Thanks for sharing!
    xx
    A

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  14. Cas, Your cati are beautiful. Thank you for the info on the word verification. It is off now. So hope that works.

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I truly love to hear from you and try to respond to each and everyone. If you have "no reply blogger," I will respond in my comments section and then visit your blog as soon as I can.

Make this a great day!
Carol