Amazing Cactus Growth

I have to share these photos of the cactus that we "rescued." These were taken in 2003. It turns out that a colleague of mine planted two pads of this cactus in the planter back then and took these photos. She plucked them off of her mother plant at home.

(Looks at those cigarette butts - people are so nasty.)

So it only took 3-4 years for the two cacti to become monsters. That's an incredible growth rate! And here I thought they might have been at least 20 years old or more. That's hilarious, and given that kind of growth rate, we may have been better off just collecting a few of the pads and planting those instead. (Well, it was kinda fun to be in rescue mode and cram the whole thing in the back of the Volvo.)

I had advised everyone that we lay the pads down and let the roots grow out of the side. Maybe we should turn them right side up and plant them vertical, yo.

Planter by Alex

Our friend Alex makes these fantastic concrete planters, and they come in all shapes and sizes - round, square, rectangle, etc. He was motivated to make his own after not being able to find exactly what he wanted at local garden shops, especially for a reasonable price. He makes his molds out of things like commercial grade large mixing bowls. Anyway, they are super nice. We also have a round one for our rain chain and another for a succulent planter.

Alex and his partner are moving out to the Agave development, which sucks because it's nice to have people to hang out with in the hood. But as a parting gift (they aren't going that far, really), they adopted this planter out to us. I guess it wouldn't quite work with their new thing, but it works perfect on our patio.

It's heavy as a mofo. Not going anywhere anytime soon.

Cactus Rescue

One great thing that plant enthusiasts--particularly native plant enthusiasts--engage in is plant rescue. Word gets out that a property is going to be bulldozed and the Plant Freaks (and I mean that in a good way) descend for a day or more to dig up, save and replant species that would otherwise have been destroyed by the development process. It's not ideal, but at least the plants can find a second life elsewhere.

So it happened that I was in the right place at the right time to try to rescue (we will only know over time if it worked) two humongous old prickly pear cacti from a concrete planter in front of a building on UT campus that's going to be demolished. (Mind you, they were of the spineless variety. We would've left them be if they were spiny.) These weren't wild, and prickly pears aren't endangered (yet), but I just couldn't let these old beings go to waste.

Several of the big live oak trees had already been relocated. Thankfully, great pains are taken these days to move huge mature trees to new locations, and generally this works. One only has to walk over to the new Mueller development to see all of the new mature trees they've planted around the parks and entrances from elsewhere. Amazing really. But I digress.

But chances were high that these cacti would be bowled over or ripped up during demolition. Not many people will stage sit ins for a stand of prickly pears growing in a planter. So, we decided to grab them as best we could, divvy them up into pieces (whew, they were bigger and way heavier than we imagined that would be). We planted two large pieces in our front yard and are in the process of giving away the rest to friends. Propagating the cactus is relatively easy (you lay a pad down on its side and eventually roots will grow from a callous that forms on the underside of the pad). It remains to be seen how a mature cactus transplant will take - we massively severed its deep roots, particularly a deep tap root that prickly pears seem to get. Who knew? Regardless, I feel that if we even one of the pads grows into a new plant, we did some good.

The new cactus (smaller by many, many lost pads) finds a new home

Texas meets Japan? We picked this old lantern up at Wimberly Market Days. A new rescued cactus sits behind it.

Arroyo Seco - Part One

I started work on a little dry creek that we're installing to help with some of our drainage issues. The creek will run from the back to the street and connect with a downspout and with the overflow from one of the rain barrels. I made the initial shape of the creek bed and now am on the lookout for good native river stones to complete the picture. The two limestone pavers in the foreground will hopefully become a mini waterfall.

Nacht

The year is young and the nights are cool. These photos are from the back patio at night, just after we finished hosting a little shindig. The fire is just perfect...