Sunday, October 5, 2008

Last Of The Season

Now that the weather has cooled, several cacti gave it one last push and produced new blooms. This Echinopsis 'Elegant Lady' was the most surprising--the bud formed and bloomed within four days!


My most reliable bloomer, Gymnocalycium baldianum, usually finishes blooming in late September, but it has produced two flowers this week.

 
The last Ferocactus wislizenii flowers opened Thursday. They will last another week, then shrink and dry as the others shown on this cactus.
It has been a great year for cactus flowers, probably because of the combination of heavier than normal summer rains, a spring and summer that lasted longer than usual, and an other year of growth. Sometimes one good year means a lighter flower production the next year, but I won't fret about that--not after this spectacular season. I hope you enjoyed the many cactus flowers I featured in posts over the past six months. Now that all my landscape plants, cacti and succulents have been documented in 417 posts over the past 17 months, I'll have to start using my imagination to find something to write about, or else buy some new and different plants!

12 comments:

Claude said...

beautiful pics, as always. I've been away for a few days, so am catching up on what everybody has been up to...

Julie said...

It certainly has been a ride of a lifetime! I can never thank you enough for your determined and sustained efforts to give us such a show over all this time...glad I hitched on for the ride! Looking forward to your imaginative posts in the future! Give some thought to setting up an art blog so we can see all your beautiful art peices too!!!!!

Pudgeduck said...

Or... you can do like me.... write a blog about nothing!

Nancy in Sun Lakes AZ said...

How about showing pics and detailing how you care for the specific plant? I would appreciate info on soil mixture, exposure, watering of the wonderful plants you raise and photograph.

kesslerdee said...

Gorgeous blooms! Hooray for the rain! I think you could start over with your cactus and no one would be disappointed! I would love to hear how you deal with winter. Do you bring some inside?
I would also love to have you post more about planting techniques and propogation. And I would love to see your Saguaros.

Teri said...

Such beautous flowers!!

Rock rose said...

There must be a wonderful surprise waiting for you every morning among your cactus pots.

Lythrum said...

I've really enjoyed seeing your pictures, I'm sure you'll have no problem finding other things to talk about. I end up writing a lot about cooking in the fall/wintertime.

GardenBloggers.Com said...

All your photos are nice but that first one is spectacular. It looks like a ghost or something like that. Nice job.

(btw, this is MrBrownThumb I'm just using a new Blogger account to post)

Jocelyn H. Chilvers said...

Hey, I think this calls for a shopping trip, preferably to a far-away and exotic local---South Africa, perhaps?!

Julie said...

I had to come back to read everyones comments! I think Jocelyn has it right...where can you go somewhere around the world???...how about to the Canary Islands to see all that wild aeonium???????????????? Of course after that, you could go to the south tip of South Africa...and maybe someone named Julie should go with you! LOLOL. I wish I could afford it...but what a dream trip!!!

Anonymous said...

Sounds like someone needs a trip to the cactus nursery.
The last of your flowers are beautiful.