Cactus Corner!

 

Bonjour!

Here's the post on Cactus Corner I promised you the other day. As mentioned, a few weekends ago my mom and I decided to plant a lot of our big cactus and succulent plants, in the ground, especially the cuttings we got from family friends that we know grow into monsters! So, we scouted the backyard and found the perfect sunny spot to fill with cacti and succulents, I've dubbed it Cactus Corner! Please keep in mind that it's still a work in progress, little by little we've been sourcing out new plants to fill it in. Once we've accomplished filling the space we'll install a nice new stone border and dump a few bags of sand colored rocks over the surface of the soil to make it look nice and uniform. Until then we'll leave it like this and add new cacti and succulents as we find them.

The reason why we chose the back corner of the house near the pool is because it gets lots of sun and it was already home to two HUGE Aloe plants that my mom planted a few years back along with lots of Purple Hearts. The contrast of the green Aloe with the purple Purple Hearts is awesome, so we knew we wanted to repeat that some more... Also, the Aloe had gotten big and juicy and since it flanked the right edge of two palm trees, we decided to repeat that by planting some more Aloes around the remaining perimeter of them, that way once the newer Aloe's get bigger they will create a ring around the palm tree. After that we started adding different Cacti, Kalachoes, Echeverias, Agave and more interspersed with more Purple Hearts and Oyster Plants for more of that beautiful royal purple contrast!

Once again, it's a work in progress and some of these pictures were taken in the afternoon, hence the less than stellar lighting. That's about it for now, more to come as this space evolves. Enjoy!

The gorgeous stalks on my mother's giant juicy Aloes...

Here's the general area (still looking too bare, needs more plants and rocks for ground cover)... On the other side of the palms are the large Aloes and newly planted soon-to-be-monsters cacti plants...

This is called a Rainbow Aloe!
(which my dog mangled shortly after taking this photo! *sigh*)

Check out the scraggly Echeveria in the foreground, my dog trampled and broke many of its delicate leaves :( To the left is an Aloe and in the background is an Oyster plant, Kalanchoes and Purple Hearts....



Check out this Aloe below right when we planted it...

And then a week or two after planting.... A flower stalk sprouted and grew SUPER fast....
YIPEEEEE!

Well, above is what this little Prickly Pear Cactus looked like BEFORE my kind Cocker Spaniel Chewby Doo trampled it and ripped off the skinny little son it worked so hard to spawn! I've had this cactus since last year when I lived downtown, it took so long for it to show signs of growth and go figure, right when I decide to plant it in the ground my dog destroys it. It's mean, but I'm sure he got at least a few prickly spines stuck in his paws as punishment, HA, that'll teach him! But sadly, it doesn't teach him, he keeps trampling everything in Cactus Corner, lord only knows how many times he does it when I'm not around to see scold! Oh well... My mom and I are working on a solution to this problem. We are contemplating a raised bed, but we're not sure yet - more details on that once we decide. But there's good news... This resilient little guy bounced back in the week or so since his child was decapitated! LOOK! He has grown a new baby... Cross your fingers that this one will survive King Kong Chewby!

Here are a couple shots of the Purple Hearts... I really like them, their color is so vibrant and I'm totally in love with the little lavender flowers they sprout from their tips, which I didn't notice until recently! Plus, they're super cheap, grow and spread fast with little maintenance and they make for such incredible contrast against the green of any garden!

And this amazingly colorful Kalanchoe is called a Butterfly Kalanchoe and I found it at Home Depot last weekend! It;s exactly like the Kalanchoe succulent that I found growing by the side of the road last year, seen in this post, except its colors are green and hot pink, as opposed to green and purple! It's fantastic, I can't wait for it to grow like wildfire all throughout Cactus Corner, it will create gorgeous color and contrast against all the green and especially against the purple of the Oyster plants!

For comparison, here is the purple and green Kalancho Serrata (a.k.a. Magic Tower) growing nearby. I love its little knife-like leaf edges, and whenever I see they've sprouted those little balls/babies at the tips (you can only see one growing on the top right leaf's tip) I gently pull them off and throw them around so they can sprout new plants, yup, it's THAT easy to propagate! They grow FAST!

Ok, now let's head around the corner to where the big boys will be... We pass the huge Aloes on the corner that my mother planted many year ago...

Here are the Aloes again, this picture was obviously taken days after the ones at the top of the post because the yellow flowers opened! And just past the Aloes are these guys.... I'm pretty sure we planted them too close, now that I look at it once they get big there won't be much space for each to grow so I'll have to move them around this weekend.... There's a crazy spiky Agave of some sort in the foreground and a very prickly cactus on the back left and two other cacti on the right that get monstrously huge! Take a close look at the taller cactus in the back right of the picture because it has changed SO MUCH since we planted it in the ground a few weekends ago. Want proof? Well just scroll on down to the next photo! It's truly incredible!!

In just a week or two since planting this sprouts....Would you look at this?? WOW!

See!?!?! It has sprouted an ENORMOUS stem and flower bud, it's so big that it's starting to sag away from the cactus! I sure hope my dog doesn't break it off during a crazed lizard hunt! I can't wait for it to open! Yipeeee...

Last but not least, a closeup of the viciously spiked Agave...


(All images in this post are my own personal photographs, please ask permission before using them and link back to Inspire Bohemia. Thank you!)

Mama's Garden

While my boyfriend and aunt were in the hospital I slept at my mom's house....  Sleeping at mom's afforded me the luxury of waking up with the family dogs anxiously and happily panting in my face (I fell asleep watching TV on the sofa), eating a delicious breakfast I didn't have to cook, and quality family time - SCORE!  All that aside, I got to wander through my mother's lovely yard/garden in the early morning  "oohing and ahhhing" as she eagerly watered her plants!  Here are some pictures I took, beginning with the image above which features the stunning yellow flower of her Frangipani, which had just bloomed that very same day (last Saturday), our dogs and much more of nature's wonderful beauty.  Thanks for passing on the green thumb mom, you're the best!

Enjoy! 

Our Boxer, "Kimbo".... one of my brother's friends gave him to us when he was a puppy and he already had that name, I guess my brother liked it because it stuck!  Kimbo is quite the character and a VERY intelligent dog.  I love that punk....

He LOVES to swim, he must jump in the pool and swim around at least 2-3 times a day!

Kimbo shakes hands too!....

LOL...Here we were making fun of him, lifting up his ears to get an idea of what he would have looked like if my brother had gone the traditional route and clipped his ears (he didn't clip his ears or tail... the ears I'm glad, the tail, not so much....that thing hurts like a whip)

That look says he doesn't appreciate our evil cackling....hehe...

Our oldest dog, Manchita the Dalmatian.... she is skin and bones and perhaps she should be put down due to many issues, but the girl still has so much life, she gallops around the yard like a horse!  We just don't have the heart... plus, I think she needs to go naturally!....

Last but not least my Chewby Dewby Doo, my caramel Cocker Spaniel.... the family calls him Chewy....  he has one of those sad personalities, poor thing, I think it got worse when my dad passed away.....  But, the one thing that definitely makes him happy is chasing lizards!

 And now, for my favorite part.... The other pictures of my mother's garden which I have enhanced the color contrast for added color and drama!..... Aren't they awesome!?  Yes, yes they are... :)

 Here is a huge bunch of Aloe and those awesome bright eggplant purple plants... don't know their name, but I need some of my own!....

Kalanchoes spilling out of their container..... how I love these Kalanchoes!  The ones in my garden come from my mother's yard, but it amazes me how different both of ours look - it's because they turn various shades of purple and green depending on how much sun or shade they get..... fascinating....

 

You better recognize... Gardeners know the best dirt!  :P

A Bromeliad mixed in with some of that creeping cactus vine, forgot the name.... but it's the same one I have that puts out the gorgeous blood red flower (because we both got our cutting from my grandmother's yard)!

....aaaaaaaaand........a magnificent purple and white orchid in full bloom!.....

(All images in this blog post are my own personal photographs)