The Garden II

the First photo is of my successful graft of a slower growing top to a faster growing rootstock, although it is hard to tell in the photo but the grafted cacti was smaller than a dime when first grafted back on May 30th and now it is larger than a quarter, thus it has grown about 2 years growth in just 2 months! !

The Second Photo is of an Intoxicated Bumble Bee who decided to just " sleep it off " during the night rather than risk Drinking and Flying....

The Last photo is of my Achora vine flowering and I can't wait for the fruits... this plant has grown about a foot a day recently with the heat....

Cactus Update I

Here are some photos of some of my seedlings that were transplanted about 2 months ago as well as new growth from this year in a cutting I planted last year although it is hard to see in photo this new growth is about 3 inches long and about 4 inches in diameter , note all this grew in in a little over a month time frame. I shall soon post a photo of my successful grafting of a much slower cactus species to the rootstock of a faster growing species, when I first did the graft the top part was smaller than a US dime and now it is larger than a US quarter, in other words about 2 years growth in two months! I shall soon try the same technique this weekend with the Organ Pipe Cactus (also a slow growing species) and see if I am successful. note...plastic ziplock bags contain new seedlings that are sprouting.

Life's a Bitch..then You Die

Well let me tell you about the past couple of weeks of shit....first my computer decides to die, I loose both my memory stick and my hard drive and yes folks I lost photos and other files that were not backed up... damn like can be the shits at times, but that is the reality of the digital world we live in, a click here can produce bliss and then another click ...it's gone forever.......to make things even more painful yours truly had the pleasure of having one of my varieties of prickly pear cactus fall in my face and chest... of course this just happen to be the type with thousands of small spines and a fuckin pain in the ass to remove...in other words yo just have to deal...as they are so small to remove but hurt like hell and annoying so for the next 4 days it was pain and suffering, although it should have happened sooner as I have many a variety of cacti and so far most have been very pleasant and generous to me... guess it was pissed off for not transplanting into a larger pot sooner... so yes that learned me a good lesson....don't piss off your cacti or else pay the ultimate price, pictures to appear soon as I have lost all previous photos sorry folks....

Plant Poke Plant Poke

Tonight I was transfering some more of my cacti to larger pots and my fingers now feel like a pin cussion and no leather gloves do not stop the needlesfrom sticking intoyour fingers, but hey the plants appreciate the room for growth, I tell you it is so damn hard ta get good cactus mix these days so one has to turn to making your own, yes it's a pain in the ass especially for those of us that are not located in or near a desert, however I happen to be located near some gravel pits, Lake Superior, and many peat swamps so I just dig some peat, dig some sand and greavel, add some ground limestone and POOF cactus medium to make my cacti happy plants once again here is a sampling of some of my cacti I transplanted and need toyet to transplant, a few varieties of pricly pear cacti, hedehog, echinocereus,severalvariety of trichocereus, and a few others