a very unfortunate order of events...

Last Sunday was one of those days when I head out to the garden with a specific task to accomplish, but soon found myself caught up in 100 small projects. In the end I accomplished what I had set out to do, but not before a bit of drama unfolded.

My first cylindropuntia was a gifted cutting, that’s it above in a photo taken last spring. I stuck it in the ground (like I do regular old opuntia pads) figuring it would root. Last weekend I noticed instead of sticking straight up, or out to the side, the arms were deflated and facing downward. I pulled it out of the ground and found this…

Instead of rooting it had died, the flesh gone and the dry skeleton remaining.

At the top of the skeleton there were still spikes.

Of course I thought that dried bit of plant skeleton was pretty cool and took it up by the house to save it (that was my first mistake). Then I went back to work, sticking the sad (but possibly still living) cylindropuntia arms in the ground, figuring maybe they’d root and live on (ever the optimist). That’s a few of them at the bottom middle of this picture…

As I was planting I had a flip-flop blowout…

So I tossed the dead flip-flops aside and finished what I was working on, barefoot. That was my second mistake. Because I then stepped on one of these which had fallen off the skeleton and was lying in the driveway…

There was much swearing, loudly. You cannot imagine the pain. Really. I’ve stuck a few opuntia spikes or glochids in my feet before, and been poked by agave tips…but to be walking along and put your foot down full force on a cluster of these spikes…it was intense. I was home alone so I hobbled into the house to get the tweezers. Those spikes were in my foot as far as they could go and did not want to come out. It took all my strength to pull and pull and pull again. Finally after the last one came free; I nearly passed out from the pain. I am not exaggerating.

For just a fleeting moment, a 100th of a second, I was regretting my love for the spiky things. Naturally once I was sure I would live to walk another day I got over that. However I do thank my lucky stars I am the one to have stepped on it, not these furry feet which regularly walk up and down the driveway with no shoes on…

So since we’re on the topic of the cactus let’s have a look and see how they’re all doing, post-winter...

First up the cylindropuntia I bought at Hillside Desert Botanical Gardens last summer, both of them are looking good!

Guess it helped to buy them already rooted.

I am thrilled the Echinocereus hybrid (also from H.D.B.G.) made it and looks good!

Opuntia basilaris ‘Sara’s Compact’ is happy, although I did recently cut off an ugly pad.

Opuntia Engelmannii lives on, actually all the opuntia look pretty good…

Opuntia humifusa

Opuntia x rutila

Maihuenia poeppigii

And a couple of misfits, this one pulled from my in-laws driveway when it was about an inch tall…

And this one, who came along with the care package of opuntia sent to me last spring from David at The Desert Edge...

After a few days of swelling and pain my foot is back to normal, the pain just a memory. The moral of the story…don’t walk barefoot through the desert, even in Portland, Oregon.

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