The best Cacti and succulent garden is in Orange County, at a private home.
Yes, the owners were influenced by the big one at the Huntington, but small is more manageable.
Turns out these guys need hand watering and a lot of cleaning up debris, which isn’t easy to do with all those thorns.
I am grateful for their efforts. Sure flowers are fleeting and lovely.
This one looks like a ruffled camelia, but it grows on a desert plant.
Flowers turn into fruit. There is plenty of animal life around who have figured out how to live among the spines.
The succulent world is full of oddities, this one starts new growth with green leaves and then turns thick, fleshy and wrinkled.
This type of growth is a ‘sport’ even on this plant, but with regular attention, this is what the growers have managed to encourage and keep.
There are the tall ones that reach for the sky.
With interesting flowers….
… but really, it’s the leaves growing in spirals along the trunk that are interesting. Beware, the leaves do hide very sharp thorns.
I think it’s true, nature abhors a straight line.
I know there is some kind of mathematical formula going on here. The twists and turns aren’t arbitrary.
Not a saguaro cactus, but close.
The barrels are always intriguing, there are rare ones that one can never find at the local nursery.
I haven’t been gardening much, I pay my gardener to keep the place looking decent, but these days I don’t put in any effort. It really is wonderful to spend time in a garden where the owners really do put in the love and time.
Leah