Monday, May 5, 2014

Opuntia humifusa redux

So last year I got these Eastern prickly pear pads which I stuck in a pot and Voila! they sprouted roots and grew.  The pot looked like cactus Stonehenge.  They went totally floppy over the winter, sagging over the edge of their pot.  But, as the days grew warmer and warmer, they perked up again.

I decided that I wanted to repot them with some other succulents into some more artistic arrangements, so I trucked up my long planters from the curbside, put nice new potting soil (Espoma brand, even though it's more expensive than Miracle Gro.  The Scotts/Miracle Gro company can suck it http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/September/12-enrd-1088.html) amended with extra perlite.  I dug up the sempervivums (hens & chicks) I'd overwintered between two of the rose bushes, and pulled up some sedum (angelina) from the bed where it's growing like wildfire, and made some pretty arrangements to brighten up the curbside.

The gloves I was wearing were totally inadequate to protect me from the nasty little barbed glochids on the edges of the firm green pads, and I spent quite a bit of time in the bathroom with tweezers and duct tape pulling the damn things out after finishing my repotting.  Even with that, I missed some.  So much fun - NOT.  At least the roses warn me ahead of time with showy 1/2" long thorns.

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