Prickly Customers

Apparently cacti are making a comeback.

Life doesn’t come much more easycare than a cactus. If you want to make a cactus happy, give it sunshine, sand, and – have I forgotten something? Oh, yes, water. Well, don’t worry too much about that, it’ll survive. Humans must be doing a good job of caring for cacti because cacti, and images of cacti, are sprouting in all corners of our culture. They have become the pop-up plant of our desolate age.

I wasn’t aware that they had gone away…

Anyway, I’m not new to this cactus thing. I started growing them when I was in my teens. I saw a peanut cactus for sale at a fair and went on from there. I lost most of my collection when we returned from France and the removal people sent a van that was too small and something had to give. We left the cacti in the greenhouse and hoped they would survive until we came back a few months later. A few did. Most died. So I’ve had to gradually build up again.

My preferred genus is the rebutia, closely followed by the sulcorebutia and epiphyllum, although the odd opuntia and mammillaria will find its way into my collection. Not to mention the odd lithop and fenestraria… Ahem.