Heh – yeah, faked you out. I’ve never successfully grown a garden.
Sure seem to have a lot of flowers though. Every year I find new ones. Meant to take a bunch of pix of the cliff roses, which had a good spring, but I didn’t get around to it.
Found this guy right next to my burn barrel this afternoon…
This one gets bigger.
The prickly pears have two different sorts of flower that I’ve seen, this one and a really bright red that drives hummingbirds nuts. Then there’s sort of very small barrel cactus that has the prettiest lavender flowers I’ve ever seen – and the sharpest, meanest thorns. I never seem to encounter those when there’s a camera handy.
For a moment there, I thought it was some kind of cholla because of all the spines. I don’t think I’ve seen a yellow-flowered prickly pear. Is the inside of the fruit yellowish?
I don’t know. It could be some sort of cholla, but I think it’s a prickly pear. Don’t really know the difference.
We’ve noticed the same two colors of flowers on prickly pear, the vermillion and yellow colored flowers. Do you take the time during the spring to cut the young cactus pads (removing all spines) and eating them ? Supposedly good for diabetes, they are a bit slimy until you pour the liquid off the first, then add scrambled egg and chorizo for some good eats.
Dont quote me, but I believe prickly pear has the flat leaves with groups of spines, the cholla are more rounded (like sausage) and look like frickin’ pin cushions, tons of spines everywhere.