My Yellow Rose Of Colorado
By Ed Powers, Colorado Grasp GardenerI have written two earlier blogs about my love of cactus by which I included details about Colorado Cactus identification and knowledge on the cactus backyard I attempted to finish. I’m nonetheless engaged on that backyard. In a type of earlier blogs, I referred to as our prickly Pear Cactus the Yellow Rose of Colorado as a result of it has one of the lovely yellow flowers I’ve ever seen. Potted Prickly Pear Cactus early in summer season. Center of plant is a columbine that’s two years previous and grown from seed.The scientific title is Opuntia macrorhiza. They’re often yellow however typically purple. The pads and fruit (spent flowers) are edible. The pads are modified branches. And naturally anybody who has handled the cactus is conscious of their spines. 5 years in the past I discovered two pads joined on my deck, on the identical time I used to be preventing varmints in my flower gardens on my deck. So I made a decision to do a take a look at. I planted the pads in an urn pot that had flowers. It grew very slowly for the primary 4 years and by no means flowered. Nonetheless the varmints left the pot alone. I grew many various annuals in that pot, together with a columbine I began from seed. This 12 months one thing modified. The place earlier than two to 3 new pads had been added every this 12 months, this 12 months we added 10 new pads. Earlier than we had no flowers, this 12 months we had 28 flowers. One thing else occurred, the primary flowers bloomed for sooner or later, the later flowers lasted 2-3 days and once more they had been a vivid yellow.I in contrast the cactus within the urn to wild ones within the yard that had been about the identical age as my urn flower. It was 3-4 occasions the scale of untamed ones.So I will need to have transformed my wild two pads to a big lovely potted plant. My household actually enjoys our Yellow Rose of Colorado.
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By Ed Powers, Colorado Grasp GardenerI have written two earlier blogs about my love of cactus by which I included details about Colorado Cactus identification and knowledge on the cactus backyard I attempted to finish. I’m nonetheless engaged on that backyard. In a type of earlier blogs, I referred to…