We bought our place 5 years ago. The exterior walls were covered with holly. It provided some thermal barrier in summer but I soon realized it was a highway for insects to get into the house. I also didn’t like the idea of roots and moisture near a home foundation.
I dug out most of the holly and began to look for thorny things that discourage intruders. On the cold side of the house that is pyrocanthia, Russian olive, raspberry, but wherever I can it is cacti, yucca, agave.





A flash flood uprooted a small cholla on our place. I replanted it under a sunny window. It was the first cactus I planted. Today I have to prune it back if I want to open the window.





I have 4 distinct species of stick cacti (cholla) in 4 distinct sizes. The native ones are the next to the largest. This one is the smallest. For my birthday my wife gave me a cholla from a local cactus expert that is the very largest – 5ft tall now and growing fast. When I ask him exactly what species that thing is he just grins at me.





A specimen from an elk hunt in the Cimarron basin.





Not much from the Mojave can survive the cold here but this one did. I have not yet removed those pads that took a beating its first winter.

From an Oklahoma deer hunt.




A prickly pear on the right from a cactus grower I met in Garden City. He said it was from the mountains of Mexico.




I don’t have any daughters myself, but I have learned that fathers have been planting cacti and other formidable foliage below their daughter’s bedroom windows for as long as there have been fathers and daughters.


A trunked yucca (Thonpsonia) from NM.





My best dog lies on a hill in a thick patch of native cholla. A t-post is her marker and a river rock inscribed with her words.






Spanish dagger aka shin dagger.

A Candy Barrel from the rim of the Grand Canyon sports yellow blossoms.







This one was nearly devoured by some free range cattle in Texas. It has responded well to its new home in Southern Colorado.



Same cactus as above pic. Grew a few more pads this past month





On the day my wife had spine surgery the hospital staff urged me to get out of the waiting room to take my mind off it. I drove around Denver only vaguely aware of what I was doing. Somehow I found myself at a nursery and brought home a small pencil cholla on a 2’ pot. Today my wife is fine and I have clones of that cholla everywhere.

Leotie sizes up a nice native cholla on the nearby prairie.

Very nice. I have one like the last pic. It was growing out of rock in cen\Tx.

need a teddy-bear!

I do - but I think the winters here would be too much.

they'll stand a little snow, at about 32 degrees....that zero crap is not so good for them!

Sycamore

I enjoyed this picture tutorial, Alamosa.

Nice work too.

Thanks for posting.

Thanks for the pictorial!

Nice diverse group of succulents you've got growing there. Surprised to see the Ocotillo (3rd pic) in the mix and surviving. Would have thought southern CO would be too cold for them. I was born and raised in Alamosa and I'm guessing your place must be on the other side of the Sangres otherwise a few of those species wouldn't have made it through their first winter!

Nice pics - love cacti.

I didn't see any live ocotillo in the pic. I would expect it to be leafed out if it was alive. don't see that in lots of Arizona, even in much of the Grand Canyon.

Sycamore

Very nice, thank you so much.

trichocereus bridgesii , i grow these, bet no one knows what they're good for or use for.

san pedro

All I have is red agave and aloe vera. The aloe grows like a weed.


There is a house south a few blocks from me where a an elderly German lady lived who was a botanist. Pretty sure she had one of every cacti in her front and back yard. She past last year, they sold the house and then dug up everything and threw it all into a dumpster. Travesty !!!

For unhinging the brain!

That ocotillo didn't make it unfortunately. Froze.
Sad to lose it, I really liked it, but it was stupid of me to think it could make it here. Really hard to protect those with a frost cloth too.
I am east of the Sangres - for the next couple years at least. Most winters are no big deal but there are the occasional cold snaps that will do a lot of damage if I don't cover them.

Nice.

Those type in the photo will only grow indoors here.
My parents grew one up to the ceiling, when it couldn't go higher it began to grow across the ceiling! Musta been 14' or 16' total length. Took 4 or 5 pots to replant all the segments.

I would think winter in Colorado would be way too cold for them.

correct full of mescaline like peyote.but legal

Texas horse crippler


not going to say what these are.

Those are carpet tack-strips.

Very nice displays. Where I hunt, we have some really vicious cholla, like the "teddy bear" variety. I've learned the hard way why it's called jumping cactus. The weird thing is the Cactus Wren makes some really cool looking nests in it. Even more amazing is the fact that the local desert mulies can eat the buds...... I know a guy that watched a buck eat two of them. The Fish & Wildlife people have found that up to 15% of their winter diet is of that family of cactus.
I've seen places where barrel cactus is growing out of solid rock on vertical canyon walls. Really fascinating plants. E

Very nice.
Love the cacti in Texas.

blooms open at night close in the day.

Yes, thanks for the pix....we don't see a lot of that stuff growing up here!

Thanks Alamosa and stxhunter - good to see many of the friends we enjoyed during all of those years on the desert. Some of the less cold-tolerant that quit might have been OK in SW Colorado, but a cold bowl like your area would be difficult.