Cacti Safari

The garden centre provided a fantastic display of cacti and succulents.No need for a trip to a botanic garden glass house to travel across the botanical world . After a coffee and a cheese scone it was full of interesting finds.

I love this unusual plant, a succulent with leaf like structures at the end of each spine.

This is a Red African Milk Tree (Euphobia trigonia red) unbelievably these are related to poinsettias.

The small area in the garden centre was crammed with some really stunning plants .

These tiny pots are great for a collection.

Old Man of the Mountain ( Oreocereus trollii)

The Golden barrel cactus (Echinocactus grusonii)

Cactus are really simple to look after in the house they really just need a warm bright spot , water every two to three weeks, so not too much to remember. They are generally slow growing not needing much fertiliser. I have been surprised by an amazing show of flowers on cacti I had overlooked for ages and by normal measures should be dead !

Here are a few more beauties from the garden centre trip.

Another group of plants the succulents including the living stones, lithops were also well represented.

The living stones above come from Southern Africa their shape prevents them from being eaten. The name Lithops comes from the Greek Lithos meaning stone and ops meaning face.

If none of these amazing plants are tempting to try growing at home there is always the ceramic option .. also available at the garden centre and no watering needed at all !!