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Native Florida Cactus and the Caribbean & Florida Stone Cactus Garden: 2024 Highlights
Everything I’ve grown and built at Cactus Island Nursery has exceeded what I’d hoped for after over five years of work and a big move to North Central Florida. My mother and I have built and maintain a productive homestead on top of that. The first two Key tree cactus – Pilosocereus robinii – are over three feet tall and the Big Pine Key planting of the species has put on some real growth since March. It is the state’s largest cactus by far, referred to by some as Florida’s own “saguaro”. The 25 or so “batch champs” I have set aside and will I’ll keep for seed production while…
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Three Distinct Island Populations of Royen’s Tree Cactus – A Short Video
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Pilosocereus aff. flexibilispinus Flowers and Fruit
The huge spiny cannons from Sitio Grande, Bahia in Brazil finally produced flowers on more than one stem, and close enough together in time that I was able to gather and freeze the pollen from one plant and tap it on another flower, yielding my first fruit. Tonight I did another and might have a seed factory going shortly. I germinated these in August 2018 and have enjoyed their rapid growth to dizzying heights. Someone collected seed of this species in 2009 and listed it as CS140 but it was misidentified by that collector as another in the genus. Luckily, a famous cactus botanist/explorer pointed it out as wrong and…
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New Videos
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The Key Tree Cactus at Cactus Island
This is the cactus that started it all for me: the Florida Key tree cactus, Pilosocereus robinii. It is our largest – a green, branching columnar cactus that can reach 33 feet in height with many arms, and what a few of us here call “Florida’s own saguaro”. Occurring only in the Florida Keys inside the U.S, it also is found in a few spots in Cuba and their coastal keys, reportedly also on a few islands of the northern Bahamas as well. Stems can get 4”+ thick and thicker at support base. Flowers are nocturnal for one night only and have somewhat of a garlic odor. Unlike many others…
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WUFT Artistry in Motion Features paintings of James V. Freeman
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Three New Videos from Cactus Island Nursery
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Spring Cactus Flowers Everywhere
I don’t think I’ve ever had so many flowers at the cactus farm at one time, and some uncommon ones at that. The really wooly blue Pilosocereus with curly white wool on every areole is some kind of hybrid from California, and I’m guessing someone crossed Brazilian P. pachycladus with Mexican P. leucocephalus or P. leucocephalus palmeri. The single muted mauve flower on the turquoise P. aff. flexibilispinus (CS140 Sitio Grande, Bahia, Brazil) was an early surprise for 4.7 year old plants. Twin flower bells with green hypanthium on what is likely Xiquexique gounelei ssp zehntneri are a knockout, while the 20-some buds on the patio gem Harrisia aboriginum candelabro…
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A Year of Progress
A couple of photos of my mom shows how happy she is with everything we’ve improved within the span of ten months, and her new dress catching the sunset compliments the exotic flowers and fruit everywhere. The new sunroom porch beautifully completes the oasis view of the back of the house, and the final four new greenhouses (Tents 9-12) are nearly complete on the near-west pasture. Just have to hang doors, move the rows of cacti inside and run electricity to them before real cold gets here. Florida roselle, a Hibiscus that yields flower calyxes that taste like cranberry, gave a mega-yield of pink flowers and food this year. The…
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Color and Form; Edible and Not
Cactus Island finally has the famous “life saver” plant everyone is talking about in the world of succulents. It was an extra gift with Ma’s purchase of an outdoor rocker on Marketplace a few weeks back. Huernia zebrina is a Stapeliad succulent from South Africa – not a cactus. Similar to our starfish Stapelia, the flower is comparatively tiny at one inch and truly does look like a wet lifesaver hard candy. It also smells like carrion and is poisonous if ingested. I’d hate to have small children around these things as the temptation would be too great, and I can still remember the horror at age four of burning…
