Well, it was a success! Self-pollination with the expert advice of a botanist in AZ and those 3AM wanderings into the backyard resulted in fertilization and the first fruit on this cactus. The Royen’s tree cactus is busting out in a conveyor belt of buds, flowers and now fruit that should contain genetic clone seeds if I can keep the critters from getting it first. The second flower opened last night and was even prettier than the first. In the past two weeks the growing tip of the stem has become an ever-changing activity center full of intriguing protuberances with inspiring shapes, colors and functions. I’m not sure how many…

It has been just over eleven months since we moved here in rural Williston, Fl from down South in Estero, and what a monumental restorative effort it has been. My mother named the 8.21 acre property on a sub-tropically wooded sand hill “Cactus Island”, as old time Florida settlers once called such highground areas “islands”. It is also a reference to the abundant yellow-flowering prickly pear cacti found throughout the property and to the enormous numbers of Florida-compatible cacti I’ve grown from seed in the ever-expanding nursery. We completely hand-renovated the house, built food garden enclosures, created permaculture mounds for orchards and restored the land by manually weeding it of…