Sunday, September 25, 2011

Homicide

I spent most of my adult years in the Pacific NW where there's 9 months of rain and 3 months of dry.  About 4 days after the rains stopped, everybody was out watering lawns and plants.  Didn't seem like there was such a thing as too much irrigation.
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Now I live in the desert; very dry, very hot.  Seems logical that you'd have to water the living crap out of everything virtually every day.  Right?  Wrong!  The plants are different, the soil's different, it's a whole 'nother shooting match entirely.  Cacti have attitude: 'Go ahead, dumb ass, water me once a week, see what happens.'  What happens is they quickly become sullen and lethargic.  Keep it up and it's, 'Up yours, sucker.  I'm outta here.'  Game over.  Post mortem: homicide.  Weapon: water.  Perpetrator: me.
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Homicide victims are not noted for their photogenicity and cacti are no exception.  Pix of the survivors are considerably more appealing.  Here are 3 that have yet to succumb to my ministrations.

Golden Barrel Cactus
Echinocactus grusonii


Tubac Prickly Pear
Opuntia macrocentra/violacea

Century Plant
Agave americana

3 comments:

  1. Your grass is looking very pinkish and gravelly. That's what comes of not watering.
    A Pacific Northwesternicity friend
    (photogenicity, really? Is that a word?)

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  2. Although guilty of word crafting sometimes, this time I'm innocent. Yup, it's a word.

    Mike

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  3. Love it! Great post. Hope my wife reads and listens to your advice. She waters the hell out of everything in our Tucson winter yard. When it dies, she says, "see, it didn't get enough water"!!! Jeez! So far I've talked her out of a drip system (definition: a system waiting for something to go wrong). Let's hope she reads this post and reduces the watering in Tucson!!! haha
    Al (who's watering his yard in Northern Minnesota as speak)

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