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Data
That Guy



Registered: 08/13/08
Posts: 3,889
Loc: Southwestern US
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Data's Random Desert Plants Thread 2
#855743 - 03/04/22 04:47 PM (10 months, 19 days ago) |
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Hello Everyone,
A while back I moved to the American southwest, specifically the high desert near Albuquerque. At the end of last spring, when I was moving out of my rental house, I snagged some seeds from the local cacti, trees, and shrubs that I really liked the look of. When I moved into my new place, I found a few native cacti growing on a path near my house, and snagged one of the fruits to harvest the seeds.
Unfortunately I was super busy at the time and never got around to labeling the storage containers. Now that I'm settled in and less busy, I figured I'd try sprouting a few of each batch of seeds and see what pops up. If I like them and can get them established, I'll use them to populate my place with more water-friendly plants (the previous owners didn't give a shit about water conservation, an opinion shared by the majority of the neighborhood unfortunately).
Anyway, once I get the seeds sown I'll post more pics, but I'll go ahead and get the thread started now.

I know that the top left is the native opuntia that I harvested near my current place (this cactus will probably be featured in another thread soon). The bottom right looks like the seeds I harvested from the rental house, it was from a low-growing columnar cactus that produces tons of pups and has deep red flowers. I think the top right comes from another rental house harvest from a plant that looks like a droopy yucca, produces a flower stalk and seed pods that almost look like a walnut hull. Idk though, I'm trying to pull this all from memory, we'll see what seeds are actually viable, and what plants they are once I grow them out.
-------------------- “The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you” -NDT
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Data
That Guy



Registered: 08/13/08
Posts: 3,889
Loc: Southwestern US
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Re: Data's Random Desert Plants Thread [Re: Data]
#855967 - 03/30/22 12:21 AM (9 months, 25 days ago) |
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Update:
Its still almost too early to plant, but I have a seed tray ready to start some seeds.
I figured out that seeds on the bottom right are claret cup hedgehog cacti. The round seeds in the bottom-center container are vitex seeds.
I also went to my local garden expo and got some free seeds, so I'll be sprouting some canyon grapes, sunflowers, bush beans, and some hatch green chiles (1000 SHU).
I also bought some seedlings, so I'll be planting a few desert globemallow, some thyme for ground cover in the back yard, some numex hatch chiles, and some squash. I'll probably put the veggies in some self-wicking bucket planters that I'll be making shortly (pics to follow).
I also ventured out into the open space behind my house and managed to find one bird of paradise seed, and harvested about 15 lbs of various opuntia pads. I plan to let those pads callous over and disperse them back into the open space. It used to be a golf course I think, so its fairly new wild space and has problems maintaining any topsoil, and new plants are hard to establish naturally via seed because of the ongoing megadrought in the SW, so I figured I'd help start some plants that provide food, shelter, and water storage for the local fauna. I'm hoping to find a public stand of tree cholla and harvest some cuttings for the open space as well.
Anyway, will post pictures as I make more progress.
-------------------- “The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you” -NDT
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