Or maybe I mean “A Sticker-y Situation”…

Because while cactus thorns can stick you I guess they aren’t technically stick-y. But anyway. We can do an English lesson on that another day. Right now I’m just worried about whether to say “cactus” or “cacti” or even “cactuses” while writing this post.In “Here is Yard Art”, you saw part of the cactus garden starting to take shape. The idea was to have mosaic art “sculptures” and a drought friendly cactus garden in the part of the yard with the driest soil. Before going into what it looks like now, I should give you some background on this section of the back yard.Twenty-plus years ago, this part of the yard looked like this. Apparently there wasn’t always a drought in the San Joaquin Valley.Here’s Mark in a photo from sometime in the 90s.And once I even had a flourishing zucchini plant there.But for the longest time it has just looked like this.

And in July of 2017 there were the ill-fated chrysanthemum and Sunny the sunflower…

And you may remember the nopal pads I got from the giant cactus in Carlos and Kate’s back yard in August of 2017. You can read “Nopales and More” if you’re new here, or if you would just like a quick review.

By April of this year they were doing great!Then we had this issue where they were bending down and parts broke off, apparently from being top-heavy. I never really figured that out, but after some trimming I planted a couple more of the pads, and so far they’re doing fine and having “babies” as well.You can see one of them next to the famous sago palm from my previous post.

Then the yard art had to be placed and photographed in multiple locations and combinations until the “perfect” spots were found.

Add some geckos on the fence and a random cinder block mosaic…A snake plant and an agave from Carlos’s store…

Just add water…

Like I’ve mentioned before, the soil in most of my yard is impossible to dig in unless you flood it with water first.

Finally I managed to get everything planted.So this is pretty much how it looks now.

Whether or not any of them get as big as the nopales at Carlos and Kate’s remains to be seen. I can only imagine those have been there for years.

But if worst comes to worst, I guess I can always get more yard art!