Tender Cactus and Succulent Collection

While most humans have slowed down and are staying at home, the plants in our invaluable living collections at Denver Botanic Gardens are continuing life as normal, including the cactus and succulent collection. In the greenhouse, many of the tropical cactus are forming buds and blooming, the aloes are waking up and blooming, and just about every plant is plumping up in anticipation of longer, warmer days. 

To stay on the same page with my prickly friends, I have been repotting specimen plants, just started the fertilizing cycle for the active growing season and am snapping lots of photos of these beauties. In the coming weeks, I will also be giving a face-lift to the Cactus and Succulent House, located in the Rock Alpine Garden, including adding many more of the popular and beautiful Echinopsis hybrids that are typically blooming away behind the scenes. So, things are staying busy with the cactus and succulent collection, and that’s a great thing. 

Luckily, for our reimagined online Spring Plant Sale this year, we will have a nice variety of tender succulents, many of which I grow in the collection. These plants were all grown by Crump Greenhouse in Buena Vista, CO. Be on the lookout for our virtual Spring Plant Sale and do some succulent retail therapy—there’s some awesome plants to choose from! 

Like all my horticulture colleagues, I am absolutely chomping at the bit waiting for our visitors to return to enjoy our hard work and the calming sense of beauty Denver Botanic Gardens provides. We hope to see you soon, and hopefully in time for the mid-May to Mid-June hardy cactus flower explosion!