Check out this for a front yard. Some real beauties there.

(alt+p)

(alt+p)

How do i go about owning a garden like that???

WOW! where is this?
i am so going to go nuts there with a cutting knife!

Call dibs, whole garden

As much as I love cactus... This garden does nearly nothing for me... to me it just looks 'wrong'...

Sorry, personal opinion only...

Tho Lewis, when you get there with your knife can you cut me some of the cool ones too

My photos don't do the place justice. It looks fantastic in real life. I still haven't met the owners who are never home. No way would I snake any cuts, I'd rather trade with them. They have a heap of unusual varietys of my favourite Genera so I'd rather become friends. I'll definitely be hitting them up or pollen!

No way am I gonna give up the location either. I'll get closer pics once I've met the folks.

I envy you your proximity to a garden this full of spikies, CH! I love some of the specimens in the garden, but I take slim6y's point too - it's probably not how I would imagine putting a garden together.

This might be an interesting thread itself, especially as I have been thinking a lot lately about how I'll do this when my baby trichs grow a bit.

So, if anyone's up for starting a thread, what makes a 'good' cactus garden?

Good idea! I like the use of rocks, gravel and succulents here, maybe a little crowded but the specimens are very nice. The first thing you want for a top cacti garden is about 100 acres and a mountain range in the distance, Picture perfect!

Yeh i understand thats not what you would see your garden like, but its great none the less. Thats probly how myne will turn out.

I think that for me it'd be important to not have too much visual activity in a small space - in that way I guess it's be a bit zen.

This is not to say that I only want a couple of cactus in a garden; rather, I think I'd like a nice crowd of just a few visual forms... maybe my bigger trichs at the back, the smaller huascas and simliar more toward the front, and a few globulars at the edge.

Rocks - yeah! Negative space too, and a 'sense' to the way colour changes across the garden.

It's a bit harder for me to plan as I'm in Southern Tas, so I can't put all of my babies out in the open even when they're bigger. And because it's not exactly arid in my part of the world (if you ignore the drought!), I want to construct it so that it can be visualised as a unit separate from the surrounding Euro scenery... Screens? A mudbrick wall? Boulders even, if I even escape the poverty of studenthood?

And then there's the question of how I'd 'landscape' the conservatory that I dream of, with spikies as well as the epiphytics, some orchids, and a few carnivorous plants to boot.

So many possibilities, so little time and fundage!

Being the obsessive bugger that I am I'll probably knock up a a regular hothouse for the cactus that don't like too much humidity, although this'll most likely just be a regulary shelf-city arrangement so that I can squeeze the spikies in - aethetics are secondary here!

In the meantime, the window sills and side tables are filling up...

(And speaking of stuffed greenhouses, this thread bounced back up at SAB. A few beauties here!)

great link, thanks for adding for us to see.

One of the best displays of cactus in a garden that I have ever seen (and I would dream of doing it myself) was at the Christchurch Botanical gardens - though because of the risk of frost they were indoors. But it looked out doors (if you get my drift).

It literally replicated what we'd percieve to be a mexican desert background with scattered cacti - looking quite natural.

Whereas- IMO the above looks unnatural.

I don't disagree that there's some awesome specimens and clearly someone worth trading with, but as a garden it looks wrong.

I think a centre cactus garden, a rock/cactus garden or even a display garden... But not your entire front garden.

I just looked at your link WD - OMG!!! They're absolutely amazing.

I must also admit, that sharman have provided some good seed to me as well (as an aside) - but they took like two months to get to me. I think the owners eat and smoke way too much of their product (sorry if someone here is the owner - it's a joke )

Stuffed greenhouses / collections - yet another pile of wonderful cacti.

The trouble with all of these collections is that I feel so very inadequate with my handful of average joes

Personally, i love the look of this garden.
re: stuffed greenhouses - they are insane! thanks for sharing.

slim6y wrote:

I must also admit, that sharman have provided some good seed to me as well (as an aside) - but they took like two months to get to me. I think the owners eat and smoke way too much of their product (sorry if someone here is the owner - it's a joke )

'eh, just gimme a couple more of 'em months duuude...'