The lack of interest in the genus
Opuntia in the landscapes of Albuquerque probably shouldn't be too surprising to me, given their prickly nature, but I'm always amazed that more people aren't more interested in this attractive and useful group.
In the winter, I'm impressed with the various colors of the pads: purple, red, orange, yellow, and green. At this time of year, I'm impressed with the variety of color and forms of the
tunas, or fruit. I'm actually a little late photographing them, but they've been colorful for the last month.
All of these photographs are wild plants, and occur along one slope along a trail that I walk just about every week. The top photograph shows how different plants can form juxtaposing layers of color. The second photograph shows how attractive they are with other plants, such as the snakeweed blooming now. Above is a rose colored flask-shaped form.
Colors can range from this red...
To this lavender...
To this temptingly plump wine colored form. Seriously, don't you want to juice some?
There are also some orange forms.
Some plants are so prolific that the tunas give nice color to the landscape. Add to that their tastiness, and I wonder why people don't want more of them.
This rose colored form is just covered with fruit, and would be very ornamental in landscape design, even if the fruit is a bit small and dry for harvesting for food.
We plant many shrubs and trees simply for the color of the fall fruit (e.g. viburnum), so why not opuntia? It's true that planting them can be a prickly endeavor, but I'm surprised someone hasn't collected a variety of forms and made a garden from them. Just pick a favorite. I bet you can guess mine.
The lack of interest in the genus Opuntia in the landscapes of Albuquerque probably shouldn't be too surprising to me, given their prickly nature, but I'm always amazed that more people aren't more interested in this attractive and useful group.
In the winter, I'm impressed with the various colors of the pads: purple, red, orange, yellow, and green. At this time of year, I'm impressed with the variety of color and forms of the tunas, or fruit. I'm actually a little late photographing them, but they've been colorful for the last month.
All of these photographs are wild plants, and occur along one slope along a trail that I walk just about every week. The top photograph shows how different plants can form juxtaposing layers of color. The second photograph shows how attractive they are with other plants, such as the snakeweed blooming now. Above is a rose colored flask-shaped form.
Colors can range from this red...
To this lavender...
To this temptingly plump wine colored form. Seriously, don't you want to juice some?
There are also some orange forms.
Some plants are so prolific that the tunas give nice color to the landscape. Add to that their tastiness, and I wonder why people don't want more of them.
This rose colored form is just covered with fruit, and would be very ornamental in landscape design, even if the fruit is a bit small and dry for harvesting for food.
We plant many shrubs and trees simply for the color of the fall fruit (e.g. viburnum), so why not opuntia? It's true that planting them can be a prickly endeavor, but I'm surprised someone hasn't collected a variety of forms and made a garden from them. Just pick a favorite. I bet you can guess mine.
3 comments:
Hooray, Mr. Mediterraneanophile!
Great choices in Opuntias; we should select for fruit color (and pad coloring winter or summer) like you say. I find that Abq uses more Opuntia spp. in the landscape (including most of our countless native species) more than Las Vegas NV, or Phoenix do...and Abq is not far behind Las Cruces or El Paso in their use.
Oh, don't think that I'm giving up my Mediterraneans any time soon! But that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the local color. And I still think that the public landscapes should be entirely native plants.
Just gorgeous...and right on, people often overlook things simply because they see them growing in ditches.
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