In 2011 I attended my first Cactus and Succulent Society of America (CSSA) Cactus Convention in Tucson. The Tucson Cactus Club hosted the event and went to great pains to collect seeds, germinate, and grow little plants for favors at everyone’s plate at the banquet. For years I kept my little Ferocactus wizlizeni, which started out the size of a softball, in a pot so I could bring it in every winter. It does freeze in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and the Chihuahuan Desert in Texas, but only for the night and not terribly cold, and then it warms up quickly the next day. So I didn’t want it to have to deal with our winters which get and stay much colder.
At any rate, after a few years the pots it lived in got bigger, and I finally decided it would be happier in the ground with a promise to cover it in the winter. Good decision. It has bloomed in the ground and is happy, and I think I have written about it before, so consider this an update.
The seeds the Tucson group carefully collected were all from plants that bloomed yellow flowers rather than red, which this cactus also produces. And they are lovely.
The common name for this cactus is fishhook barrel because of the fishhook-shaped spines, Arizona barrel because it is native to Arizona, and candy barrel cactus because it has been used to make candy. It has also been known to supply water to people needing it in the desert.
Great cactus. And it will just get bigger.
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