Uncle Sammy has been growing cacti for more than half a century at his LA home. For the last few years, he hasn’t been up to caring for them, so I’ve rescued a few.
I remember taking this one, tall, slender and fragile, from its corner in his greenhouse, carefully transporting it in the back seat of my car, buying it a special pot. Sammy said it was a night-blooming cereus, but it never bloomed for him. A few years ago we had a big wind and several stalks broke off, but I replanted them and they are all doing fine.
This year, the unbroken original stalk decided to bloom. Last night, it did it. I took this photo at about 7 am, but now I think that it was already closing up and I missed it at its most spectacular. I was up at 5. I should have checked it then! By nine, it was already wilting.
Checking it out on Wikipedia, I came across a reference to this beautiful poem, beautifully read here: Night-Blooming Cereus by Robert Hayden.
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