All Dressed Up For Easter….

Beavertail Cactus
Beavertail Cactus

 Beavertail Cactus (Opuntia basilaris)

Soft, pastel colored flowers ready for Easter.  But on a cactus?  

Absolutely!

Ready for Easter

Each year, an event occurs in the surrounding desert about the same time as Easter.  Beautiful spots of bright color start to appear on the hillsides of the desert.

Ready for Easter

Cacti everywhere are beginning to bloom.

Ready for Easter

Isn’t it amazing that such a tough, prickly plant produces such gorgeous flowers?

Purple Prickly Pear

Purple Prickly Pear (Opuntia violaceae santa-rita)

The flowers themselves are soft….unlike the cactus.

Every spring, I look forward to seeing the beautiful show that the cacti put on with their colorful blooms.  I have anxiously been waiting to share them with you and now they are beginning to bloom 🙂

Ready for Easter

I hope you have enjoyed these unusual, yet beautiful flowers.

Happy Easter!

Noelle Johnson, aka, 'AZ Plant Lady' is a author, horticulturist, and landscape consultant who helps people learn how to create, grow, and maintain beautiful desert gardens that thrive in a hot, dry climate. She does this through her consulting services, her online class Desert Gardening 101, and her monthly membership club, Through the Garden Gate. As she likes to tell desert-dwellers, "Gardening in the desert isn't hard, but it is different."
26 replies
  1. Kate
    Kate says:

    Love, love, LOVE these! I'm a huge fan of flowering cacti. When I was visiting your lovely state last week I tried Prickly Pear Syrup on pancakes for the first time. Dee lish! Happy Easter, Noelle!

  2. Edith Hope
    Edith Hope says:

    Dear Noelle, In answer to your question, which really does not need to be asked, YES, I have so enjoyed looking at these cacti in flower. It is so difficult to imagine what they must look like en masse, but happily your postings help to give one a very good idea. The pastel colours are indeed lovely.

  3. Floridagirl
    Floridagirl says:

    Oh, Noelle, those are beautiful blooms! I am almost tempted to like prickly pears after seeing these stunning photos. Traumatic childhood memories of a fall into a patch of our native prickly pears are nearly erased. Almost.

  4. Ami
    Ami says:

    Amazing! I love the cacti flowers! There is house nearby my kids' school has one kind of enormous cactus planted on the road side. Every year of this time, it produces hundreds of red-orange color of flowers, absolutely an attention grapper! Your photos are so gorgeous!

  5. NellJean
    NellJean says:

    More than 40 years ago, we lived for a time in Texas. Out behind the laundromat we used was a small slope covered in small cacti. I used to stand in the door and just stare at the incredible cactus blooms while our clothes dried.

  6. janie
    janie says:

    My cacti are also blooming. I look forward to their blooms as much as the roses or almost as much as my beloved zinniz!

    I also have that purple prickly pear cactus. It really got purple this year, with all our cold weather! In the hot summer, it appears to be a regular cactus, but with cooler weather, the purple color really shows up.

  7. teresa
    teresa says:

    They are all so pretty. reminds me of the rose. Beauty and thorns. Who knows why mother nature does what she does. I bet those are a welcomed sight, so much color to see. Happy Easter.

  8. teresa
    teresa says:

    They are all so pretty. reminds me of the rose. Beauty and thorns. Who knows why mother nature does what she does. I bet those are a welcomed sight, so much color to see. Happy Easter.

  9. Rose
    Rose says:

    These are so beautiful, Noelle! There were only a few blooms on cacti when I visited Phoenix two weeks ago, but last year our visit was timed just right and I saw how gorgeous these plants are in early April.

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