Nursery follies or how I spent my morning.

One thing you learn gathering a garden of cactus is not to trust the name you find on the little plastic stick in the pot. I have one little ball of spines I've not been able to identify. It's a nice little cactus, but it's not what they were selling it as and I knew it at the time I bought it.

There is a particular plant (not a cactus) that is planted in mass here in Phoenix for its flowers that bloom this time of year. It's kind of a tall-grassy looking plant called a red yucca, for its bright red flower shoot as well as the red flowers on it. I have a few spread out along my back wall as a backdrop. There is also a variety with yellow flowers. Several years ago I bought a batch in a bucket that was supposed to be a mix of red and yellow flowers. The yellow flowered plants of the mix bloomed nicely last year, but no sign of anything from the red. This year to my surprise a giant green stalk grew out of the rest and after a while produced green flowers just like some gigantic weed stalk. Looking in my reference books this morning, I figured it out. The wholesale nursery put the wrong thing in with the yellow flowered yucca. It's not a terrible plant, but it certainly does look terrible in the mix. This morning I went out dug around and figured out there was no way to move the offender. The thing is visible from the best window in the house, so all I could do was chop it out. Now the clump is only half as big, but hopefully it will have only nice flowers like it's supposed to.