Tuesday, January 18, 2011

And that's how you build a fence...

Last time we left off with my cactus fence, I had been attacked by some hornets, and the fence was non-existent.

Well, we have since decided to switch directions, in terms of cactus.

The previous species of cactus that we had used for the fence grew straight up. We are now using a kind of cactus that grows out horizontally. This should be much more effective as a fence.



As you can see from the picture, no sane or sober person would think of crossing that fence of cactus. Luckily, this species of cactus is just as easy to propagate as the other one. All you have to do is stick a piece of the cactus in the ground and, voila, you got yourself another cactus plant.



The owner of this fence was nice enough to let us use the cacti he had pruned off of his fence as starter seed for our own. So Saturday morning we rented a pick-up truck and filled the bed with cactus.



Then we planted the cactus along the border of the forest we are hoping to protect.



The cactus should grow at a rate of about one meter per year, according to the other fence's owner's niece. So as long as the youth from the local high school take care of the cactus plants and don't decide to light them on fire (like some youth already decided to do) we should be describing the botanical gardens as some sort of impenetrable fortress in a few years.

1 comment:

Beth said...

Love the organic design.