Thornless Cacti

We have moved most of our potted plants into the hoophouse for the winter.  Remember the hoophouse is our big unheated greenhouse.  We grow lettuce, spinach and other greens in it during the winter months.  These will survive the cold just fine in there......although, during the coldest part of the winter, they don't grow very much. 

Among the potted plants that we have moved in there this year are the rose bushes that I started from cuttings I took on Mother's Day weekend (see May 30th post) and some lilac bushes that I didn't get set out this fall.  But, the most interesting plants that are spending the winter in the hoophouse are some "thornless" cacti.  Here they are.

My son in the Dallas area is a math teacher, but he should have majored in horticulture because he has a flare for landscaping and growing things.  He is the one who told me how to root those rose cuttings and he is the one who came across these thornless cacti.  If you cut a pad off of a cactus, put it in a pot of dirt and don't water it too much, then it will grow into a large cactus, like the ones you see here.  Each of these started from ONE pad.

Our son gave us one of these thornless cacti several years ago and we set it out on the south side of our house when we lived in town.  It grew into a large cactus about 3 feet tall with many pads that have yellow flowers in the spring.  I was surprised that it survived the winters this far north, but it seemed to thrive in that location.

In this picture, it looks like it has thorns, but those are soft little "leaves" that grow on the new pads each year.  They fall off as the pads mature.

All of the cacti we have in the hoophouse are from the "mother" plant above.  We sell a few of these cacti at the farmers market, but I want to plant a few of them out here at the farm too.  I just have to figure out where to put them.  I'm not very good at landscaping......maybe I need to get my son to come up here and give me some advice!