A Tree Grows In Cactushenge

I have two face-palming habits as a greenthumber. One: I will pretty much plunk any bit of severed succulent into a patch of dirt to see if it’ll grow (and most of the time, it will). And two: I will plant found seeds in pots in no organized manner and without making any record.

Illustrating both those bad behaviors is the above image in which something has successfully sprouted in the center of a circle of six recently amputated leaves from an unknown succulent who took an unfortunate tumble. I call the separated sextuplet Cactushenge because I’m a geek.

So far there’s been little movement among them but the surprising seedling that’s come up is most likely from any of several black walnut seeds from a neighbor’s tree that were dropped in our yard this summer by squirrels in transit. I’ve long wanted to grow a black walnut from seed because it is endemic to our state — Juglans californica, baby!

But! I’m pretty sure I dumped a couple other species of seeds into this pot — and others. So I can’t fully be sure what I’ve got, other than an obligatory desire to modify Spinal Tap’s “Stonehenge!”

Cactushenge! Where the demons dwell
Where the banshees live and they do live well
Cactushenge! Where a man’s a man
And the children dance to the Pipes of Pan.

I’ll stop now.