Cross and Thorns

As I mentioned yesterday in the post titled Fixer, many of the more tender cacti around town have been killed off by our spell of bitter weather this winter. We should have known better, pushing the planting zones as we do with plants that are possibly too delicate for our temperature extremes. Now we are all paying for our hubris with piles of dead and rotting plants around our yards.

However, this particular form of prickly pear has made it through. I found this example in Mesilla, but I have a smaller version in my very own yard. We all bear scars from planting it and I don't think anything will ever hurt it as much as it manages to hurt us.

Too mean to die

Every once in a while, we come across other plants that made it through, perhaps because they were sheltered against a south-facing wall, or maybe because they were watched over by some other form of protection. I love this one by a blue gate in Mesilla.