I have always loved plants, but they have never loved me. Some people have a green thumb, but I am just the opposite. My very touch can kill most plants. The only ones that I'm good with, in fact, are ones that require almost no care. Cacti have always survived my withering touch, and succulence do alright as well. Nonetheless, I despaired of ever having my own garden until one of my friends suggested a solution: cactus gardening.

I had never heard of cactus gardening, but my friend assured me that it was quite common. Although not very many people have a cactus garden around here, where she comes from they all over the place. Cactus gardens are extremely popular in the bay area around San Francisco. Between the sunlight and the moderate rain, anything will grow there – including cacti. I am pretty impulsive, and as soon as I decided on cactus gardening, I was ready to go out and make some purchases. Nonetheless, my friends stopped me. She told me that I should go to a botanical cactus garden before I decided what I wanted.

There was more to growing cacti than I had realized before. There are many different kinds of cactus, and each of them requires slightly different conditions. When I first heard about cactus gardening, I thought that I would have to renounce traditional gardening values. I figured that I would not be able to see any flowers – just plain, green cacti. To my surprise, however, many cacti flower regularly. Cactus gardening is actually every bit as dynamic as any other form of gardening. The cacti grow, bloom, and hibernate – at least to some degree. Although the cacti never whither for the season and drop their spikes, they do have slow periods where they are resting, like other perennial flowering plants.

I started cactus growing yesterday. My friend told me that, before I started the cactus garden, I needed to make sure all of my cacti had matured to some degree in their pots. Now I have several pots to tend to each day, and so far everything is going excellently well. Soon I'll have a flawlessly working cactus garden – the only one on the block. I know that some of the neighbors will resent it – they resent anything that looks different on this black. Other ones, however, will probably think it is pretty cool. Personally, I always love a new look. Thank God for cactus gardening!