Opuntia In Arkansas

How bout them Hogs? Eh, well, how about some first time tastes of Opuntia cultivars! O phaeacantha "Plum".  Small because it grew and ripened on a cutting pad.  Sweet with no tartness at all. Looking forward to mature plant pears. O phaeacantha "Kaibab Red".  First and only pear from an in-ground plant at the community orchard, planted last year. Nice size, sweet with just a hint of tart, making it delicious and interesting. O dulcis (dulcis latin; sweet).    All of these pears were green on cutting pads ordered earlier this year and rooted in Root Pouch grow bags on the porch and driveway. All but a couple made it to full ripe but smaller than I expect mature plant pears will be. Flavor is sweet, no tartness.   O ?...  There's a story with the next cultivar going back to the first post in this blog.  I just today discovered it is not the same as the  Opuntia lindheimeri var. subarmata as I suspected it was, though there is

Long as I can remember, there was a huge Prickly Pear Cactus plant in town, growing beside the small engine repair shop next to the post office. The electric meter on the building is about eye level to me so it's easy to see the tallest pads are around 6' tall. I saw this cactus every day.  It sported beautiful yellow flowers in Spring and I often wondered what the large purple fruits, ripening in Fall were like to eat. So it turned out there were a few more of this particular cactus growing around here.  Somebody brought it in, got it started and shared cuttings or seedlings.  This is not the usual Opuntia humifusa which is the only species of native Prickly Pear to Arkansas and can be seen in fields and along fence rows, never getting over a foot tall and producing small, red fruit that's usually dry or eaten by wildlife before you can get to it. I didn't know much of anything about any kind of cactus up to this point in 2017, only that I wante