Faux Bloom on Real Cactus: You Can Fool Mother Nature
When you are a garden lover but live in the desert, you need to work with what you have. I was tired of seeing green cacti and desert rose colored rocks every time I went outside my house. I needed to see some color to help me feel like I was back in California. Here is how I fooled Mother Nature. I nailed faux flowers to my non blooming cactus for some color.
I used some artificial plastic flowers that came on a square grid that I got at the .99 Store. I pulled the plastic flower bunches off the grid they came on, grabbed some nails and a hammer and transformed my plain cacti into blooming beauties in less then 10 minutes.
Using care to not poke myself with the sharp thorns, I made sure my nails were longer then the prickly thorns and then stuck the nail through the fake flowers. I put the nail where I wanted the “ bloom” and gave it a little push, again being extra careful not to puncture my fingers. Then a good gentle tap with the hammer set my flowers into the cactus.
This year I went with the plastic flowers hoping they’d last through the intense summer temps. I’d used silk flowers last year to nail into my cactus plants. It didn’t seem to hurt the cacti and the new growing cactus buds just kind of grew around the artificial flowers. This made the flowers look even more like they “ bloomed” from the cacti.
My neighbors were so impressed with my blooming cacti. They wanted to know what type of cactus I had and how I got it to bloom since their cacti were not producing flowers. When I explained that the cacti flowers were fake, they were amazed. I shared how I got my trumpet vines to “bloom” year round as well. I used red silk hibiscus flowers to attach to my vines. That hack also got neighbors wondering what unique vines I had that produced flowers that looked like hibiscus.
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How interesting, I would not have thought of that!
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