My cactus flowers

I've been getting my hands dirty again today, plating a few more flowers and some vegetables. I also made up some mixtures of compost and soil for various different purposes which was fun. I went to move some newly potted lemon grass shoots into the cabin to give them some protection from the hot sun for a few days. It was only then that I noticed that the cactus, I had recently repotted into some soil for a change, having neglected it for ages. To my surprise and huge pleasure I saw that it had responded by producing this massive flower.

Later in the early evening I took it outside into the light and took a few pictures, but I found it quite hard. The flower is trumpet shaped and is at least four inches deep. the whole stem must be eight inches long, although the cactus plant it came from is no more than four inches in diameter. I chose this angle as the best all round view of it. You can see the base of the flower stem attached to the parent cactus in the pot, which was at least eight inches in diameter. It probably won't last for more than a few days, so I blipped it quickly and told Woodpeckers she would have to wait her turn, as I had spotted it first.

Some of my earliest photographs were of one of my Grandmother's cactus flowers. I had always admired her cacti, but never saw them flower on visits to her house when I was very young. In my teens, Granny came to live with my parents, bringing her cacti too, and it was then that the a huge red flower grew out of a large cactus and I borrowed a camera to record it. I am obviously still of the same mind. I expect my re-potting of the cactus and watering of its soil was like a signal that the rains had come to the desert, and a window of flowering opportunity had arrived! I must have been providing a desert-like existence for it up till then! I must watch how the seed develops now.