Traffic Stopping Cactus Display in Wallingford Front Garden

Dave and Sue Nicol's garden in Wallingford takes drought-tolerant plantings to a new level. Want to reduce your water bill with less thirsty plants? Ever thought about cacti?

A sunny corner in the Nicol front rockery, close enough to the sidewalk for people to stop in their tracks to stare, comment, and ask questions, is planted in an assortment of hardy cacti. Mostly opuntias or paddle cacti, with some agave mixed in, the plants stay in the ground year-round. Of course, the rockery offers the sharp drainage they need, and these desert plants bask in the reflected sunshine off the sidewalk and street. Still, it's startling to see cacti thriving and blooming here in Seattle.

Sue is a horticulturist and arborist who grows a wide variety of trees, grasses, perennials, shrubs and ferns in the dappled shade of her city garden...and Dave raises cacti. Sue laments having such treacherously spiny plants in the garden. While she's admitted these camels of the plant world into her garden grudgingly, the cacti corner of the rockery does blend amazingly harmoniously with the garden's more temperate plantings.

Oh, those are wicked thorns...can you imagine trying to weed the rockery? Yet look at that brilliant yellow flower, the graphic shapes and textures...the effect is dryland, yet almost with the feel of being underwater.

Nope, this photo wasn't taken in Arizona...this is a Seattle city garden...

Then around back, Dave brings his less-than-hardy cacti out of the greenhouse to summer in pots on the deck.....what a line up of architectural shapes, colors of green, and wicked, wicked spines...

Comments

[Ian Barclay]

I shall have to meet these folks sometime! The Agave victoriae-reginae is impressive, as is the collection of large columnar cacti.

[valerie Easton]

Hi Ian,
I'm sure Dave would enjoy hearing from you. If you email me, I'll send you their contact information....
Val