Desert Plants Never Die??

.5 Cacti
With their piercing look and well-defined architectural structure, Cacti are an extremely fashionable plant group. With their shiny appeal and thorny form they are completely awe-inspiring. This group has plants of all sizes varying from the dwarf to the gigantic ones. This plant group demonstrates great diversity in their anatomy, with some being tall with a constricted profile while others being broad and bloated. With their inherent robustness and adaptive ability, they can be grown as a conservatory plant and can survive in even the most hostile weather conditions with little care. They enjoy bright light and high temperature conditions like those of desert days and can even endure extremely low, below-freezing temperatures like the desert nights.
This group offers a range of choice satisfying even the most demanding garden owners. In addition to gardens and greenhouses one can house them in any part of the house as potted plants. With little patience, you can have some of the most thrilling flowers covering and adorning their thorny body. And there’ s no gainsay in the fact that a look at these colorful flowers makes one smile from ear to ear.
2.5.1 Red Barrel Cactus – ‘ Ferocactus pilosus’
Globuse in shape with firey red spikes that pertrude instinctively from its green hub. One of our bestsellers as it adds character to monotonous surroundings with little effort.
2.5.2 Oreocereus celtianus

These have a cylindrical body coated with a layer of dense, cloudy spikes. It has a faintly visible green center peeking through the dense white cloud of shielding spikes. This is a slow growing plant that will take several years to outgrow its initial size. These uncanny, colorful plants look amazingly striking.

2.5.3 Desert-Looking Plants

This group of foliage plants as their name suggests give the look of a desert to the milieu.
These plants enjoy porous soils that allow good drainage and minimum water requirement. Perfectly suited to desert environment, these demonstrate exceptional resistant to drought.
In fact they are so well adapted to their natural habitat that they desist winter rains. Their size and hardiness amplify with age, giving them an unyielding sense.

2.5.4 Spanish Dagger Yucca - ‘ Yucca gloriosa’

These are extremely hardy Yucca species that give a characteristic desert impression to the locale. These have grayish-green stiff and sagging leaves projecting out from thick, bloated stems. These have reddish spikes and bear spectacular hanging white bells. This species is sometime also called as the Spanish dagger for they bear one of the biggest and sharpest, incisors like spikes. These have an extremely huge, yet well-balanced structure.

One of their close variety known as variegata has a variegated form with pale yellow stripes along the leaves. A little less hardy than their parent species, however can survive moderate winters. Once the flowering season is over, abundant suckers and a few branches shoot out giving it a somewhat messy look.

2.5.5 Adam's needle -‘ Yucca filamentosa’

This Yucca species is very similar to Yucca gloriosa differing minutely in their structure and the time of blossoming. They have moderate size and a trunk-less body with leaves that have white threads at the edge. Flowers surface early in the summers, considerably before the normal flowering season of most Yuccas.

2.5.6 Our Lord's candle – ‘ Yucca whipplei’

These are stem-less Yucca species much smaller than most others of the group. These are native to USA (Southern California) and Mexico (Baja California). These prefer full sun to light shade and have little to moderate water requirements. The soil should permit good drainage with minimum water logging.

These have constricted, needle like leaves with sharp tips and saw- toothed margins. These bear scented white flowers and have extremely tall flower spikes. Their fruit, which contain the seeds and are like winged capsules. The plant has a life cycle of its own dying once it, has produced flowers and resurfacing in the form of offshoots that continue the process of growth and reproduction.

2.6 Grasses

These are some of the most loyal and least demanding foliage plants that thrive in the wild with little care or maintenance. These are highly adaptive, non-complaining creatures, found happily growing even in the worst possible soil type. These have varying disposition with a range of color, form and water requirements. These fascinating plants give one a lot of choice and scope for experimentation. In the garden these can be employed as ground covers either to give a soft appeal to a hard landscape or for resisting erosion of topsoil. To break the monotony they can be contrasted with plants that have bold outlines.

Some grass varieties are known as ‘ Ornamental grasses’ for their fantastic appearance. These are usually of various sizes, shapes and colors. Their vibrancy can ideally be compared with the rush of colors in an artist’ s palette!

2.6.1 Blue Oat Grass - 'Helictotrichon sempervirens'

This ornamental grass is a striking steel-blue evergreen foliage plant. This is a clump-forming grass species with arching stems that tapers to form stiff flower spikes dyed in purple but turns straw colored in summers. It’ s best to place these perennial plants in a position that allows full light. Humus rich alkaline soil is the best for their growth.

2.6.2 Bowles' Golden Sedge - 'Carex elata Aurea'

This is an elegant ornamental grass species that can really help to lighten up an otherwise dull habitat with their rich yellow leaves, stripped in green. The leaves narrow and follow an arching pattern. This grass species prospers in moist soil and even in shallow standing water. Though this grass prefers sunlight too much of it might bleach it’ s leaves, while too less of sunlight might it stunted.