Thanks for looking/commenting Kevin and all. I love that 'Monterrey Frost' agave too, so nice and impervious to the recent cold. Yay. My 'Hercules' aloe definitely has tip damage too. It's been in the ground for six years and has grown a ton--I'm excited to see the blooms and to see that it's finally branching. I'm sure yours will do the same too. Now for something that looks (looked!) bad, and then good. I'm tired of the "dwarf" oleander around part of my covered patio, so this weekend I ripped them out (big job) and replaced them with fifteen rosemary plants, and added 1000 lbs of gravel mulch. I cleaned up the arbor too and planted honeysuckle, which is thriving on a trellis nearby, and I finally added some pavers underneath the arch too. I'm embarrassed about the "before" pic, but with the holidays, a month of houseguests, this awful weather and my work things just got nasty, hah! It took all weekend but now it looks better. Not great, but better. Happy gardening all, keep the updates coming! BEFORE: tired, sickly, abused "dwarf" oleanders and an orange that unlike my others never looked good. Not the open soil under the archway. Shame shame on me, hah! AFTER: not perfect, but better. I removed the sickly citrus, and the oleanders and replaced them with rosemary which does so well here, and has great scent and blooms and color. I also added pavers under the archway and planted two honeysuckles (Lonicera japonica) at each side. Last year I had all sorts of different vines on there--quite a mess. The recent cold snap took care of that so out they went, plus I cleaned up the remaining twigs (tsk tsk tsk).

It sounds like it might be either Opuntia robusta or Opuntia ficus-indica. Here is a link that might be useful: O. robusta

Another thing, it is best to get mature pad for rooting. Maybe this is hearsay, but that is what I was told. The guy that I got my pad from told me to come back later and let them grow some more before I cut it off. maybe it was a piece his Garden mythology . He had a really nice cactus garden so who was I to question his word. If it is mythology and not actual factual, then I have adopted mythology to practice. Differences of O. robusta from the others, are SIZE. Even the young juvenile pads are thick. They look like puppies with huge feet. You feel that they will grow large. some robustas have more needles than others. Some even have needle that curl outwards and not straight like I have seen. Google them and pull the images. Pads are very round. There appears to be a few exceptions to this. They might be mis IDed O. tomentosa or there is some variation in the species or there has been genetic hanky panky with another species.. I do not know. I am just a peon who grows these things that were given to me. I have my suspicions and thoughts but no real provable knowledge to back it up with.In Mexico, there are lots of people who have many varieties of them. It is interesting to go looking through the images for the deviations. cactusMcharis, I will look for your email. If it is not enabled, send it to me. Mine is.

Hi Greenlarry, I sorry for not responding sooner, I had gone out of town and it had dropped off the first page by the time I got back, then I replied and it never posted for some reason! I find that happens a lot with this site! Very frustrating. Now, From what I can find, O. zebrina seems to be a variety of O. dillenii. So it is natural. I guess no one knew anything about Galapagos cacti either.... I did do some research and found that the O. gigantea being sold is actually O. robusta var. gigantea from Mexico? not O. echios var. gigantea from the Galapagos. I don't suppose anyone on here happens to have ANY cacti from the Galapagos?