How to grow
Set cuttings about a foot long in moist soil, and water weekly; or lay the stems down and cover with moist sand or soil. When grown outside in sunny exposures but in the protection of dwellings the plants are not injured by twenty degrees of frost. In colder weather than this they may be grown in warm, sunny conservatories.
Giant Cactus or Sahuaro; Sage of the Desert (Cereus giganteus)
How to identify and how it grows
These are majestic trees thirty to fifty feet tall, with columnar massive trunks which grow singly ten to fifteen feet, then curve sharply erect in branches like a giant candelabrum. Twenty to twenty-five ridges run the entire length of the trunk, and these flutings expand as the plant fills with water and contract as it loses its moisture. They are covered with long sharp spikes which stick out like diminutive swords closely packed along the tops of the ridges. The flowers are night blooming, four or five inches long and half as wide, growing solitary but in such masses as to appear clustered, with large satiny, waxy white petals strongly reflexed. The fruit is about the shape and size of an egg, with crimson pulp, palatable and prized highly by the Indians. The Giant Cactus is one of the largest cacti in the world and can blossom and bear fruit for three years without rain, using the reservoir of water that Nature provides.
How to grow
The plants grow readily from seed sown in sandy soil in pots or flats and may be transplanted when a half-inch tall. The soil should be kept moist but never wet. Transplant young plants one to six feet high in spring, taking two feet of the roots with care not to injure them, and set in gravelly clay soil, irrigating once a month during dry seasons. Giant cactus plants one foot tall or taller thrive out of doors and will endure a temperature twenty degrees below freezing without injury. Where the weather is colder than this they must be protected in winter, or grown in dry sunny conservatories or indoor rock gardens.
Night Blooming Cereus; Reina de Noche; Queen of Night (Cereus Greggii)
(Named in honor of Dr. J. Gregg, student of cacti and plant explorer of Northern Mexico)