Looking good Allen. 😀 I had some red hens and chicks at my old house. They looked really nice when they flowered.

Looking good there Allen. The recent heat you are having probably makes those cactus smile. 😀
John

Here are my September cacti and yucca pics.

this was before the Opuntia basilarias v. basalarias was vandalized. Here is a pic of the flower.

the opuntia polycanthus.

We killed the dandelions that grew up in the Opuntia fragilis and ended up with several cacti that are a shadow of the original's size.

Yucca filamentosa golden sword

Yucca flacida. The only difference seems to be the Y. flacida is smaller at maturity

Allen

I see your yuccas and cacti are planted in rock but is there any soil at all?
How deep is the rock?

I started with a heavy soil with a lot of clay in it and made sure that it would all drain well. Then I laid down landscape fabric and covered it with 2" more or less of washed rock. To plant cacti etc. I slice open the landscape fabric and insert the plant into the soil before before laying the fabric back down around the plant and pushing gravel back in place. The gravel layer is decorative.

It has worked for me despite intense heat early this summer and record rainfall in September.

But North Van is way wetter than here. Your soil would also be pretty acidic. A friend of mine in Whitecourt had really acid soil (muskeg based) and tried crushed concrete added to his soil for grit, lime and drainage. Old sidewalk blocks work best as the rocks are smaller and you can crush it finer and easier. Sometimes you can get lucky and find 30 year old sidewalk blocks that have begun to disintegrate. The older, cheaper sections of your city should have a good supply. The advantage of this method is that the lime slowly leaches out of the crushed concrete and keeps the soil neutralized for decades. Another altenative would be to add pea gravel or 3/8" crushed gravel to the soil for grit and drainage plus agricultural lime to neutralize the soil. The soil does not have to be poor quality. I've found that fertile well drained soil and sun result in bigger healthier plants.

Hope that this helps.

Allen

The soil depth is between 4" and 6". When we had to dig out my O. fragilis to kill the dandelion I was suprised how deep the roots went.

Allen

Nice looking desert area 8)

Still no completly

Josef

It is fantastic Josef.

While I have little chance of growing most of the Agaves and yuccas that you have, I still look forward to having a couple of decent sized Agaves and trunking yuccas over the next 5-10 years.

Allen

Looks like Josef has everything you are wanting to try Allen except maybe the Yucca Riggda next to the very nice Y. Faxon. 😀

Hi Aaron
Next to the Y.Faxon is nice doublehead thompsoniana.

Josef

I never seen one that looked so much like riggda before, what is the one on the far left? Sorry for the confusetion 😕 😳

Hi Aaron
From right Faxy,2head Thompson,Rostrata,2head Elata,little 3head Thompson
Josef

For yuccas, I would be pushing it to try anything beyond Zone 5 as I have no plans to 'house' them.

Any trunking yuccas that are not zone 5 hardy would get too tall to protect with mulch and snow after a few years.

I will have to be satisfied with Y. rostrata, baccata, harrimoniae, flaccida and filamentosa. That still gives me some selection.

Allen