P00708
This must be the better half.

This neatly sliced prickly pear is too silly to rant about. There is another just like it. Two others were not sliced, as if, after the first two, someone realized that there was more to the roadside meadow than combustible dry grass. The prickly pear were put out there just last winter. They each extended only a single pad half a foot or so above grade, so were obscured by the grass.

Realistically, the damage is minimal and tolerable here. The priority of the crew who performed the vegetation management was to cut down all the combustibles. They did an efficient job of it. They did not expect to encounter anything that had been intentionally installed out there, or even any desirable vegetation. Besides, this prickly pear will recover as if nothing happened.

Unfortunately, damage caused by weed whackers is rarely so innocuous. Weed whackers are one of the most commonly misused horticultural power tools, and are very often used by those who are not aware of how to use them properly. They are easy enough to operate that minimal consideration is given to the potential for damage that they can cause. It is a bad combination.

Because weed whackers are often and improperly used to cut tall grass that is too close to trees for lawn mowers to cut, they commonly strip off bark and cambium from young tree trunks. A tree can not survive without its cambium, and quickly dies if too much is stripped away from the base of its trunk. That is why it is very important to pull weeds from around trees instead.

For now, there is nothing to do for the two sliced prickly pear. The bud to the upper right corner of the pictured specimen is beginning to develop into a new pad.

20 thoughts on “Horridculture – Weed Whackers”

  4. Reblogged this on Tony Tomeo and commented:

    This is one recycled episode of Horridculture that did not get a happy ending within the past three years. The prickly pear never recovered as it was cut down with every weed whacking procedure, and eventually succumbed to decay and died. I did not know that prickly pear could be killed!

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    1. Yes, and I got some more. They are from a different source so, so may be a different cultivar. I also got a single pad of a native species from the Bat Cave while Rhody and I were there.

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      2. Yes, and different fruit! The newer cultivar makes the most popular dark purplish red fruit. Some similar red prickly pear in the neighborhood may be lighter red, which likely has a milder flavor. If so, I may get a copy.

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      8. Yes, but old specimens and colonies occupy significant space and are difficult to work with. Even the thornless sort have tiny irritating spines. The pads are very heavy and are difficult to compost or dispose of. The sort of prickly pear that I got from the Bat Cave is very thorny. I want to grow it because I find it to be interesting; but I would not recommend it to others.

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      9. There’s a huge outcropping of limestone around the corner from me with an old colony of the kind that can winter here. It’s big. And they bloom and get the fruit on. It’s nice to see, cos I don’t know of any others around here.

        What’s so attractive about those from the BatCave, that makes you like them so?

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