Reclaiming my winter-hardy cactus bed - day 1

Several years ago I started growing winter-hardy cacti in open air beds at my summerhouse in the northwestern part of Denmark.


Neglected winter-hardy cactus bed almost taken over by grasses

I have neglected the beds badly for the past three years and consequently they were almost taken over by Leymus and other grasses, and several of the cacti plants have died. Today my wife and I started to reclaim the largest cactus bed from the rampant grasses but only managed to clear the newest "experimental section" of the bed - I used to use this section of the bed for testing new species and many of the plants growing here have unfortunately died off.

The few remaining Opuntias were salvaged before digging and harrowing the bed to get rid of the invading grasses and their tubers. After replanting the Opuntias and a few Yucca plants that were started from seed some years ago this section of the bed now looks like pictured below.


Reclaimed and replanted cactus and yucca bed

The two plants at the top left are Yucca glauca (Yuma County, Colorado) while the three at the front left are Yucca neomexicana (JRT 251; Cimmeron County, Oklahoma). The center plant is an Opuntia hystricina cultivar named 'Hanau' and finally the plants at the top right are Opuntia trichophora v. nova (Roswell, New Mexico).

We'll continue salvaging the remaining part of the bed tomorrow.