Outdoor cactus garden in riverland

Cephalocereus senilis these next few photos of some lovely specimans growing outdoors on a lovely property in the riverland. The garden is the work of thirty plus years the plants are growing without any watering other than natural rainfall which is very little. Very hot summers are followed by extremely cold nights. Some of the plants over the years have succombed to the cold weather and alot of succulents and gymnos were lost in a rabbit plague in the early 1980's. The garden consists of many large ferocacti, espostoa's, echinocereus, cephalocereus and trichocereus and lots of other nice cacti but ill let the photos do the talking.

By the way ithe C Senilis in the last pick tallest offset was about 1.3m to give you an idea of how tall it is i estimate 5.5m or more but wait there is a bigger one. There is a C Senilis bottom left with a cephalium will show a better pick of cephalium later.

One of a few very nice ferocacti i love those heavy spines they thrive in conditions which must be very close to that of there natural environment.

Ferocactus pilosus, i think the last pic was gracilis?

Wow some very nice plants here, those feros are awesome.
Is this your collection ?

Wow, that looks like a great collection. It's refreshing to see hard-grown plants in the ground... so much of our effort goes to producing greenhouse specimens. Pics like this show just how well cacti have adapted to a harsh environment.

I think this is a denmoza and its not my collection i wish maybe one day but this property belongs to a former member of cactus society. Im lucky to be able to visit to take photos i promised i wouldnt disclose the actuall location. Its amazing to see how these plants not only survive but some actually thrive in these conditions.

That's really impressive. Thanks for sharing some awesome snaps! There are quite a few secret cacti gardens around australia the are kept on the hush, it's a shame really that as a grower/collector we have to protect our efforts from potential thieves. And I must say Im not an angel I have taken my share of unwelcomed cuttings in my very early years. I have a much greater respect now days but I wish there was not such a bad attachment to value. I remember my Nana's orchid collection of over 50yrs was stolen from her new house a week before mothers day. Real nice thing to do. anyway awesome garden! glad you could share.
-A

This garden really does need to be seen to be appreciated, it's been set up very well with terraces and paths and makes good use of what I think is a disused quarry. Not sure why the owner doesn't want it publicised these days as it is pretty well known in C&S circles already and has been the object of organised bus trips etc. Anyway, it's best that we respect their wishes I guess...maybe something bad has happened recently, or maybe they're just tired of people wanting to visit (which probably would be a pain!).
I was very impressed by this garden, especially to see so many spectacular mature columnar cacti including a very impressive Pachycereus pecten-aboriginum, and loads of good sized Fero's and Echinocactus...

It is a lovely place and there are organised trips still only with permisson. And that way it can stay lovely for many years to come. This espostoa is one of many.

Truly awesome place, I've seen pics of this garden before. The plants certainly are impressive and the pics could easily be mistaken for habitat pics.

CP

Golden balls Echinocactus grussonii imagine falling into the middle of these.

Imagine weeding around them

the good thing about a place like south australia and the riverland is that the climate is so harsh the weeds dont survive too well. its great!!

To give you an idea i am six foot tall.

I love the cephalacereus senilis.

Cephalacereus senilis with its cephalium.

Apparently in habitat to collect the seeds locals used to chop of the tops of these magnificent plants and now it has the effect that it is very hard to obtain seeds from now due to the chopping of mature tops with the cephaliums what a shame. The cephalium on this is approx 5.5m above the ground so it would be difficult to pollinate let alone collect the seeds.