I almost always avoid my town’s cholla cactus, whether they’re intentionally placed or accidentally deposited vagabond plants that hitched a ride in on a load of dirt from somewhere else. I can appreciate their artful, chaotic form, but I’m put off by the menacing spikes.
They seem hostile and unwelcoming — so much so that I was inappropriately aggressive when I saw a bucket of transplants sitting outside a friend’s garden gate. I was probably near to shrieking about the adverse feng shui of flanking the opening to an elegant backyard oasis with plants able to launch parts of themselves to cling like hot rollers in a fancy dog’s ear fringe.
This week, I felt like I should take it all back. The bright magenta flowers emerging from the thorny tangle anchoring another friend’s desert garden demanded a closer look. The early edges of what soon will be open cups with golden centers forced me to notice the polka-dots around the cholla’s smooth white spines, and the still-ripening fruits that will feed birds and little animals.
They hooked me with a reminder that there is beauty in even the prickliest places.
Dana Coffield: dcoffield@denverpost.com, 303-954-1954 or
