Rats!

In my Garden Bloggers Bloom Day post, I shared a picture of the flower buds on my golden rattail cactus. Because of the stormy weather I didn't get out to the greenhouse again till two days later, when I found this!

Cleistocactus winteri flower open!

Here's a shot showing most of the plant in its pot in the greenhouse. I watered it off and on over the summer, whenever I watered the Agaves, but honestly I wasn't convinced it was alive. It's sometimes so hard to know with cactus. I couldn't tell if it was growing or not.

But then I noticed that many of the tips were slightly more swollen and a little brighter color than the rest.  So I took that as a sign of life.

Can you see that the tip is fatter and brighter?

And when I brought it into the greenhouse, and saw the buds just a few weeks later, well, it was kind of undeniable.

It's alive!