I just turned 11 last month, and my good friend Kyler gave me a $60 gift certificate to my favorite plant store, California Cactus Center. That was very nice of him, I know his dad had to make a special trip to the store just to get me the gift certificate. I was so excited to spend it, I made my mom take me to the store right away!

I had in my mind that I wanted to make an expensive cactus arrangement. I knew that I wanted a modern black or grey planter that was shallow, and I knew exactly what kind of rocks I wanted in it. I wanted the arrangement to look modern because cactuses are pretty modern looking. Here below is a photo of what I made! Do you like it? It is my favorite cactus arrangement that I have made.

The whole arrangement ended up costing way more than $60. My mom said she would buy me the pot with her own money, and that cost $45. She also bought me the big brown rock for $5. But the cactuses and the little white and light colored rocks (top dressing) were all within my budget. Thankfully, I also had some tools that are good for cactuses. The most important tool when dealing with the sharp spines is some gardening gloves. I also had a little air puffer (see my photo below), brush, and tweezers. These are good to clean the dirt off the cactuses and that is between the spines.

The California Cactus Center is owned by three sisters, and they said that it belonged to their father before them. They grow all of their own plants on multiple large farms, all in the inland of California where it is very hot like a desert. They finally started to recognize me and even remembered my name! One of the sisters told me that the trick to handling the cactus that has tiny thin spines is to spray it with water. Once the spines are wet, they cannot poke you. But this is only for the very thin spines, not the big thick ones.