Hi Guys, Happy Autumn/Fall to all of you in the Northern Hemisphere and Happy Spring to you all in the Southern Hemisphere, for all of you in the Northern Hemisphere I hope you have had a fantastic Spring and Summer and growing and flowering season, and for all of you in the Southern Hemisphere I bet you are all so looking forward to the exciting growing season ahead, I can’t believe how fast this Summer has gone and I am seriously not ready for Winter yet and neither are my cacti and believe me I have my reasons why.

Me in my Irish Coastal Garden surrounded by some of my columnar Cacti.

I still have quite a few of my cacti coming into bud even though it’s late in the season now, I am still without a greenhouse even though I ordered it in April, it looks like it could be the end of November until the greenhouse company are available to deliver and install it, the days are drawing in and the nights are getting colder and that means in the beginning of October I will have no choice but to move every single one of my cacti and succulents into my home, and anyone that watches my You Tube channel ‘Desert Plants of Avalon’ will know that I have A LOT of plants, many large and tall cacti 7 feet high and I haven’t a clue where I am going to put them all, I have never been in this position before but all I can say is wish me luck haha.

Honey our cat chilling out with the cacti enjoying the glorious Summer of 2025.

I moved house in April from the busy City of Belfast to the peaceful and very beautiful Irish coastal countryside and I am truly blessed with the most beautiful of scenery and home, its packed full of nature here and I get to go to sleep and wake up to see and hear the incredible sea waves.

We were so excited to move and its been the best thing ever, but because we had to move all of our very large Cactus and Succulent collection the moving was very stressful, we are so grateful for our two wonderful friends Kieran and Paul who helped us with the move especially as many of the plants and boxes we had to move were very very heavy, and big tall and heavy fierce spiny cacti are not exactly the most friendliest of things to handle haha! we honestly couldn’t have done it without our dear Friends Kieran and Paul, these two guys truly are LEGENDS haha!

When we had moved into our beautiful new home we were able to move out all of the Cacti and Succulents into our beautiful Irish coastal garden, and we have had the BEST Spring and Summer I can remember since 1976 haha! very warm and sunny and mostly dry weather, all my plants have been thriving out in the garden with the sea air and sunshine and I have had plenty of cactus flowers this Summer, I truly thought that by now ( 3rd week in September ) I would have had my lovely new greenhouse up and running and all ready for moving the cacti and succulents into next month so they can all overwinter nice and dry.

The Cacti have really enjoyed being outside with the fresh sea air this Spring and Summer 2025

BUT the greenhouse hasn’t gone to plan and its all been a total nightmare to be honest and very very stressful, we had the greenhouse concrete base put up in August and although we knew that once we had the greenhouse concrete base we may have to wait up to 8 weeks for delivery and installation ( making it middle of October ) when we got the installation and delivery date it was for 27th November ARGH NO WAY! ALL my plants would be dead by then, the middle of October would be fine as I have many of the cacti protected from rain under tables and I move inside any of the larger ones when the weather is rainy, we rarely get any real cold nights here in the north of Ireland until end of October and if I had to move any plants into the house it would only be for a short time, BUT end of November NO WAY! the thought of living for 2 months in our beautiful new home packed full of cacti with no room to swing a cat ( not that I would ever swing a cat of course haha! ) fills me with dread, but the thought of losing my cactus and succulent collection many of which I have had since a child fills me with much more dread.

On a positive note the greenhouse company are doing everything they can to move the delivery and installation date of our greenhouse forward as they know how important it is for me, and the greenhouse company have little control over the delivery and installation as its goes to another department and there is a big queue of customers, but I am keeping my fingers crossed and asking the cacti to keep their roots crossed that the new greenhouse can get delivered and installed much sooner.

I have got my cacti protected from excess rain under tables on my patio but from the beginning of October all of these Cacti will have to come into the house, HURRY UP GREENHOUSE!

I will keep you all updated when I hear more news on the greenhouse but in the meantime I am still keeping very busy with all of the plant jobs to do at this time of year, I have made a video for my You Tube Channel called Desert Plants of Avalon on ‘The Cactus Jobs to do with your Cacti in Fall/Autumn’ and you can watch this video below:

Thank goodness we have had a truly amazing Spring and Summer in Ireland and U.K this year and I have been able to have the plants outside basking in the sun and sea air, if you want to see a complete tour of the cacti in my Irish coastal garden then you can watch this video below:

Thanks so much for reading and Happy growing to you, sending an abundance of CACTUS POWER your way from the Emerald Isle <3