rebecca dugard

Hey! So I bought a prickly pear a few years back. At first everything seemed fine. Lots of sun, gave it water maybe once every week or two, yadda yadda. But after a year, I noticed that it had dropped it's flower bud and hadn't even tried to flower again in the spring. Then after a while, no matter how often I gave it water it always had that starved look succulents get after weeks without being watered. You know the look? Where it's like veins are sticking out and it's wrinkly kinda? Finally, I just gave it away to a friend who had massive prickly pear bushes and said if you can get it to grow, it's all yours for free. Because I'm pretty sure I'm killing it somehow. So...where was I going wrong here? I don't get it. Did I just buy a bad one? Was i stressing it? Was it sick? It did start to develop this sort of...brown stuff on the pads. Almost like sun scorch marks. This is what I posted in a cactus growers group on Facebook but I never got a response.

"So I can't get my prickly pear to bloom.

I have a year old prickly pear. When I bought it, it looked like it had fruit growing on it. But the fruit dropped without ripening and ever since... nothing.

It grows pads. It's got a healthy green color. I water it maybe once every week to two weeks, or when I happen to be outside and remember, and the soil looks dry.

It sits on my patio which gets about six hours of full sun, and bright indirect like for another six. It's sheltered from most things like bad wind and I didn't water it once all winter. It went dormant ish like a champ. Like it's supposed to.

But now it's almost August, and nothing. I noticed the prickly pear in a nearby parking lot also isn't Blooming. So...what is it?

Any ideas?"

So I ordered a baby tree from an Amazon seller I'd had good luck with in the past. Except this time, the product I got looked nothing like the product picture. Instead of a young leafy sapling, I got a single twig with barely 6 leaves to it. I also live in the desert btw. So when the package arrived, it was extremely hot and humid within! I hurriedly took it inside and tested the soil, found it to be dry, and gave it q moderate cool drink. Just enough to soak the soul, and I let most drain out of the pot. Within a day, it dropped three of it's older leaves. I left it alone, and when I checked it again th next day it lost it's three remaining young leaves! Did I cause this? Was it the sellers fault? The weather? Should I wait to reorder until the fall when it's cooler? Can I still save my tree or is it too late? Help... Also, it's the "wonderful" variety and it looks to be maybe a few months old. Not even a year.