A rose by any other name. . . .

You would think, living in the desert, that cactus have all the advantages. I used to worry about my rose bushes. But roses thrive with all our sunshine. They have a heavy dark leaf and a fairly heavy clustered petal. No. Roses do fine as long as they have water. What I did find is that some types of cactus need protection from direct sunlight at least for part of the day, and so I plant them under the rose bushes where they can get shade. They do well there.
Never fear, not everything prickly is as tough as it appears. A lot of us can put on a good show, all mean and thorny--but what we really want is the shade and moisture under a deep green, fabulous smelling rose.
And a few of us are roses.
Which is what makes life in the garden infinitely interesting!