eastern prickly pear

Photo: SEWilco — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Survives zone 4 through 9

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

The most cold-hardy and northerly-ranging Opuntia in eastern North America — remarkably for a cactus, it survives outdoors as far north as coastal Massachusetts and a small population at Point Pelee, Ontario, right on Lake Erie. Its red fruit is edible, used fresh or in jams and candies. ⚠ Glochids.

Hardiness

Zone 4–9

Habit

Groundcover

Edible part

Seed, Fruit

Ripens

Late summer–autumn

Mature size

Prostrate mat 10–30 cm tall, spreading 0.5–1.5 m; excellent in containers

Light

Full sun (open-ground desert/glade)

Soil pH

6.5–8.0 (neutral–alkaline, sharp drainage)

Environment

Temperate

Native range

Eastern North America, but narrower than the name's older usage suggests: the 2017 revision of the O. humifusa complex moved the Florida peninsula's plants to O. austrina and O. mesacantha subsp. lata, so O. humifusa in the current sense runs from the mid-Atlantic and Midwest north to Massachusetts and Ontario's Point Pelee, and is absent from peninsular Florida.

Status

Both wild and cultivated

Years to fruit

2–3 yrs

Growth speed

Medium.

Spacing

60 cm (24 in) apart — about 2.8 per m² (2.6 per 10 sq ft)

Leaf shape

Flattened, roundish-oval pads, green often with a purple tinge, 2–10 in (5–25 cm) across, covered in tiny reddish-brown glochids.

Root system

Shallow and fibrous, with most of the root mass in the top 15 cm and spreading as far as 2.5 m from the plant within two seasons — a mat built to catch light rain before it evaporates rather than to reach deep water. It needs no soil depth, but it does need sharp drainage: standing wet in winter kills far more plants than cold does.

Fruit description

Ovoid, red to reddish-brown fruit up to 2 in (5 cm), with green-to-red flesh that ranges from sour to sweet depending on ripeness and local ecotype; ripens late summer into fall.

Propagation

Propagated by pad cuttings: a pad at least 4 in (10 cm) long is severed at the joint, dried/calloused for about a week, then planted joint-down directly in the garden or in potting mix; pads are usually mature enough to use once about 6 months old.

Pollination

Self-fertile

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.