When I think of cacti, I jump to a vision of Clint Eastwood and the Wild West. Whelp, this one enjoys cold winters. Opuntia humifusa ranges from the eastern Rockies to the eastern U.S. seaboard, up to southern New England, down to Florida, and poking into Ontario. Geesh, a low-growing, less prickly cactus that produces wonderful, tropical-looking flowers 2"-3" wide, and survives snowy winters. The pads (modified stems) are under a foot long, 2"-6" across, and an inch or so thick. Not as prickly as your average bear, the pads winter over, and shrink and wrinkle in the coldest months. Looks sickly then, but who doesn't? Bounces back dependably. The fruit (tunas) are not as luscious as its cousin, O. ficus-indica, but make a great jam. Stays put, and a wonderful addition to a cottage garden (think Adamm's Family), a specimen planting in a border, or a hardy addition to a xeriscape.
As you'd expect, eastern prickly pear prefers loose, well-drained soil and a sunny spot, I've seen it lining walkways in New England, limp and wrinkled in in winter, but fluffed up as the months warm. People are amazed it is a native and surprised when it blooms over the summer. It's like an exotic house plant you can leave outside. Avoid soggy sites, and when it shrivels up in January, no worries. You can break off mature paddles, let them heal for a few days, and plant in prepared soil. As noted earlier, they are tough. Deer prefer other options. Intolerant of moist conditions. Requires very well-drained soil, in full sun. Very cold hardy. Zones 4-10
Space plants 1'-2' on center.
Opuntia humifusa isn't a spreading bully. If you plant on 1'-2' centers, it will slowly fill in. I've never seen it in a mass planting, but usually as a specimen. It's an unusual addition to a temperate garden, and one of our scouts has his eye on a local garden resident cruising through January in Connecticut (he may pinch a paddle).
Good companion plantings are ones that like it on the dry, well-drained, sunny side, such as Muhlenbergia capillaris (hairawn muhly), Eryngium yuccifolium (button eryngo), Schizachyrium scoparium (little bluestem), Antennaria plantaginifolia (plantain-leaf pussytoes), Monarda punctata (spotted beebalm) and Solidago nemoralis (gray goldenrod).
As noted above, both the prickly pear fruit—also known as tunas—and the paddles are edible and delicious. Just be sure to remove the bristles (either directly or by peeling) before eating!
I'm going into the vaults to figure out when this plant was first named. Okay, the genus name goes back to the Greeks, named for the city of Opus, where the edible plant grew and could be propagated by rooting its leaves. The specific epithet derives from the Latin humus (soil), and fusus, meaning lying stretched out, recumbent, prostrate. Makes sense, its a lounging kind of cactus.
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Note: Early spring shipments might include plants that have not yet broken dormancy, or have not been vernalized and will be frost-tender. Please use your best judgment when selecting your preferred ship week.
Did you know? When plants are available from multiple growers, we list growers closest to your location first.
Why choose plants from the nearest grower? Choosing a the grower closest to you makes it more likely the plants are consistent with your ecoregion and better adapted to your location. In addition, shipping plants shorter distances typically uses fewer resources, something we can all get behind!
Recorded County Distribution: USDA data.
AL, AR, CT, DE, GA, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, MD, MI, MN, MO, MS, NC, NE, NJ, NY, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, VA, WI, WV, CO, FL, LA, MT, NM, TX |
Endangered | MA |
Exploitably Vulnerable | NY |
Rare | PA |
Special Concern | CT |
MAP OF WETLAND DELINEATION REGIONS
Code |
Status |
Designation |
Comment |
OBL |
Obligate Wetland |
Hydrophyte |
Almost always occur in wetlands |
FACW |
Facultative Wetland |
Hydrophyte |
Usually occur in wetlands, but may occur in non-wetlands |
FAC |
Facultative |
Hydrophyte |
Occur in wetlands and non-wetlands |
FACU |
Facultative Upland |
Nonhydrophyte |
Usually occur in non-wetlands, but may occur in wetlands |
UPL |
Obligate Upland |
Nonhydrophyte |
Almost never occur in wetlands |
Kingdom | Plantae | Plants |
Subkingdom | Tracheobionta | Vascular plants |
Superdivision | Spermatophyta | Seed plants |
Division | Magnoliophyta | Flowering plants |
Class | Magnoliopsida | Dicotyledons |
Subclass | Caryophyllidae | |
Order | Caryophyllales | |
Family | Cactaceae | Cactus family |
Genus | Opuntia | pricklypear |
Species | Opuntia humifusa | eastern prickly pear |
prickly pear, prickly-pear cactus, low prickly pear, smooth prickly pear, pricklypear
Opuntia calcicola
Opuntia compressa
Opuntia cumulicola
Opuntia rafinesquei
Sizes info
Shipping is free on all plants orders!
Your plants will ship using each grower’s preferred method: FedEx Ground, UPS Ground, or Spee-Dee Ground (in select midwestern states). Our growers ship orders Monday through Wednesday. The farther your plants need to travel, the earlier in the week they will ship. The goal is to have all plants delivered by the end of the week.
Shipping plugs:
Plugs are shipped in full flats, sometimes also referred to as trays. Multiple flats can be shipped in a single box. The flats are wrapped in netting or craft paper to secure the plants, and spacers are used between flats to keep the plants from being crushed.
When you unpack your plugs, the plants will have been somewhat flattened by the netting or craft paper. They will straighten out within a couple of days. You may also gently “fluff” them a bit to speed up the process. In some cases, your plants might have been cut back before packing, if the grower deemed them to have become too tall for safe packaging. Don’t worry, though, these guys know what they’re doing and would not compromise the health of the plants. They’ll fill back in in no time.
After receiving your plants’ journey in a dark box, it will be important to acclimate them to sunlight again. Over a couple of days, you should gradually move them into their preferred light exposure, and water them as per their requirement.
Although we always recommend putting your plants in the ground as soon as possible, they can stay healthy in the flats for a considerable amount of time. The key is to respect their growing requirements: if the species requires full sun, do not store them in the shade. If it is best adapted to dry soil, do not over-water.
Planting plugs:
We consider plugs ready to ship when the plants’ roots have filled the entire liner cell and the plants can easily be pulled out. In some cases you will have to go about it gently, wiggling the plant by the crown, and possibly squeezing the bottom of the liner to compress the growing medium and release the roots. Other times, the plants will appear to be root bound. They are not in the traditional sense. The plants are healthy but they have used up all the growing medium available to them. Plugs are at an aggressive stage of growth. As soon as planted the roots will immediately expand into your native soil. They establish faster than plants in larger containers, because they don’t have the luxury of a lot of growing media that can inhibit the roots from venturing outside of their comfort zone.
We are not going to address area preparation because the process can be complex and is always site-specific. However, as a rule, we recommend disturbing the soil as little as possible, and we do not recommend amending the soil. If you chose the right plant for the right conditions they will thrive. Any disturbance and amendments will only encourage weeds to emerge that never had a chance to do so before.
Installing plugs cannot be easier: dig a hole large enough for the roots to fit snugly inside, then water them in to eliminate air gaps. We recommend using a soil knife, sometimes referred to as hori hori, or a drill-adapted auger if it’s a large installation. If you use an auger, you will need a powerful drill. Depending on the size of the project and the type of soil, the process can be beyond what an average drill will bear. Mulching is recommended after installation to help keep weeds down while the plants establish. Be sure to keep it away from the crown of the plants. For large projects, you may want to mulch the area before planting, rather than tiptoeing through it after the fact. As a side note: if you are installing plugs in the fall, you might want to plant them so that the crown is about ¾” lower than the surrounding soil. The winter’s freeze/thaw cycles can push plugs out if the roots did not have enough time to establish and anchor them in.