Eastern Prickly Pear

Size, growth and what to expect

Eastern prickly pear grows slowly, a few inches a year in our growth estimator. It makes a low mat or clump usually under a foot tall, sometimes 20 inches, spreading 1 to 3 feet as its pads root where they touch the ground. The flat pads, 2 to 10 inches across, carry tufts of tiny barbed bristles and few spines or none. In fall they shrivel and lie down, then plump up in spring. Seedlings can flower in their second year in the South but take six to eight years in Ontario.

Yellow flowers 2 to 3 inches across, often with a red center, open from May into July, and bumblebees carry most of their pollen. The fruits ripen from green to red or purple in late summer and fall, 1 to 2 inches long, and may hang on through winter. Birds, rabbits, deer and box turtles eat the fruit.

It grows wild from Massachusetts and Ontario west to Montana, and south to Florida, Texas and New Mexico. Its home is dry, open ground, from dunes and sand prairies to rocky glades, open woods and old fields.

How to grow Eastern Prickly Pear

Eastern prickly pear needs full sun. Give it dry, sandy, gravelly or rocky soil that drains fast. Clay will do if water never stands on it, but ground that stays wet rots it. It tolerates salt and drought. Set plants 3 feet apart and keep them 2 feet from a wall. At its size it can go within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Wear thick gloves to handle it, since its tiny barbed bristles lodge in the skin. Plant it during the growing season, at the depth it grew, and firm the soil around it. Sow fresh seed outdoors as soon as it is collected, and seedlings come up the next spring. Seed that has dried needs its coat nicked before sowing.

Water a new plant or pad about once a week while it roots, and let the soil dry out fully between waterings. After that, water it only in a long drought, since too much water rots it. Keep taller plants from overgrowing it, since shade cuts its vigor and flowering. Deer and rabbits seldom browse the pads.

Each flower carries both male and female parts, but it needs pollen from another plant to set good seed, and pads that root are the same plant. Plant two or more seedlings from different parents for seed. It has no serious pests, though it rots in wet soil, and the invasive cactus moth has attacked it in Florida. The fruit and young pads are eaten, but only after the bristles are burned or rubbed off, since they cause painful skin and eye irritation.