8 December 2007
Something to brighten up a dark winter’s day
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti .
While trawling through the computer to find some nice pictures to put up on thegardenforums.org forum I found a couple of photos from 2006 which cheered me up no end in this morning’s gloom.
My two-headed Leuchtenbergia principis is shown here putting on a terrific display in August 2006. The plant is double-headed and has the beginnings of a third head showing towards its base.
I find that Leuchtenbergia almost always produce more flower buds than they can actually bring to maturity, no matter how good the conditions or how well-watered they have been; with this plant, what that usually means is that one head will flower well, and the other will lose its buds. I’m not sure if the head that wins is consistently the same one!
And then there’s this Echinocereus ochoterenae, a glorious plant bought from Richard and Wendy Edginton a good few years back. This photo is from June 2006. It will frequently have three or four flowers open at once, and the flowers have rich green stamens which constrast really nicely with the yellow of the petals.
2 Comments so far...
Michael Says:
8 December 2007 at 12:34 pm.
Wow, nice plants! Hi Stuart, it’s Michael from Fallnet (and of Flack “fame”). Stumbled on your name on BCSS forum – have a few cacti of my own but currently dealing with a mealy bug infestation on two of them (well one, really, as the other one has bitten the dust). Hope you’re well.
Stuart Says:
8 December 2007 at 1:15 pm.
Great to hear from you again Michael – it’s been a long time!
Have you got a supply of Provado? A good spray with that ought to do the trick. Failing that you can dab the critters individually with methylated spirit, providing you can get at them.