This rather unimposing plant (in just a 2” pot at present) has particular sentimental value, coming as it did from my late friend Len Bell, member of BCSS Clacton branch, who died last year. His adult kedrostis was in the habit of self setting seedlings around his greenhouse, and this is one of two that he sent me when having a bit of a tidy-up in 2008. The other I sent to my friend Ray in Norfolk as a memento of Len.

I remember fondly a long conversation with Len about folk music at the last BCSS national show – he was a great character, and a talented grower – and sadly someone who I knew all-too-briefly in real life. I did, however, enjoy corresponding with on the BCSS discussion forum for a good while.

So, as you can imagine, it’s important to me that I keep this little fellow going.

Needless to say, I did nothing of the sort; I can be a bit clumsy, and the sum of “me + knife” all too often equals “A & E”. Hence, I sowed these as I would normally, sealed them in a plastic bag, and Hey! Presto: lots of long, grasslike leaves.

I’ve peeked beneath the surface of the compost and they are starting to produce tiny little bulbs. One of the seedlings (third from the left at the front) is just making its second leaf.

These plants have been grown under artificial lights indoors, and have now been moved out into the greenhouse – the aeonium is looking a little drawn and obviously wants more light.

Click the images for larger versions.

Unfortunately, they proved to be rather fascinating to grow. Oh dear.

Now, as a group, the Asphodelaceae as a family – which includes Haworthia and Gasteria, plus a load of other genera that I don’t grow at all – is the second most numerous in my collection after the opuntias.

How on earth did that happen?

Well, the rot really set in when I was helping at the BCSS 2008 National Show; I was assisting with manning the Tephrocactus Study Group stand, as well as doing some shopping.

Robert Wellens, from Succulent Tissue Culture, was there with a vast assortment of these plants, all wonderfully well-grown. As if I hadn’t already spent enough before I got round to him, I proceeded to give him more money than I’d handed over to all the other traders put together. I came back with, if I remember rightly, about eight or nine plants, including a fabulous hybrid between Haworthia springbokvlakensis and H. comptoniana which, to all intents and purposes, looks like the former. It even has its habit of pulling itself down into the pot.

Then, last year, as well as an abundance of haworthias, I was given a load of gasterias by a friend in Norfolk (thanks Ray!) and that started me off with them. If anything, I’d have to say that of the two genera, I’m probably slightly more besotted with gasterias than I am with haworthias. This may have something to do with the fact that they’re easier from seed. More of that in a moment.

A good number of my haworthias are pretty tatty. In fact some of them look like they’re (still) at death’s door.

There’s a good reason for this – when I acquired those particular plants, they were indeed at death’s door.

I was given them by the widower of a former member of Birmingham Branch of the BCSS, who was clearing out his late wife’s plants. She had been ill for a while before her death. When I spoke to him about them, he reckoned that the plants had been without water for at least two years, possibly three. That they had survived this treatment, dry and cooped up without ventilation, for that long is testament to their extraordinary survival skills. And it’s given me a tremendous amount of pleasure to revive these plants as I remember the lady in question from when I was a member of the BCSS as a young lad in the mid-to-late 1980s.

I said I’d return to the subject of seed-raising. I’ve already grown two forms of Gasteria pulchra, G. baylissiana, and a hybrid of G. bicolor x excelsa. It’s anyone’s guess how the last of those is going to turn out. Gasteria seed seems to yield similar results to mesemb seed, i.e. sow 10 seeds and you get 12 plants, whereas haworthias are a lot less accommodating. That said, I have a few nice H. springbokvlakensis seedlings sown last year which are doing well, and a beautifully dark H. bayeri.

I’ve sown seed of 15 different species and forms of gasteria this year, obtained from Steven Brack at Mesa Garden. Most of them have some habitat data. Swaps anyone?

(click on the images for larger versions)

I had an appointment at Selly Oak hospital this morning, to see Claire the lovely Hand Therapist, as I recently had a week-long stay there for treatment of a badly-infected cat bite. I was told this morning that I’d made excellent progress, and could expect things to return to normal eventually. More important, for me, is the fact that she told me that I can start playing the piano again.

So, always on the lookout for an excuse to buy a new plant, I stopped in at the Wyevale garden centre in Bournville on the way home and treated myself to this rather nice Haworthia pumila to celebrate the occasion!

Having used some Homebase vouchers up rescuing this plant and its friend, which were sat in caked peat with hardly any root, I wasn’t necessarily expecting to do any better this time, but the occasional dash of water through the long dark winter months appear to have done the trick for now, and it’s looking fairly perky.

Incidentally, if you weren’t yet aware, all images on this site are clickable and will take you to larger versions of the photos.

My juvenile plants of Gasteria pulchra sown in December 2007 have really got a move on in the last few weeks, and will soon need pricking out.

The temptation is, of course, to keep several to see how variable the markings are as the plants mature, but given my current problems with lack of space in the greenhouse at the moment, it’s not really practical.

I kept some of the less robust cactus seedlings indoors under lights in order to get them ready for a full growing season in the greenhouse, and the results have been encouraging. My only Pygmaeocereus bieblii from the 2008 sowing is romping away, as are the Mammillaria pectinifera and Turbinicarpus alonsoi, although I’ve lost one or two of both the latter species. While it’s OK to keep them pretty wet if the temperature is high enough, I forgot that the temperature would drop when the central heating was turned down after the really cold snap we’ve had, resulting in some rot.

Even more impressive, though, are the Eriosyce subgibbosa ssp. castanea and Frailea santaritense seedlings, sown last May and October respectively. I’ve come to the conclusion that fraileas really are very easy from seed indeed, as long as you have fresh seed. If the seed is viable they grow like weeds.

Now I’m not so sure.

There are three or four in flower at the moment, the best of which is this Haworthia reticulata flower spike. Of course, it’s no epiphyllum, but beggars can’t be choosers and in the depths of an unseasonably cold February it’s good to see something in flower at least.

From Succseed:

• Lemaireocereus griseus MN306 (Ascension, 10m, Curacao)
• Gymnocalycium marsoneri WR159 (Campo Quijano, Salta, Argentina)

Mammillaria Society 2008 seed distribution:

• Escobaria sandbergii
• Mammillaria mystax FO250
• Mammillaria mathildae
• Mammillaria schiedeana giselae MU677
• Mammillaria canelensis ROG648
• Mammillaria lasiacantha WM941
• Mammillaria marksiana ROG515
• Coryphantha glandulifera KKR20
• Mammillaria duoformis xuchiadensis R1677
• Mammillaria sp. temoris ROG645
• Coryphantha hintonii geofreyii KKR813
• Mammillaria sp. red flowers ROG641
• Mammillaria yoloxis ML359

From Doug & Vivi Rowland:

• Ariocarpus trigonus
• Ariocarpus agavoides
• Lobivia mistiensis
• Lobivia varians
• Lobivia planiceps
• Lobivia zecheri
• Lobivia maximiliana
• Lobivia wrightiana
• Titanopsis calcarea
• Lobivia lateritia
• Lobivia larae
• Lobivia intermedia
• Lobivia crassicaulis
• Lobivia glauca paucicostata
• Lobivia horrida
• Lobivia ferox
• Lobivia famatimensis
• Mammillaria beiselii
• Mammillaria cadereytensis
• Mammillaria tayloriorum
• Mammillaria angularis
• Mammillaria arida
• Mammillaria pilcayensis
• Mammillaria giselae

Own seed

• Setiechinopsis mirabilis
• Escobaria minima
• Melocactus sp.
• Vlokia ater

And that’s the lot. Phew. The mammillarias and lobivias from the Rowlands were bought initially as bulk purchases to try and gain experience with easy species. Having gained a little more confidence I may end up donating them to the BCSS forum seed pool as I don’t have a great deal of interest in raising umpteen lobivia species for their own sake, apart perhaps from Lobivia ferox, or whatever it is now that it’s been swallowed up by the ravenous genus Echinopsis.

It’s a rather Heath-Robinson affair, with an Envirolite and reflector dangling from an old wooden towel rail that seems just about up to the job. For germination I have the base of an old electric propagator to provide bottom warmth; everything else relies on the ambient temperature of the room.

I know that I could, and probably should, improve this set-up. After all a lot of the light is lost to the room, and this could be remedied easily by making some sort of enclosure. However, results over the past twelve months have been encouraging, as I hope to show…

One of last year’s seedlings that I was determined to keep growing through the winter was this Pygmaeocereus bieblii. This valiant little chap was the only one to germinate from a pack of 10 seeds from Koehres.

I know that other growers have had better luck from the same seed source, and indeed the two other packs of this species which I’ve sown recently have yielded four and five seedlings each. I just didn’t want to lose this one!

The ambient temperature is also absolutely fine for getting cuttings rooted. Here are some of the tacinga cuttings I’ve mentioned previously.

You’ll see that although the Envirolite provides plenty enough light for seedlings to grow by, the new growth that the tacingas are putting out is a little on the lanky side. What I intend to do is remove this growth in spring and root it for circulation of this documented material to other opuntioid enthusiasts.

I had never grown any kind of epiphytes from seed before, so when I saw last winter that Koehres were offering Epiphyllum anguliger, I jumped at them.

If you search back through the archives of this site, you’ll see that I had some trouble with growing them on, and as I’ve said in my “things I’ve learned” post, don’t grow them in loamy compost. They hate it. As you can see these are now in a mixture of normal peat-based multi-purpose compost and grit and romping away.

Lastly, here are a few other pots of seedlings that I’m quite pleased with. From left to right, Eriosyce subgibbosa ssp castanea, Frailea santaritense, and Ariocarpus retusus SB68. Obviously, Ariocarpus retusus is larger-growing than many of its immediate relatives, but it’s still a revelation to me how much growth these chaps have managed in the past year. By contrast, the eriosyce were sown in May, and the fraileas are just a few months old.

I’ve sown a few pots of seed from this delivery already – mostly hardy opuntias which haven’t done anything yet. They are still in their sealed polythene bags, not being fast ‘n’ bulbous. I did have a Grusonia bradtiana germinate, but it didn’t last long, for some reason. I’m looking forward to trying Tephrocactus geometricus and T. bonnieae in particular:

• Cylindropuntia versicolor
• Tephrocactus bonnieae
• Tephrocactus aoracanthus
• Tephrocactus alexanderi
• Tephrocactus geometricus
• Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa
• Micropuntia pulchella
• Tephrocactus bruchii
• Austrocylindropuntia humahuacana
• Cumulopuntia boliviana
• Maihueniopsis glomerata ‘longispina’
• Maihueniopsis subterranea
• Tephrocactus weberi
• Maihueniopsis atacamensis
• Austrocylindropuntia weingartiana
• Maihueniopsis glomerata ‘atrospinosa’
• Haageocereus achaetus
• Corryocactus urmiriensis

From individuals

Seed obtained from non-commercial/non-society sources, either as gifts or as swaps.

• Frailea tenuissima
• Frailea sp. Argentinien f. Hlinecki
• Frailea sp GF272B
• Frailea pumila FS21
• Frailea pumila
• Frailea pulcherrima
• Frailea columbiana
• Lithops otzeniana
• Rhinephyllum broomii
• Lapidaria margaretae
• Lithops verruculosa
• Lithops gracidelineata
• Lithops hermetica
• Lithops dorotheae
• Ariocarpus fissuratus
• Ariocarpus retusus SB68
• Conophytum devium ssp stiriiferum
• Conophytum obcordellum ‘ursprungianum’ CR1306 Lokenburg
• Conophytum stephanii ssp helmutii CR1439 NW Kabinaberg
• Conophytum pellucidum CR1332 Witwater, Khamiesberg
• Conophytum obcordellum ‘mundum’ LAV28653 Snorkfontein, Gifberg
• Conophytum luckhoffii EVJ8226 Eagle’s Pride, Piketberg
• Conophytum minimum ‘wittebergense’ NBG322/94 Klein Spreeufontein
• Conophytum praesectum CR1281 3.5km E. Pofadder

From the 2008 BCSS seed list

• Aeonium nobile
• Ariocarpus bravoanus
• Ariocarpus bravoanus v. hintonii
• Ariocarpus kotschoubeyanus
• Ariocarpus trigonus v. minimus
• Ariocarpus retusus “huge tubercle form”
• Aztekium hintonii
• Aztekium ritteri
• Avonia albissima
• Avonia quinaria ssp alstonii
• Ferobergia (Leuchtenbergia x Ferocactus fordii)
• Turbinicarpus alonsoi
• Avonia dinteri
• Miqueliopuntia miquelii long spined form
• Obregonia denegrii
• Tephrocactus fiambalensis nom. prov.
• Tephrocactus alexanderi

I haven’t even nearly finished yet

I entered a few plants in the show this time round, mostly to make up the numbers, which was just as well as I didn’t win anything at all! My Opuntia erinacea v. ursina proved to be the most difficult customer to transport to the show. Not only was it flopping all over the place, as it’s now resting, resulting in my tying it to a couple of canes for support, but it hadn’t occurred to me that planting it in a large and decorative ceramic pot would make the thing fiendishly heavy to transport. You live and learn.

Click the Haworthia to see all the show photos!

Last weekend saw the 2008 British Cactus and Succulent Society National Show in Godmanchester, Cambridgeshire – and what a show it was. Needless to say I brought back some new greenhouse inhabitants, including a couple of beautiful Mammillaria luethyi on their own roots from David Quail.

Click the massive Pterocactus tuberosus to see my pictures from the show!