20June2008
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti.
The largest of my three plants of Escobaria minima is now on its second wave of flowers. They’re wonderfully dependable little plants, flowering like clockwork and almost always more than once in a season.
I’ve recently acquired a couple more small seedlings from Richard and Wendy Edginton; one has slightly striped flowers, and the the other with much paler petals. They’re resting for now!
20June2008
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti.
I received this plant labelled as Selenicereus pteranthus. I’m not convinced; the stems in all other illustrations of S. pteranthus that I’ve found look far more like those of S. grandiflorus than like my plant, so I’m fairly certain it’s mislabelled. The flower buds, too, are almost identical at this stage to those on my Selenicereus spinulosus.
Time will tell…
20June2008
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti.
Here’s the plant I bought from this year’s Tephrocactus Study Group meeting, now in full flower. They’re absolutely glorious, and speak for themselves; better still, although they seem to require a fair amount of sun to open, in my conditions each flower lasts several days.
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I’ve been removing the flower stems before they have chance to shrivel, and then removing from those the wilted flower remnants, as these can quite often be used for propagation - not for seed production, but for rooting as cuttings. Michael Kiesling, in his Tephrocactus und andere Feigenkakteen says that "as soon as the plants are mature enough to flower the vegetative growth decreases", so it seems a good reason to try and root whatever material is available!
20June2008
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti.
I have many plants of Consolea falcata in various sizes. The largest of them has been one of the unwitting participants in my experiment with my larger opuntioids that I’ve mentioned previously: giving them far more water than normal.
Most of them - particularly Opuntias quimilo, and leucotricha and Cylindropuntia spinosior seem to love it. However, I noticed that all was not well when I found one of the large consoleas branches had dropped off into the bowl of my big Mammillaria zeilmanniana.
13June2008
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti.
It’s a treat for me whenever any opuntioid decides to flower. Until recently, I had had no success whatsoever in coercing any of them to do so.
There’s always the temptation to interpret new growth as a sign of blooming, as a new pad can look very like a bud. When my Opuntia macrorhiza was at the stage shown in the photo on the left, I was hopeful of flowers, but not counting any chickens.
5June2008
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti.
It’s my first season growing Astrophytum (Digitostigma) caput-medusae, and I’m finding them fascinating to observe.
They certainly don’t seem to hang around; both my plants are producing new tubercles like it’s going out of fashion; in this photo you can see the new heavily-flecked growth clearly. Both my plants of this species are going to flower, too. This plant has a bud on the shortest tubercle visible towards the bottom-right of the shot.
2June2008
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti.
This is the trunk of my large Opuntia leucotricha. The spines continue to grow as the plant ages, and eventually form this dense covering on old stems.
In contrast to their stiffness when they first appear, in age the spines are very flexible, but it’s still best to avoid getting punctured by too many of them in one go.
1June2008
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti.
These pictures tell their own story really.
I’m not keen on grafts, and having rerooted a few Turbinicarpus that have lost their taproots through falling prey to rot, I decided it was time to separate one of my Turbinicarpus pseudopectinatus ‘rubriflorus’ from its stock in order to get it to put its own roots down. I’ve left enough of the scion attached to the stock to allow it to sprout more pseudopectinatus heads, so I should be able to propagate it further.
1June2008
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti.
I spoke too soon!
Mammillaria magnifica obliged with just this one flower this afternoon. You can see what I meant earlier with regard to the flower colour perfectly complementing the spination. It’s a glorious species.
1June2008
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets nervous when watering Ariocarpus early in the season.
I tend to give them several moderate waterings to get them used to the idea of water and to give them time to reactivate their feeder roots before giving them a proper drenching.
Even so, that first drenching is a real "proof of the pudding" moment. They’ll either (a) take up water like it’s going out of fashion, (b) sit there uninterested, or, worse than that, (c) give up completely, rot, and collapse. I’ve an Ariocarpus lloydii which I fear may come into the last category as it’s looking a little peaky at the moment.
1June2008
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti.
These aren’t mine, but my mum’s. It’s all her fault that I grow these plants anyway, as she introduced me to them when I was but a small boy. She has a fondness for smallish species that flower well. Her plants are certainly performing well this year.
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Top row: Chamaecereus silvestrii (Echinopsis chamaecereus), Mammilloydia candida Middle row: two views of a very enthusiastic Gymnocalycium andreae in a two-inch pot. Bottom row: Rebutia muscula, Rebutia cajacensis. |
1June2008
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti.
Having found the lost label, I can now stop calling it a Rebutia! Here is the Weingartia longigibba that I posted in bud the other day.
It’s a very old-looking plant, about 8" tall, that I picked up from a collection disposal; it’s a bit tatty round the edges, but it gives a good display.
1June2008
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti.
There were about a dozen turbs at it yesterday - several T. krainzianus, an un-named "sp." (which is more than likely a schiedickeanus ssp. notquitesureii), and a few of the ever-reliable Turbinicarpus pseudomacrochele.
This was the nicest one out; I’ll snap some of the krainzianus plants today if the sun comes out.
1June2008
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti.
This plant of Mammillaria magnifica is usually in flower by now, but the gloomy weather we’ve been having seems to have held it back.
It’s one of only four large (ish) members of the genus that I grow, the others being karwinskiana ssp nejapensis, zeilmanniana, and a plant that may either be marksiana or canelensis.
This one was bought at about half the size it is now, as an impulse buy from Badger Nurseries in Studley. At that time it consisted of just the main head, without any offsets. The offsets began to show a couple of years back.
1June2008
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti.
The yellow-flowered Delosperma congestum is having a rest at the moment, but when the ultra-violet began to make its way through the clouds yesterday, some of my other outdoor mesembs obliged beautifully. By the time I got the camera out, the light had changed again, and the flowers had retreated but you get the idea!
These are three different cultivars of Delosperma sutherlandii.
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