Boring pot-filler - ID?

[greenknight]

Got this during a sale at a local nursery. It was in a combo planting - a couple of interesting succulents, and this rather uninteresting clumping cactus, in a 6" Azalea pot, very cheap. I wanted the succulents; the cactus I couldn't identify (Parodia? Echinopsis? Something else? A hybrid? I dunno ), but I thought it might have nice flowers (must be some reason for it to be in cultivation!) .

Moved the succulents into their own pots, filled up the holes with potting mix, and let the cactus have the pot to itself (neglecting to replace the crummy mix it was in, very lazy of me). It rapidly grew to fill up the space, and that's all it did - it's never bloomed. Let it go for quite a few years, just watered it, tried fertilizing it (to no effect).

Recently, it got to looking pretty bad - stopped growing, turning yellow - so I dumped it out of its pot. Most of the roots were dead, and it had root mealybugs. Removed the dead roots and the old potting mix, took off a few of the offsets, and put it back in the pot with some fresh cactus mix. Then I plunged my whole collection into soap solution to kill the mealybugs.

Surprisingly, it didn't rot. It's greened up, and growing like a weed again. I've developed a certain grudging respect for it - it may not be beautiful, but it sure is tough! So, here it is - as you can see, the spines start out white, then turn gray (they look black when wet). Anybody know what it is? Will it bloom if I take better care of it? I'd be grateful if someone could enlighten me.

[CactusBoss]

Looks like an Echiniopsis that needs more light

[greenknight]

Looks like an Echiniopsis that needs more light

I have a couple Echinopsis in the same light that are doing just fine.

It does look like it could be an Echinopsis, but that's not narrowing it down much.

[DaveW]

From the fact it's pupping or offsetting near the crown it looks as though some of the heads have gone blind? Probably Echinopsis oxygona, but that now covers a few old names.

[fanaticactus]

That was a very fortunate save, greenknight. If it is E. oxygona (which it strongly resembles) you should be rewarded with some awesome flowers if it's given the required winter care. Going off on a tangent, since you mentioned a "soap solution", what type of soap do you use? What strength? And does the cactus need to be rinsed off so any soap residue doesn't affect the roots or skin? Or is soap harmless to all parts of a cactus? I've seen mention of it, but I've never pursued the question in depth. Thanks.

[oldcat61]

Wish someone would dump a nice " boring" cluster like that my way. To each his own I guess. Sue

[greenknight]

Yes, it probably does fall into E. oxygona in the current nomenclature. It may have been called something else when I bought it, but so many similar species were lumped into E. oxygona that it's a safe bet it belongs there now, too. Most E. oxygonas have stronger spination than this; but the more pictures I look at, the more I realize that means very little these days.

It started pupping like that when it got extremely root bound - since it failed to bloom like I expected, I kind of lost interest in it. I hope that the fresh potting mix yields better results - thought I got a great bargain, but so far it's been a disappointment.

Maybe I can trade cuttings with somebody - if the offsets I removed all make it, I'll have 5 more of them. Sure hope it does bloom. My first Echinopsis started flowering within a year of purchase, little bitty plant with flowers bigger than it was, and blooms very reliably year after year. Other cacti bloom for me, too - but so far, not this one, though I've had it for quite a few years.
_______________________________________________________________________________

The soap I use is Fels-Naptha (doesn't really have naptha in it). It's an old-fashioned yellow laundry soap cake, with a long-standing reputation as an effective insecticidal soap, and it's dirt cheap. It does have some scent added (makes your cacti smell clean! ), but it's never hurt the plants I've used it on - and it does the job.

Directions I've read say use 1 or 2 tablespoons per gallon of water - I use 1. You have to scrape some off with a knife to make soap flakes, measure out what you need, and mix that with a little hot water to dissolve it before diluting with cool water. Less convenient than something like Safer's, but a fraction of the cost.

To kill root mealies - plunge the plants, in their pots, into a bucket of soap solution; leave them submerged for 15 - 30 minutes, then take them out and let them drain thoroughly. I don't rinse the soap off; hopefully the solution still remaining in the potting mix will kill new hatchlings for a while. At the next watering I try to rinse off the debris that's left stuck in the spines of the plants.

Should repeat the treatment in case more hatch after the soap has stopped working.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Thanks, Daniel, Dave, Fanaticus, for your insights. I still think it's a boring cactus, unless it blooms - maybe with some TLC it will.

Sue, all I can tell you is haunt the nurseries' end of season sales - when they're trying to clear out their greenhouses, you sometimes get some amazing bargains.

[oldcat61]

I didn't mean to sound snarky - I've got a bunch of what I call rescues. Stuck at the back of the neglected cactus section, overgrown with clover, no price tag/label, pot bound etc. What I hate is prying off the glue from the Home Depot cheapies. Getting pretty good with embroidery scissors. Now stop calling him boring - you've hurt it's feelings. C'mon pretty cactus, bloom!

[greenknight]

Didn't sound snarky to me. This was definitely a rescue - three plants that had no business being potted together, could not have gone well.

Talking nice to it is one thing I haven't tried, it's worth a shot. I've grown rather fond of it, despite the fact it does nothing but take up space. I'm sure many people consider me boring, too; we probably belong together.

[DaveW]

I think it was in the "Cactus Explorer" where a picture shows what we used to call the almost spineless Echinopsis eyreisii growing in the same population in habitat alongside what used to be called the spiny Echinopsis multiplex, showing they are just population variants that have been cloned in cultivation.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... _-_JBM.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://cactusamanecer.blogspot.jp/2010/ ... iplex.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Now both reduced to synonymy under E. oxygona whatever their degree of spination and flower colour:-

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/146588/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[fanaticactus]

Thanks for the detailed soap bath directions, greenknight. I'm that old that I certainly remember the old standby Fels Naptha; I think my grandmother always used it in the kitchen. After I sent my comment, I started thinking, "Well, any soap bath can't be that much different from Safer's Insecticidal Soap--except minus the insecticide." So I guess it all makes sense. You've just won a lot of fans here who are rooting (no horticultural pun intended) for your "boring" guy to bloom. With all that support, it's got to happen! I've been rewarded by waiting for several years for the first blooms from some of my cacti. I don't think you can compare it to other Echinopsis (Echinopses?); they're all individuals, just like us, and perhaps yours just hasn't reached puberty yet!

[greenknight]

@ DaveW - Yes, there's quite a lot of variation in E. oxygona. The Dave's Garden site is one I'd been looking at, they have some excellent examples of that - some of which are fairly close to this one.

I think you're right that a couple of the largest heads have gone blind. Not a trace of growth from the central buds on them.

@ fanaticus - You're welcome. The only thing I should add is to make sure you clean up the area where the plants sit, thoroughly. I toss the trays from under the plants into the soap bucket while the pots are draining, let them soak while I clean up the surrounding area. Don't want any little crawler mealies to survive!

This treatment worked great last time I had a root mealybug problem - didn't lose a single plant, and there was no more sign of the bugs for many years. Then this spring I found them on the one cactus and my Aloe variegata - so everybody gets a bath! Been so long I couldn't even find my old bar of Fels Naptha, had to spend over a dollar to get a new one! About time to give them a repeat treatment, may even give them one more to be extra sure. I'll still have most of the bar of soap left, which I probably won't be able to find next time I need it.

I just need to have patience with this plant, one of these years it may surprise me and bloom like crazy. Until then - well, it's definitely got character.

[greenknight]

Not that I think it's likely to alter the ID, but this plant has changed quite a bit, the spines developed some color, and it's grown tremendously. Oldcat was right, it really is a pretty cactus.

[fanaticactus]

After first reading your Fels Naptha treatment, I tried it with fairly good success. The only cacti that showed a recurrence of mealies were those that were VERY heavily infested. I'd like to go a bit more in depth with another question. Is it OK to use the same bucket of Fels solution for all cacti that show some evidence of mealybug, or is it wiser to make a new solution for each heavily-infected plant to avoid cross contamination? Is it OK to use the solution as a preventative on multiple cacti that don't exhibit any mealies at all? Did I make that clear or should I reword it? Thanks.

[greenknight]

I use the same bucket of soap solution for all of them, though you might need to top it up if you're doing many plants - I don't have that large a collection, I just do the bigger pots first, smaller ones as the bucket gets low. Good idea to skim off floating debris between batches. If you have a lot of plants, you'd probably want to use more than one bucket just to save time. But as for cross-contamination - the soap kills the critters, I don't see how that could happen.

I always treat the whole collection if any have root mealies. It's never harmed any of my plants, though I can't guarantee that there aren't some species that could be sensitive to it. Let them dry off in the shade.

You really should repeat the treatment after a few weeks, though I never seem to get around to it. That's probably more important where you have a very heavy infestation. Maybe separate the ones that are definitely infested and give just those a second treatment - doing them all is a lot of work.

Also, I forgot to mention - you should treat the drainage trays or whatever the plants are sitting on as well, since there could be crawlers there.