A cellar full of seedlings

[Jamuudsen]

Despite living some 1,500 km apart, my father and I have been growing an (overly?) ambitious range of seedlings in his basement over the last year. We divide the routine stuff as we can: I do most of the sewing when I visit, and much of the picking-out, but he's stuck with the day-to-day.

I'll post updates to this thread periodically, but here are a couple of initial highlights.

Leuchtenbergia principis v trachythele



Mesa Garden call this one Neoporteria esmeraldana. I'm not going to argue Chilean taxonomy here.



Titanopsis primosii. Hope we don't kill them.



Sinocrassula yunnanensis, filling a 2 1/4" pot in less than a year.

[mmcavall]

Beautiful plants and pictures

[ElieEstephane]

Amazing! Please keep us updated with more pictures

[Jamuudsen]

I finally got some time over the last week to photograph some of our seedlings. Since I took far too many shots for one post I'll string them out. Anyone who wants to cheat and look ahead can jump to our flickr account via the links below.

Copiapoa first, because why not? Most of these plants are this year's seedlings, except for griseoviolacea. C. hypogaea first, both forms:

Copiapoa hypogaea by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Copiapoa hypogaea 'Lizard Skin' by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

C. griseoviolacea, looking more green and water-stained than violet-grey:

Copiapoa griseoviolacea by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

C. tenuissima, upstaging its relatives:

Copiapoa tenuissima by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

And of course we'll see how grey we can get cinerea to turn in the weak Canadian sun. So far, not very:

Copiapoa cinerea by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

[bbarv]

Nicely grown plants. Very well done father-son team!
Your sinocrassula yunnanensis photo pointed me to the right direction in IDing mine s.densirosulata, thank you

[supergodzilla]

Beautiful photos. Love those lizard skin copiapoas.

[cosmotoad]

Looks great, the black spines on that one copiapoa are real nice. I actually have my own sinocrassula yunnanensis seedlings going because I saw your picture earlier this summer and I wanted to grow them, so thanks for the inspiration. They do grow pretty fast, I'll have to do some transplanting one of these days

[Jamuudsen]

Looks great, the black spines on that one copiapoa are real nice. I actually have my own sinocrassula yunnanensis seedlings going because I saw your picture earlier this summer and I wanted to grow them, so thanks for the inspiration. They do grow pretty fast, I'll have to do some transplanting one of these days

And so the cycle continues. Many of the plants we're growing were inspired by posts here, especially those of the Frys and Hanazono.

Your avatar -- Captain Beefheart?

[Jamuudsen]

Astrophytum time. We're taking a lot of inspiration from Hanazono's threads here, though we don't have his climate or skill. Here in Canada the Asian cultivars are mostly unobtainable: a superkabuto or a nudum asterias might pop up at a club sale or one of the major importers, and extortionately-priced grafted variegates sometimes get brought in. For a hobbyist dealing with the CITES documentation to bring cacti in from the US makes getting an audience with the Queen look easy. Therefore we grow from seed, mostly from Star Astrophytum, accepting the vagaries of things not growing true, but amazed by the wonders that we do get in our pots.

First, a plant from Koehres seed under the dubious name 'Kituko.' Extremely vigorous, filling a 3.5" pot in only two years.

Astrophytum myriostigma 'Kituko' by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Astrophytum myriostigma 'Kituko' by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

I really enjoy the plants that go multi-headed from a young age.

Astrophytum myriostigma hybrid by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Astrophytum coahuilense triple head by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Astrophytum myriostigma caespitose by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Astrophytum myriostigma double header by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Yes, we grow asterias too.

Astrophytum asterias by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Astrophytum asterias hybrid by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Astrophytum asterias hybrid by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Astrophytum asterias hybrid by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Variegated asterias, which we will probably graft most of.

Astrophytum asterias 'Nishiki' by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

A few are even budding under the lights!

Astrophytum asterias hybrid by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Our first sowing of caput-medusae only produced one viable plant. A new pot, still in the grow box, is more promising.

Astrophytum caput-medusae by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

But what surprised us most as our seeds matured was the variety that's out there in the less glamorous myriostigma.

Astrophytum myriostigma kohyo by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Astrophytum myriostigma variegata by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Astrophytum myriostigma Onzuka tricostatum by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Astrophytum myriostigma kohyo by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Astrophytum spiny onzuka by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Astrophytum myriostigma lumpy by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Astrophytum myriostigma tricostatum twist by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Astrophytum myriostigma kohyo by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Astrophytum myriostigma hybrid by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Astrophytum myriostigma hybrid by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Astrophytum myriostigma ex rokkotsu f1 by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Astrophytum myriostigma ex rokkotsu f1 by Rob and Jack Illingworth, on Flickr

Next post will be shorter. Astros are probably half of our crop at the moment.

[cosmotoad]

Yes indeed, Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart. Those Kitukos look very interesting, I order from Koehres all the time but never really noticed those

[ihoptdk]

You have some really neat cacti here (I'm new to plants in general, so "neat" is as far as I'm capable at the moment :p). Do you sell the plants, or are you an extreme hobbyist? Or for that matter, you mentioned a club, do you have like cacti shows too? Or why not all three I suppose? :p

[gemhunter178]

I feel your predicament as the only two places I would see anything of the type is at the large plant and garden show that happens once an year here or the smaller cactus club.
Very nice bunch of Astros you have there!

[Jamuudsen]

You have some really neat cacti here (I'm new to plants in general, so "neat" is as far as I'm capable at the moment :p). Do you sell the plants, or are you an extreme hobbyist? Or for that matter, you mentioned a club, do you have like cacti shows too? Or why not all three I suppose? :p

The club I referred to is the Toronto Cactus and Succulent Club. I'm on good terms with the member and sometimes go to their very popular sales (the public come out in droves these days, and the lineup is reminiscent of the kind we used to see for new Harry Potter books). I'm not a member, mainly because their meetings are scheduled at a time and place that would make it extremely difficult for me to attend. Early weeknight evenings in the suburbs aren't practical when I generally do late office hours downtown.

We don't sell at present, and this isn't a commercial enterprise. Next summer we will probably make a small offering of surplus plants online, and I may offer a flat or four through a GTA retailer or the club sale. I'm also personally interested in a number of things that either can't be grown easily from seed, or that seed is not shelf-stable enough to be widely sold -- the smaller Euphorbias, Adromiscus, and slipper orchids in particular -- so some will go towards trades.

If you're in Canada and interested DM me so I can send details when the time comes. We will probably keep all asterias seedlings until they have flowered as they are quite variable, but realistically with those plants that grow true to species we will only keep 3-5 clones between us -- enough to have some insurance against losses and produce seed when we want to.

[ihoptdk]

Unfortunately, I'm around 600 miles outside of Toronto in Massachusetts :p I'm also pretty clueless lol. I had a cactus at a desk job I had once years ago, and decided I wanted one again. Now that I have him, I'm interested in getting more, but like I said, I'm clueless. I'm sure your collection is leaps and bounds outside of my understanding (for now, anyways).

[mmcavall]

Hi, Jamuudsen. So you are "Rob and Jack" from Flickr! We have been admiring one another's pictures and discussing on some plants for a while now...