My Collection of Small Cactus - Fall 2019

[bartab]

I have enjoyed reading this forum for some time, seeing what other people are growing along with growing tips and ideas to help improve my collection. This has been my third year of collecting. My first year (2017) was pretty meager, picking up a few things while visiting a few nurseries and growers along the Northern California coastal areas. Then last year I started to get hooked a little bit. All of a sudden the different growing media showed up in my garage. My wife began to wonder why all of a sudden I would need a couple of bags of Turface, then some Pumice, then an alternative to Turface, and next some sieves, buckets, bags of crushed granite and the like. And so it began. Earlier this summer, I saw my wife over near my cactus, and then she said to me "do you realize you have 176 cactus?". I said no, I didn't know that, and I need another table. I live about 30 miles East of San Francisco. No greenhouse means I need to move them inside on the coldest nights during the winter. When it is warm enough, I leave them outside under large patio umbrellas during the winter, and in the summer I remove the umbrellas and keep them under 30% shade cloth.

I will post just a few photo's tonight to get the hang of it, and will follow with more soon. I will gladly accept any thoughts or criticisms that will help me in the future.

Here are a few:

I've got a few Turbinicarpus. I will post three tonight so I can see if I am doing this correctly. These were acquired in both 2018 and 2019. Several blooms this year and a couple are actually blooming at this time. I tend to plant in Pumice, calcined clay, and medium sized chicken grit.

[bartab]

Here are a few more before I sign off tonight.

[Paul679]

Beautiful!

[bartab]

My Mammillaria hernandezii was in bloom when I came home from work today.

[TimN]

Great selection of plants!

[hegar]

I like your cactus collection thus far and of course, also those beautiful labels in and on each pot.

Harald

[bartab]

I thought I would take some photos of a few of my Mammillarias. I have a really hard time turning down any small white golf ball cacti, especially albiflora and herrerae. I even came up with a couple of luethyi earlier this summer. Praying this winter is kind to them. I promise to do my best. One of the plants labeled herrera is actually albiflora I believe, but I will wait til it flowers in the spring to change the tag.

[Steve Johnson]

Very nice, bartab! It looks like you M. luethyi are on their own roots. If so, where did you get them?

[bartab]

They are on their own roots. So far doing great but I do know from reading on here they can be a bit touchy. I've found there are some really good sellers on Ebay and I don't mind at all going through them. Some bid situations and Buy it Now auctions can be expensive, but it for sure saves time and gas money not having to drive around and finding the same old selection at stores and time traveling to shows. So I figure it saves me time and money in the long run. The luethyi came from PlantaSeca and I like Kyle's Plants and Teedee Cacti as well. PlantaSeca has some really tougher to find plants listed fairly often. I also have a couple of M. theresae from Kyle's which are beautiful.

[keith]

Mammillaria albiflora are usually tall and skinny I think it might be a herrerea ? here is a picture of some old ones I chopped the top of because they became too tall, Mine rarely flower so this is a rare photo from many years ago. Seedlings are really skinny. When yours flowers you will know for sure.

[TimN]

LOL, you've got my plants! I also have two M. theresae from Kyle and a number of golf balls from Plantaseca. If you don't have one yet, take a look at his M. humboldtii; clumping golf balls! TeeDee auctions seems to have turned into bid sniping festivals, unfortunately.

I wasn't planning on buying any more plants this year, but now that I know Plantaseca has M. leuthyi on it's own roots...