My flowering Cacti 2020

[hegar]

Thank you very much for your comments, keith, MikeM, and TimN. I am glad, that I am able to provide photos of a good number of my cacti. Some of them I have never shown, although they are large, because they have yet to flower. Some of those I most likely will not live long enough to see bloom.
For today, there are two plants, which produced blossoms.
The first one is a Thelocactus bicolor. However, it is one with white spines. I did go with T. bicolor var. bolaensis for this plant. I do have one or two more of them, but the first one flowered yesterday. By the time I arrived back at my house from work, the two blossoms were almost closed (see image 1). Fortunately, the third flower opened up today, and because it was my "short day", I was home by around 5:30 p.m., just in time to see and photograph the still open blossom (images 2 and 3).

T_bicolor var bolaensis1.JPG (85.49 KiB) Viewed 3084 times

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The second plant in bloom is one of my two Astrophytum asterias hybrids. While I have read, that A. asterias is the most finicky species of that genus, I consider this hybrid an easy one to cultivate. I have had all species of Astrophytum in my cactus garden. However, only the two A. asterias hybrids and A. capricorne are still alive and doing well. The color of the blossom of this specimen is a little off the regular color, with a bit of an orange tint. The plant itself does have a body color, which is less green than that of the other plant almost touching it. We did have a rather wet late winter and with the plants being in the ground this kind of condition was perhaps rather stressful to the cactus. I am quite sure, that the neighbor plant will also produce a blossom sometime soon, hopefully will a more typical flower.

Harald

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[hegar]

Hello Cacti Friends,

the flowering season at my yard is now in full swing. There were a number of plants blooming and there will be at least one more ready to be photographed before the sun sets.
The first images show one of my three cactus flower beds in the front yard. That is the one from which I harvested several hundred pounds of medium to large size prickly pear cacti, because they were crowding their smaller neighbors out. Well, the remaining Opuntia members have taken advantage of that new situation and are taking up a lot of the freed space. Now I am contemplating to take out at least one of those plants, including perhaps the prickly pear of small to medium size shown in all its glory on the next images. The first image does show O. aciculata (red flowering). It is my favorite of the prickly pear group. Also present is a clump of yellow-flowering with red center O. macrocentra? and then the orange-pink prickly pear, which is the only Opuntia that "lies down" during the winter. The next two images show the latter Opuntia as a clump with a good number of blossoms and a close-up of the flowers.

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Another cactus, which is still retaining a number of flowers and has been shown before is my only Ancistrocactus uncinatus. This one is not easy to photograph, because of its long, slightly curved spines at the tips.

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I do have two Echinocereus pentalophus plants. The first one, which grows in a cactus bed that receives the most sun exposure, did open its first blossoms yesterday. One of them also opened up today. This cactus I jokingly call the "purple pentalophus", because most of the year the stems do have a purplish hue. I did plant this cactus next to another "E. pentalophus". That plant - although it does have identical flowers - produces thicker stems, which do stay green all year long. As you can see, the flowering seems to be also at a slightly later date. So, that one I call the "green pentalophus". The large clump of O. pentalophus (purple) will most likely bloom at the same time as the "green pentalophus". I shall then send side-by side images of the flowering plants.

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E_pentalophus3.JPG (103.24 KiB) Viewed 3041 times

I shall finish the digital image presentation with one of the Turbinicarpus genus members. I did lose track of what species of Turbinicarpus is planted where, because I did move them around several times. Now almost all of them are in pots. The one pictured is most likely a Turbinicarpus pseudomacrochele. At least that is what I named a similar looking plant last year.

Harald

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[hegar]

Hello Cactus Friends,
the flowering continues in my cactus beds. So I am posting a few additional images.
First, a cactus I do not believe I ever bought. It is definitely not one of my favorite plants. It is interesting though, because it does form a tuberous root system and at times drops the spindly stems. Its name is Pterocactus tuberosus.
The flower, which is formed at the tip of the stem, is small and yellow and - if I still remember correctly - it does have a red stigma. Also, it does not seem to flower often, because I do not even have images of the blossoms dating all the way back to the 2017 growing season. I had gone out to photograph the plant around noon, but the blossom was only partially open. So I waited another two hours and then realized, that the flower had closed even more. The next day it did not bloom at all.

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Another plant, which started to bloom today is the common, mat-forming peanut cactus Echinopsis chamaecereus (syn. Chamaecereus sylvestris). This is an easy to grow, tough, little plant with beautiful, brick-red flowers. I shall post another image of two of this plant, when there are more blossoms on the larger of the two clumps I have.

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The following cactus is one of the prettiest ones. I ordered this Echinocereus reichenbachii ssp. pailianus from Miles-2-Go a year or two ago. It does have darker spines than the regular E. reichenbachii, which also should be in bloom in a few days.

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Yet another cactus genus produced flowers on both of my plants. This is is commonly known by the name Glory of Texas. Its scientific name is Thelocactus bicolor. The plant does have red and white spines and older plants sometimes show a spiral spine arrangement.

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I am going to close this flower show with images of the two Astrophytum capricorne plants. One of them is the regular spotted plant, the other one is of the cultivar "senile". It does have a more solid green stem. These plants are also pretty showy, with their red throat surrounded by yellow petals.

Harald

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[hegar]

Today my wife did the honors of photographing flowering cactus plants. Because of back surgery not too long ago, she is limited and less flexible than she used to be. So she cannot get as close to the plants as I can. However, I am glad and thankful, that she did go out and took a few photos
The first two images show both kinds of Thelocactus bicolor I do have growing in my cactus bed. One is the T. bicolor var. schottii and the one with the white spines is T. bicolor var. bolaensis.

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The last photo for the day is a view of several Echinocereus dasyacanthus plants with their large yellow flowers, and one open blossom of an Echinocereus fendleri in the back. That clump has three more flower buds and I do have two additional plants, which are also mature enough to flower. So, a digital image showing the beautiful blosom of the Fendler's hedge hog is forthcoming in the near future.

Harald

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[keith]

I guess all your cactus can take some frost in the winter ?

[hegar]

Hello Cactus Friends,

I am glad to be able to show additional images of my flowering plants. But at first I need to answer Keith's question.
Yes, my cacti are all hardy kinds and will survive temperatures at least in the mid 20's without any protection. The least hardy ones I do cover with a tarp that I purchased a long time ago, in order to keep weeds from sprouting. It is made of a greyish-brown plastic, which is aerated, allowing for some moisture to enter and gas exchange. I do cover the plants in the pots and also the Echinopsis eyriesii when temperatures are forecast to be 25 degrees Fahrenheit or lower.

Now to the latest pictures. First is yet another blossom on the bigger Thelocactus bicolor var. schottii. The other plant of the same species and variety still has flower buds and will bloom again tomorrow or the day after.

Thelo_bicolor var schottii5.JPG (137 KiB) Viewed 2926 times

Next a photo of a Fendler's hedgehog cactus (Echinocereus fendleri). By the time I arrived home the flower had already closed a bit. However, it does not fully open anyway.

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My wife did go out early this afternoon to take a photograph of the first flower on a clump of Echinocereus reichenbachii. It has a large, beautiful light pink flower. However, it is not quite as impressive as the one produced by the subspecies pailianus, which I posted two days ago. Here are two images. As you can see, that plant's stems are loaded with flower buds. Once a large number of them are open, I shall post another digital image of that plant.

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I shall close for the day with two images taken this evening (18:30 h or 6:30 p.m.) of a tiny plant, which has over the years formed a small clump.
I will need to transplant it very soon, because an Echinocereus sp. clump is starting to overrun it. This little cactus has been growing in the ground of my yard for a good number of years now. It is a tough little plant. Its name is Escobaria sneedii ssp. leei. I do have a slightly larger clump of Escobaria sneedii ssp. sneedii, which does have stems that look similar, but the blossom of the ssp. leei is prettier, i.e. less brownish and more of a pink.

Harald

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[TimN]

Beautiful!

[hegar]

Hello Cactus Friends,

first off, thank you, Tim, for your supportive comment. I always hope, that at least some of the blog members do enjoy the beauty of cactus flowers.
Today and most likely tomorrow also, there is not much to admire at my place. I only did spot two cacti in bloom, which I have not yet shown in this year's thread, and those were not breathtakingly stunning.

I did find one blossom open around noon time on an Echinocereus fendleri plant. It is flowering a little bit later than its namesake in the more sunny location.

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While checking around my three cactus beds, I did encounter another blooming cactus. I almost missed it, because it is not large at all and even its flowers are not big. To me it looks similar to a Mammillaria grahamii. Any suggestion for a better name will be appreciated.

Mammillaria sp1.JPG (110.87 KiB) Viewed 2861 times

The third cactus with some open flowers is a prickly pear cactus. I do not know its scientific name either. It does produce elongate and more narrow pads than most Opuntia spp. and its fruit is also skinny, measuring about 6 cm in length x 2 cm in width at the front end (2,3 inches x 0.8 inches). Here are images showing all these features. On the first image, the red flower is that of an Opuntia engelmannii (red-flowering version). Those blossoms are a bit larger than the yellow ones of this plant.

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[hegar]

Hello Cactus Friends,
I was surprised, that in the afternoon hours three more plants opened their flowers, two Echinocereus spp. and one Opuntia sp.
First comes a claret cup cactus (Echinocereus coccineus ssp. rosei). This plant is flowering a bit later than those in the other flower beds, because in its location there is a little more shade near a tree.

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The next image shows one of my favorite Echinocereus members. Although it has a scrawny, multi-stemmed body, the flowers are rather stunning.
This plant is named Echinocereus poselgeri. It is leaning against a medium-sized Ferocactus, which has yet to flower. The E. poselgeri does have three blossoms open, but there are six more to go!

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The third plant in bloom is an Opuntia alta. It is planted in the backyard near a rock wall and only recently did it grow tall enough to match the height of a hummingbird bush. The first image shows one of the pads with the gleaming sun shining on it. The second and third images resulted from me just turning the camera downwards. That gave a nice dark background and almost made the distracting stems and leaves of the hummingbird bush disappear.

Harald

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[Dave Adams]

You are certainly in the right place for growing Cacti, Hegar.
Its nice to see all your plants flowering, thanks for sharing them with everybody on this forum.
We don't have the same conditions as you here in England. It was so sunny here today, so I decided to put some of my Cacti outside in the sun to enjoy the weather and then about half an hour later it went went cloudy and the sun disappeared.......Good old Blighty!!

[hegar]

Hello Dave,

when I was growing up in dreary northern Germany, I had no idea, that sometime in the future I would be living in a desert near the Mexican border.
You are correct of course, saying, that I do live now in a decent climate for growing cacti outdoors. It is not perfect, however, by any means. During the winter months we do have at times severe frosts, when the temperature dips into the 20's Fahrenheit and below. In February 2011 we did have one of those "century cold spells", where the high did not exceed 32 degrees F for 72 hours. A lot of the cacti did not survive those days. I did dig up all my more sensitive plants and then had to replant them. Our natives I left in the ground and they survived. Some of our winters are also too wet and the cold, wet soil caused the death of quite a number of my plants, because they developed root rot.

Well, now to a few more images, which I took this morning and afternoon. There were only two plants flowering. The first one I am showing did produce a blossom earlier in the season, but this time around it did have two. It is an Echinocereus reichenbachii.

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The other cactus I almost missed, because it is dwarfed by the surrounding prickly pear cacti. Those are quite a bit larger though. This one is also an Opuntia or Grusonia, if you so prefer, named Opuntia schottii. Its common name is "dog cholla".

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Opuntia schottii5.JPG (84.71 KiB) Viewed 2807 times

Harald

[hegar]

Hello Cactus Friends,

first, I apologize for labeling a cactus incorrectly on my May 3rd posting. That nice plant with the deep pink-purple flowers is not an Echinocereus pentalophus, but an Echinocereus poselgeri. I only realized my mistake, when I placed a photo I took today (see attachment) into the E. poselgeri folder.

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Other than this cactus, only a common prickly pear had one blossom and my Gymnocalycium baldianum plant did sport its first flower of the year.

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[hegar]

Today several cacti of various genera did flower. Because I had my short work day today, I arrived home already at 5:30 p.m., before the cacti had closed their blossoms for the night or for good.
There were several blossoms open on the Echinopsis chamaecereus (peanut cactus).

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Also, two of my prickly pear cacti were in bloom. The first one is most likely an Opuntia violacea. The second one I need to study some more.

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Another cactus, which did produce a blossom was the sprawling "purple pentalophus" (Echinocereus pentalophus). My largest plant still has not started to bloom. The flowers are quite showy, especially if there are a good number of them.

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The last cactus in flower is my Echinocereus engelmannii.

Harald

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[hegar]

Hello Cactus Friends,

today there were several cacti that had been in bloom, but I arrived too late to get a decent shot. The Astrophytum capricorne had its blossom almost fully closed and the lighting was not sufficient to obtain a good picture of the others. The only exception was the Echinocereus engelmanii, which had a fully open flower. So I did go ahead and took a final photograph of that plant.

Harald

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[hegar]

Dear Cacti Friends,

here are some digital images I took today and yesterday evening.
The first one shows the straggly-looking Echinocereus poselgeri with its last four flowers. I will need to transplant it next spring, because it is just too close for comfort to that Ferocactus plant.

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Another plant, which is coming into full flower production is the small clump of a peanut cactus Echinopsis chamaecereus.

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Another prickly pear, this time Opuntia rufida is also flowering.

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I also had two plants in bloom, which both have been named Echinocereus pentalophus. I believe, the true E. pentalophus is the one with the small stems. The other one reminds me of a hybrid between perhaps E. pentalophus and E. cinarescens. It does flower later, its stems are quite a bit smaller and do stay green, while those of E. pentalophus react to stress by turning "purple". The flowers are also a bit different. You can see the real E. pentalophus on the first image. It is the small plant in the foreground, which flowered on April 24th. Just looking at the difference between these two plants leads me to the conclusion, that images 1 and 5 they are most likely not the same species as images 2-4.

Harald

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