Dish garden

[CelticRose]

These are more Altman's "The Cactus Collection" plants from Target. It's a dish garden of overcrowded cacti and a succulent with the rocks glued down with a water-soluble glue. It should be fun taking this apart.

For the record, I did not want the freaky red Japanese grafted cactus. No cactus should ever be that color! However, it came with the dish so I guess I'll try to grow it.

This was only labeled "dish garden", so I was pretty much on my own for figuring out the IDs. I'm sure y'all will tell me how far off I am.

Okay the freaky red thing is a Gymnocalycium mihanovichii friedrichii 'Rubra' grafted onto something. Altman's website said they were frequently grafted onto Hylocereus. It's triangular in cross-section, and that's about all I can tell you. I don't think there's enough cactus there to make a positive ID.

I think the white-spined cactus Mammillaria vetula ssp. gracilis.

I get confused by all the different rosette-shaped succulents. I think this one is Graptosedum 'Bronze'.

Thanks for your help with confirming these IDs.

[iann]

Mammillaria (vetula ssp) gracilis and some kind of Echeveria.

Lots of different cultivar names for the red kind of Gymnocalycium, although I'm not sure if any of them are valid. Strangely enough, most of them aren't even G. mihanovichii but G. stenopleurum. G. friedrichii is an invalid name used, usually, for the ones with pink flowers. These mutants tend to have pink flowers but they aren't easy to persuade to open.

You can chop it and grow the Hylocereus if you like massive tropical cacti with huge flowers.

[CelticRose]

Mammillaria (vetula ssp) gracilis and some kind of Echeveria.

Thanks for the confirmation on the mamm, iann.

Echevaria, hmmm? That's what I thought it was in the store, but when I started researching I thought I had made a mistake. I'll have to keep looking. Any input is greatly appreciated.

Lots of different cultivar names for the red kind of Gymnocalycium, although I'm not sure if any of them are valid. Strangely enough, most of them aren't even G. mihanovichii but G. stenopleurum. G. friedrichii is an invalid name used, usually, for the ones with pink flowers. These mutants tend to have pink flowers but they aren't easy to persuade to open.

Yeah, I'm not really all that concerned about the ID on the mutant -- I was just quoting Altman's. Thanks for the info on the flowers. I was rather surprised to see pictures of one with flower buds on Altman's site -- I wouldn't have expected these freaks to flower at all.

You can chop it and grow the Hylocereus if you like massive tropical cacti with huge flowers.

Unfortunately, I don't have space for massive anything, so I'll probably just stick the thing in a pot and see how long it lives.

[Mike]

Hi,

The succulents could be echeverias,or also graptoverias, a hybrid of graptopetalum )often ghostplant) and some echeveria. Altman's has a lady that specializes in hybridizing echeverias and my sense is they don't throw any out. Thus you might have something listed on their website (google Altman's and go to Plant Library), or you might have who knows what.

I like the redish one, it does resembe sedum bronze, but I don't think that is what it is - maybe one of the parents is the same. For taht matter, both parents could be the same, and it just comes out different.

Mike

[Saguaro123]

Unfortunately, I don't have space for massive anything, so I'll probably just stick the thing in a pot and see how long it lives.

Are you sure, they can grow the Dragon fruit.

[CelticRose]

Unfortunately, I don't have space for massive anything, so I'll probably just stick the thing in a pot and see how long it lives.

Are you sure, they can grow the Dragon fruit.

I live in a small studio apartment with one windowsill to grow cacti in. I simply don't have enough space for something big.

[TimN]

I live in a small studio apartment with one windowsill to grow cacti in. I simply don't have enough space for something big.

Aah! Sharing your space with an enormous tropical cactus probably isn't in the cards then!

[CelticRose]

Well, the rocks came apart a lot easier than I thought they would -- Target had really been overwatering it. There was grass growing in there! I also found offsets of both the Mamm and the freak buried under the rocks! I tossed those.

There were a few loose offsets of the Mamm above the surface, one with roots. I'll post later in the appropriate section for advice on those.

I think the Mamm is three different plants, but the roots are so tangled together that I don't think I'll separate them. The succulent turned out to be two separate plants.

I've done some more research on the succulent, and I still don't think it's an Echeveria. I think it might be a Graptosedum or Graptopetalum. I'm leaning toward Graptosedum.

[iann]

You may very well have multiple plants. It is easy to stuff several baby plants in a dish and make an impressive clump, time-consuming (and so costly) to grow single plants to a good size.

This Mammillaria will fall apart at the drop of a hat, and also reroot just as easily. You may have multiple plants or multiple plants that were originally a single plant, but either way you will always have a big mass of heads not necessarily all attached to each other.

Don't be afraid to damage roots to get off soil you don't like or separate plants that you want separated. Let them dry thoroughly afterwards and they will recover from almost anything.

[CelticRose]

This Mammillaria will fall apart at the drop of a hat, and also reroot just as easily.

Yeah, I had several offsets fall off while I was repotting it.

I've repotted everything.

You can see the cacti here: http://www.cactiguide.com/forum/viewtop ... 2698#92698.

I've made a new thread for the succulent in the Succulent ID section here: http://www.cactiguide.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10685. Sorry, Mike, somehow I missed your comments before posting there. I'll add Graptoveria to the list of possibles.