A small collection: 2015 and beyond

[Steve Johnson]

My 2 winter-blooming Mammillarias really came through this month, so here's a little January flower review plus some extras thrown in.

Still buds aplenty as you can see, and while they seem to prefer opening in dribs and drabs, let's find out if I can show you more than just a couple of flowers at once. Maybe the Irishman will oblige!

That's what I said on the 19th, and oblige it did -- 3 more blooms to show on the 25th:







And a follow-up from today:



The red-headed Irishman gives us a broad smile!



My Mamm perezdelarosae making good on its promise to flower:







A nice angle:



More flowers in time for the last day of January:





The perezdelarosae joined my collection in December 2013, so the bare handful of flowers I viewed last year was to be expected. Now we're getting to see what happens after a year of strong, healthy growth. (Wow, buds on top of buds -- hard to believe how many there are!)

I couldn't resist taking this group shot -- the perezdelarosae next to a Melocactus matanzanus busily shedding some of its ample fruit crop, and in the background my Gymnocalycium stenopleurum with buds getting bigger as they prepare for spring flowers:



With the new month starting, we'll have a look at how the Turbinicarpus valdezianus is coming along. Repotting day on 1/18 followed by 2 weeks' worth of bud development:



Should be blooming in another week or thereabouts. The flowers on my valdezianus hang around for awhile, so catching them on camera is a safe bet.

I'll end for now by reporting that I detected brand-new buds on 2 cacti with a 10X magnifier this morning. They won't show up in photos yet, although I should have a few nice pics to include when I post up the valdezianus flowers. And what are these plants? Without giving anything specific away yet, here's a hint -- one is an "old reliable" getting ready for its 4th winter of blooming, and the other will be popping out its first flowers ever. Such a wonderful experience with cacti we haven't grown before, and I'm really excited!

[Steve Johnson]

My Cephalocereus senilis (AKA the famous "old man" cactus) has been with me since I began my current collection in 2011. You may remember that I was going to the California Cactus Center back then, and I made the mistake of using their heavy soil-based mix for all of my plants. Coming from my "old school" days in the 1970s and '80s, I didn't know any better. But thanks to what I learned on the forum, I made a radical departure in early spring 2012 when I decided to go soil-less with the pumice-DG mix I've discussed many times before. And as I said in last year's end-of-summer review, changing to a pure mineral mix is what saved the old man. Changing from terracotta to a 1-gallon plastic pot really helped too, although plastic will crack when it's exposed to full sun outdoors. Now time for glazed ceramic, and long before the plastic pot would give out. Didn't want to miss an opportunity to photograph the procedure, so let's have a look...







I was really impressed by how extensive the roots are, and 3 growing seasons with a healthy root system are why the old man has more than doubled its original height. Even though a significant amount of the roots came off in the transplant, this then-and-now comparison is still amazing -- 4/7/12 on the left when I liberated the plant from its potful of CCC mix:



And here we are, with its roots naked for all the world to see, followed by its new home:



Now the old man is ready for action again -- it'll give me another strong growing season this year, and I'm sure many more will follow.

In my next post, we'll view the latest round of winter flowers. Or could be more repotting. Either way, I'll have another installment of good stuff for you soon!

[Steve Johnson]

I'll lead off with 2 winter-blooming Mammillarias you saw last month as they just keep on truckin'. Mammillaria perezdelarosae with 6 flowers this time:







More new buds coming in -- the perezdelarosae is a real flower factory!



Its 2nd year in flower, and the red-headed Irishman is putting on a fantastic display that beats the heck out of last year:





Turbinicarpus fans out there will know that valdezianus loves to strut its stuff in February. Let's follow along as we go from buds to flowers starting on New Year's Day:













As a lifelong L.A. resident, I can tell you that it's not unusual to see days or even weeks of almost summer-like weather in January and February. This winter has been one of those years when bursts of heat are bringing out some wonderful surprises -- get 'em whenever you can! Surprise #1 features another Turb, my pseudomacrochele blooming out of season:







The February heat woke up my Epithelanthas. I've seen micromeris bloom constantly from early March to mid-May, although for some strange reason, mine didn't bloom at all last years. It appears that the plant is prepared to make up for it -- this came literally from out of nowhere and surprised the heck out of me!





Gymnocalycium stenopleurum is known to set buds late in the year, winter over, then flower in spring. Here's an example from 12/22:



Seeing the stenopleurum bloom last February was a first-time experience. Weather conditions between then and now are pretty much the same, so flowers again aren't surprising. What did surprise me was to watch the stenopleurum produce the biggest, most beautiful flowers I've seen since I got it in summer 2012:







Winter isn't quite over yet, so I should have more lovely flowers to show you in a few weeks. In the meantime, is anyone on for more repotting? Up next, my friends!

[Steve Johnson]

I got a bit ahead of myself with the repots I've shown you thus far, so we'll rewind back to the beginning of this story...

During my first 20 years of cactus collecting, I grew everything in terracotta pots. Back then it didn't seem to matter, and many hobbyists either didn't know or didn't care that evaporation through porous clay can have a negative long-term impact on the root health of our plants. For that matter, I didn't even think about sizing the pots properly, so there's the trifecta of bad habits -- heavy soil-based cactus mix, plain terracotta pots, and over-potted cacti that were bound to languish. Okay, now I have a nice lean mix that's much more suitable for growing desert cacti, I'm a lot better about properly sizing the pot to the roots, but what about the pots themselves? After a brief flirtation with plastic in 2012, I ditched most of the plastic pots and returned to terracotta. However, the return came with a twist as I decided to waterproof it first. Not quite as good as completely nonporous pots, but it was an acceptable stopgap as I went on the hunt to replace the terracotta (and the handful of plastic pots I held onto) with glazed ceramic. Trying to find all the pot sizes I need certainly hasn't been easy, although I got a good start on the slow transition thanks to a bunch of handmade glazed ceramic pots I found at the California Cactus Center in December 2013. Between further trips to the CCC and a few other sources I found, the project took a major step forward by the end of last year:



Group 2 in early February came from Sage & Co. through Overstock.com:



I've been looking at terracotta over so many years, it's gotten kinda boring. Aside from its functionality, this nicely eclectic assortment of glazed ceramic should spruce up the presentation as my eyes wander around the plant bench every day. I still need to find 18 pots, although with show season coming up, it'll be time to go back on the hunt soon!

Before we continue, unpotting my cacti gave me the opportunity to observe how the pumice-DG mix has been behaving after 3 years. It expands on the comments I made regarding the mix earlier in this thread (see my last post in page 1), and prepping with a thorough rinse has turned out to be more important than I originally thought. I knew going into the enterprise that DG "play sand" makes for a lousy soil substitute, so sifting it out was a requirement to yield the fairly coarse mineral aggregate I was after. Unfortunately from my most recent experience, dry-sifting alone wasn't enough since the residual fines left in the mix turn into a kind of sludge that hardens when it dries out. And in many cases, the sludge settles down toward the bottom of the pot. We're talking about 3 years of repeated watering and drying out here. The good news is that A. at least the pots have been draining all the way through whenever the cacti get deep watering, and B. there haven't been any growing problems -- yet. The potentially (and I emphasize the word "potentially") bad news is the fact that a whole lot of teeny tiny airspaces which could be exploited to good purpose by finer roots have instead been clogged up by the hardened DG sludge. (While pumice dust accounts for only a small amount of the overall fines, I'm sure it's not helping either.) This observation will come up periodically as we view the rest of the cacti in my collection before and after repotting. With that in mind, we'll begin with...

Astrophytum capricorne senilis, one of my 2011 "veterans" coming out of a 4" terracotta Azalea pot:



Those roots wouldn't wrap around like that in porous clay, so we're seeing a decent example of waterproofing at work. Not so good to see is that hardened DG sludge in the bottom of the pot kept the root system from getting down more in the mix. But all things considered, the roots look pretty good -- here's the before-and-after:



The plant is now growing in rinsed mineral mix, and I have a feeling that its roots will take full advantage of the pot. Will this translate into stronger activity above-ground? We'll find out what happens in summer, and after the wonderful growth and flowering it's shown since 2012, I also have a feeling the capricorne is about to go from great to fantastic!

Strombocactus disciformis -- not much in the way of roots, but they're showing signs of life:



I believe Strombos have shallow roots anyway, so the pot I selected for it seems about right. Once again the hardened sludge was rearing its ugly head, and I'm sure the disciformis is bound to appreciate being in the mix that was opened up after rinsing.

Espostoa lanata, another 2011 "veteran" -- it didn't seem to mind the residual fines:







Mammillaria deherdtiana -- a species we don't see in US collections all that much, and I was lucky to find it as an impulse buy at the California Cactus Center in May 2012. Although deherdtiana rarely offsets in the wild, it'll do so readily under cultivation (at least according to the Encyclopedia of Cacti). Mine has been sending out pups like mad, and I'm not surprised if a run-in with flat mites encouraged the plant to take sweet revenge. Or I have a beautiful mutant on my hands. Either way, this is a genuine first -- one of my cacti has actually filled in its pot:



Ooh, the deherdtiana needs a bigger pot!





I took these photos at the end of January, and the touches of new growth are telling us that SoCal is going through another warm winter. My Mamm blossfeldiana is exhibiting the same behavior, so I'm thankful to have these opportunistic growers doing their thing before the rest of the collection starts waking up. When the deherdtiana gets really busy, I'll show you some mind-blowing flowers -- very soon, my friends!

Another installment of "Terracotta out, glazed ceramic in" is on the way.

[Steve Johnson]

Since I'm making a big deal about what I hope to achieve now that my mineral mix is prepped with a good flush, it'll be interesting to find out if 3 very slow-growing cacti may not be quite as slow after a growing season in the open mix...

Ariocarpus fissuratus -- in my younger days, the only talent I had with Arios was knowing how to rot them. Such being the case, it's wonderful to see one actually growing for a change. And not just growing, because the fissuratus blessed me with my first-ever Ario flower in November. Fat, healthy taproot and a nice new home to put it in:





Next we have 2 Pelecyphoras -- aselliformis...





...and strobiliformis:





Neither one of them did anything in their first year, but I wasn't expecting much. Then last summer both plants started showing signs of new apical growth. If clean mineral mix leads to stronger activity this year, then it'll be a safe bet to say that the sludgy fines were holding back their growth potential. We'll get the results by the end of summer, and I'm looking forward to finding out what happens with the Pelecyphoras. If it's good news there, I have a feeling it'll be the same for my Ario. (By the way -- my strobiliformis has gotten awfully corked, but there's a reason behind why this happened. I'll explain further when I post a progress report later this year. And yes, I guarantee y'all there will be progress!)

Here's another slow grower for you -- Copiapoa hypogaea. If you haven't heard this story before, it's kind of a heartbreaker since an offsetting beauty I found in summer 2011 fell to rot 2 years later. After the rest of the pups I saved went to a good home, here's the one I held onto:



Now here's what came out of a year and a half being in a 2.5" plastic pot:



Wow, those roots really went to town, didn't they? As you can see, the taproot came all the way down in the pot and wrapped itself around the drain hole screen. Here's a different angle, and color me impressed!



I was going to put the plant into one of my new Sage & Co. pots, although I decided that trying to cram the long taproot in wouldn't be a good idea. I had a deeper pot reserved for my Echinocereus rigidissimus rubispinus, but the hypogaea needs it more:





The rubispinus is doing just fine in its current pot, so finding a glazed ceramic pot for it isn't urgent. As to the hypogaea, I think it'll be happier in its new pot. And don't be surprised if we see another pup in the near future! Speaking of Copiapoas and pups...

C. laui is an absolute gem, and in contrast with the slow offsetting rate of hypogaea, the smallest of the genus also happens to be generous about producing pups. Here it is in early February, and mine already pushed out 2:



A common aspect of Copiapoas is the fact that their pups start growing below the surface before they suddenly announce themselves. A revealing look at my laui when I unpotted it:



Yep, that's pup #3, but what about the little fuzzball on the right? #4 perhaps? If so, it remains for the moment as a mystery being hidden in the top dressing:





As amazing as it was to see the taproot developing on my hypogaea, I'll show you one more that took off. That would be Frailea castanea. I hadn't tried growing Fraileas in the past, and castanea was at the top of my wish list once I spotted photos of it on Cactuspedia a few years ago. CoronaCactus had a few available in December 2012, so I snapped one up. The plant was very easy to establish, showing good growth plus flower buds in its first year under my care. (The last couple of summers apparently haven't been hot enough for it -- going straight from buds to seeds is typical of castanea if they don't get a lot of heat in summertime.) Now we'll see what comes out after 2 growing seasons in a 2" waterproofed terracotta pot:



Holy crap! If you wanna see how far the castanea has come, this before-and-after tells a really nice story:



The plant came from Darryl Craig's GH, so aside from tremendous taproot growth in straight mineral mix, the before-and-after also demonstrates a significant change in above-ground behavior going from his GH conditions to being outdoors all the time.

Some of the pots I found at the California Cactus Center have been perfect for my smallest charges -- the castanea should love this one:





"Beauty marks" are an inevitable part of outdoor living, but a small price to pay as I see it doing so well otherwise. In fact, I prefer my castanea's top-shelf appearance in full sun over what I've seen coming out of shaded greenhouses. While the plant has been undergoing some winter shrinkage, it's not bad at all. Then just add water for a good soak, and it'll plump right up as it gets ready for business in the new growing season! Don't know how big castaneas get, but since mine has only 4 years under its belt, my guess is that the plant will need a bigger pot in 2 years. Maybe sooner? Too bad I won't know for sure, but it'll be interesting to speculate on whether the sludge-free mix makes a difference.

The repotting project continues...

[Steve Johnson]

With all of my 56 years living in the greater L.A. area, I'll pass along a basic fact I know all too well -- winters in SoCal can be fickle, and sometimes March isn't consistently warm enough to know if your growing season has started in earnest. Until recently, I thought we might be in for an early spring already. Now comes the fickle, today on March 1 -- looking north, and somewhere out there a cold winter storm has been going on since Friday night:



Also from today -- plenty of clouds in my area, but the rain hasn't come down far enough to produce more than a brief downpour we had last night:



The containers you see arrayed under the portable GH are there to capture rainwater. Kinda disappointing, all dressed up and nowhere to go. However, the rain last weekend was great, and those containers came in handy as I filled close to 2 gallons of rainwater. And I have 2 more empty gallon jugs ready just in case. If SoCal's fickleness goes in the right direction, maybe they'll get filled too! Perhaps the growing season has started, so should I take the portable GH off for the year? Ooh, it's tempting to water my cacti from above. But unfortunately, a number of them will split if they get persistent rain, so watering will have to be managed judiciously by human hands for the time being. Although timing this right could be tricky, what I hope to do is take off the GH when the rainy season ends with one last soaker. Even if that plan doesn't work out, this small collection of mine will get at least one good deep drench with rainwater before it's time for the acidified water/fertilizer regimen over the rest of the growing season.

This is the first time I'm ending the winter without seeing a portable GH fall to pieces. The UV-resistant polyfilm of portable GH 3.0 has certainly proved its worth, not only as a rain shelter, but also as an efficient heat-trapper that keeps the plant bench nice and warm even when the daytimes outside are in the 60s. However, I can't control the overnights, so I'm not ready to declare an early spring yet. The weather outlook seems a bit unstable -- there's still time for another cold front to pass through over the next few weeks, and this could be a March that'll keep me guessing. No doubt about the daytimes being sufficiently warm as 3.0 stays up, so the consistency I'll be looking for are overnight lows heading north of the mid-40s. Yep, I'm ready for spring!

We're not quite done with winter yet, so stay tuned, my friends!

[jp29]

.......... Since the rainy season in SoCal runs November through April, some sort of portable greenhouse has been an important feature in my winter routine. The plastic sheeting I used to get from Home Depot wasn't durable enough for constant outdoor exposure during wintertime, so I'm putting UV-resistant polycarbonate film to the test with the hope that my new rig (AKA portable GH 3.0) will last a good long time before it needs replacement .......... I've been keeping the front up as the new design does its job -- protection from the rain that came through on the 30th, and trapping a really nice amount of heat when the sun is out .......... Luckily, most of the cacti are fine being outside as long as they stay dry (thank you, portable GH!) ...........

I really like your new set-up, Steve.

[Steve Johnson]

I really like your new set-up, Steve.

Thanks, my friend! By the way -- the best piece of advice I've gotten recently came from you, and that was about washing the fines out of my pumice-DG mix.

Another BTW, here's some late-breaking news. The big rain in my area finally started coming down around 9:30 p.m. Now here we are at 1 a.m., and it keeps on going -- close to an inch at the moment. Another gallon jug is filled, so I think I'll have my 4th gallon of rainwater topped up before I head out for work in the morning. Fantastic!!!

[jp29]

.......... and excellent photos, Steve. We are about to get your rainfall here in southern Arizona -- and we desperately need it. I am putting all of my plants outside early this morning to reap the benefits. My lemon trees are in full bloom - and very thirsty - so they will also benefit enormously.


Not the typical Tucson sky!

[tomo]

Your collection & photos are amazing! Really interesting to see the before and after photos of the roots. The glazed pots look very nice. I saw some glazed pots at Michael's Craft store last month, I may have to go check them out again since they look so nice in your photos.

[Steve Johnson]

Your collection & photos are amazing! Really interesting to see the before and after photos of the roots. The glazed pots look very nice. I saw some glazed pots at Michael's Craft store last month, I may have to go check them out again since they look so nice in your photos.

Thanks, tomo! Michael's has several locations that aren't far from me, so you're giving me a good idea here. By the way -- there are some recent repotting pics I haven't posted yet, so it'll probably be this weekend. However, that photo set may be preempted by -- another round of winter flowers! Oh my, the weekends are getting awfully busy!

[tomo]

Oh good! Hope that helps & you can find some more of the glazed pots you're looking for.

Speaking of repotting, can I ask a silly question? You mentioned you use a pumice mix--when repotting a cacti, can the old pumice be "recycled"/reused for the same cacti? Or does it have to be tossed out and start with "fresh" pumice mix?

Looking forward to your next round of photos!

[Steve Johnson]

You mentioned you use a pumice mix--when repotting a cacti, can the old pumice be "recycled"/reused for the same cacti?

Ah, good question. The answer is -- absolutely! In fact that's precisely what I've been doing, and it gives me the opportunity to rinse the fines out of the pumice-DG mix coming out of my terracotta pots before I let it dry out and use it for repotting cacti in the glazed ceramic project. The only reason why you shouldn't is if you have to pull out a dead or dying cactus, since you obviously don't want to recycle potential disease in the mix that could infect a healthy plant. Thankfully I haven't run into this situation recently, although when I had to pull out a dead Melo matanzanus in July, I tossed out the mix too.

[tomo]

Cool! I thought maybe it could be recycled/reused but wanted to double-check. And I can totally see where it wouldn't be a good idea to reuse something from a dead/dying cacti just in case. Very interesting and good to know, thanks!

[Steve Johnson]

I'm almost ready to show y'all another round of winter flowers, although some photography this weekend will be required before we get there. In the meantime, let's catch up on the latest repotting news, plus a follow-up to the springtime preparations I mentioned earlier. (Yep, I think it's here now! ) I'll begin this installment with a rather tough case...

Uebelmannia is on a long list of genera I had no familiarity with in my younger days. Then when I discovered Cactuspedia in 2011, it opened up a world of cacti that were new to me, and the perfect chance for interesting possibilities that could expand my collecting interests. Of the various Uebelmannia species I've seen, pectinifera multicostata really caught my eye. Saxicola set me up with a nice one almost 2 years ago, but the plant hasn't shown any appreciable growth since. Hmmmmm, I wonder what could be going on here -- time to unpot. Saxi's pectinifera came with a tiny set of roots, so we'll find out if there's been any progress below-ground. May 3, 2013 on the left, followed by what just came out of the pot:



Not exactly the best angle in this "after" pic, although you'll notice that the plant has grown what appears to be a taproot. However, we have an example of "1 step forward, 2 steps back" as the fibrous roots are looking pretty sad. I'm not thrilled with that dark brown patch below the soil line either. Could be nothing -- just in case it's not, I soaked the pectinifera's base using the 1% Hydrogen peroxide treatment I follow whenever there's even the slightest suspicion of trouble hiding in the pot. Now let's go back to previous observations concerning DG fines that stayed in the mix before I got in the practice of washing it first. While I did expect a certain amount of hardened sludge coming out of the pots I extracted, this was the worst I've seen to date -- no wonder the plant's fibrous roots never had a chance to grow in! As I repot the pectinifera into glazed ceramic, I'll be making a couple of changes. Clean mineral mix of course, although gut instinct tells me that it should be augmented with a small amount of soil. My Discocactus buenekeri and Melocactus matanzanus have been loving the 80/20 mineral-soil mix I gave them right out of their starting gate, so hopefully this'll make my Brazilian "problem child" happier from now on:





In case you can't see it in the pic showing a taproot (if that's what it is), vertical cracks are actually encouraging. Reminds me of what happened with my paper-spine Tephros when they went from nothing in 2011 to new stem growth after a few much-needed changes I made 2 years later. (I seem to have an odd 2-year pattern going on here, don't I? ) Since I repotted the pectinifera 2 weeks ago, it should be ready for a sip this weekend, followed by further sips once a week until the overnight lows start heading north of 50 on a regular basis. My feeling is that if the plant is going to regrow a healthy root system, it'll need some careful watering until the weather warms up enough for new roots that'll accept full-on soaks. What I'll be on the lookout for is something I have yet to see -- new spines!

I have another tough case for you, although its time of crisis passed remarkably well. This has to do with a Rebutia heliosa I purchased in November 2013, and you can find the backstory here. The plant topped off a good summer of growth with a brand-new pup that appeared about 4 months ago. The roots look wonderful, and I think we can expect some great things out of the heliosa when the growing season gets underway!



The Sage & Co. pots came without drain holes. Oh well, an electric drill and a tile bit takes care of that. Here's the first being one being put to good use:





No crises to report with these cacti -- Coryphantha hesteri in Sage & Co. pot #2...





...and Mammillaria hernandezii. Going from its time of receipt in July 2013, to unpotting 2 weeks ago:



Wow, I don't think the sludgy fines fazed the plant much, huh? With that said, the hernandezii should appreciate being in a potful of clean, open mineral mix:





I'll end this post with an observation that dovetails with what I noted in Part 1 of "Terracotta out, glazed ceramic in". As I said back then, roots should look like they're dead when cacti are dormant -- and yet the roots of the plants I've been repotting are very much alive. Even my pectinifera told me that its roots are showing signs of life! The cold storm that blew through last weekend was probably it for L.A.'s winter, and daytime highs in the 7-day forecast indicate that the week will be acting like spring has arrived. While the overnight lows are still on the chilly side, a bunch of cacti may be saying "hey, guy -- give us a deep drink already!" While I do need to be careful with some, others are ready to ditch sips for soaks. The water I stored from our recent rainfall will come in handy this weekend, so that's what I'll have on tap tomorrow night. Literally! Then we'll get to witness the transition from winter shriveling to spring plumping. In the meantime, I'll have more winter flowers for you very, very, very soon.