CactiGuide.com

Before I moved to Cyprus 5 years ago I used to look after my parent's cacti in Ukraine all my life. After I settled in here I started noticing that I miss something. So that's a short story behind my first own cacti collection started on February 2020

I mostly collect Astrophytums and Gymnocalyciums but today I'd like to share some of my Mammillarias pictures.
I love some of them so much so it's hard to resist keep buying them even though I have them already. That's how I end up with a bunch of Hahnianas and 2 Plumosas

Hello, nice to see you here,
you have very pretty and healthy plants, thanks for sharing!
Do you grow them on direct sun or under shade or in a greenhouse?
Do you protect them from winter rains?
The last plant reminds me geminispina a bit.

Hi! Thank you very much!
I grow them on a windowsill outside the house (in Cyprus all the windowsills are outside). So they are on a direct sun but in May I move some of them on a shady side since they start to burn and shrivel. It seems like only Astrophytums can easily tolerate Cyprus harsh sun.

This winter I started to think about little greenhouse because I needed to protect cacti from the heavy winter rains and for now I do it manually. I mean I take all of them inside when it's raining or it's just cloudy and take them outside when it's sunny weather. And it takes a lot of time and effort.

Thank you very much for giving an idea what kind of Mammillaria can be the last one! It really does remind a geminispina

Another cacti genera I tend to collect is Coryphantha. But since I can't find the one Coryphantha I want the most I got frustrated a bit. I desperately want to have a Coryphantha elephantidens cv. Titan, still looking for a plant or seeds. So for now I've got these 5 guys in my collection

The unnamed coryphanthas above can be like other two species next or maybe C. pycnacantha, C. poselgeriana. Still young plants and will change with age.

Thank you for the idea!
Yes, they are too young, waiting for them to grow and bloom. I bought all of them as a noname, but was able to identify the older ones when they grew up and bloomed

The last plant reminds me Thelocactus hexaedrophorus.

anttisepp wrote: ↑Thu Mar 18, 2021 6:45 pm The last plant reminds me Thelocactus hexaedrophorus.

I like Thelocactus hexaedrophorus, still looking for a healthy one. I guess the last cactus could remind it a bit but if I would put them together in one picture it would be a huge difference in shape and color.

Hello! Good plants! Especially coryphantas)

I've started my collection on November-December 2019, so it is really close to your start I like Gymnocalycium genus as well.

What is the soil do you use? Is it fully mineral? Looks like some clay.

A1essandro wrote: ↑Thu Mar 18, 2021 7:54 pm Hello! Good plants! Especially coryphantas)

I've started my collection on November-December 2019, so it is really close to your start I like Gymnocalycium genus as well.

Thank you very much and yaay, high five to you We started almost at the same time

A1essandro wrote: ↑Thu Mar 18, 2021 7:54 pm
What is the soil do you use? Is it fully mineral? Looks like some clay.

I use fully mineral soil only for sowing seeds and for my Lophs.
These rocks on top are the rocks from Cyprus mountains actually and it really looks like a clay. It reminds me an akadama soil. I have an idea to experiment with it since it seems to be a good soil for cacti. It keeps some water but not too much and I have it from a dust-like fractions to the size of a pea.

For all of my cacti I use Flora Gard Kakteenerde soil.
On a packaging it said that it contains: fully decomposed raised bog-peat, expanded clay and sand. But I can see there's also gravel and perlite as well. I just add to it some rocks I collect here in mountains.

I bought almost all of my Astrophytums as a noname in a local greenhouse. To be honest I love this cacti genera so much I almost don't care how rare or ordinary is it or what's the exact name of it. So I just enjoy caring about them.

Ornatum on a left is a huge ball size cactus


2 of 3 Capricorns are variegated (the one in the middle is variegated too)


Have no idea how to identify these guys


Some Myriostigmas


Some more Myriostigmas


Two Super Kabutos has travelled to me from Germany the whole month in February. I was sure I would get them frozen to death. They were ok as you can see just a little bit dry


I'm not sure about the guy on the right. Could it be coahuilense? What do you think?


And the last one is a lovely hybrid of Asterias and Capricorne started giving me some spines finally


I'm duplicating all the pictures because it seems like the ones I inserted doesn't work well

k.maks wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 9:41 am I bought almost all of my Astrophytums as a noname in a local greenhouse. To be honest I love this cacti genera so much I almost don't care how rare or ordinary is it or what's the exact name of it. So I just enjoy caring about them.

Beautiful looking cacti! Looks like your local greenhouse sells really good plants.
But I can view images only via quote and checking links, just in case.

How many cacti do you have?

A1essandro wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 10:25 am
Beautiful looking cacti! Looks like your local greenhouse sells really good plants.
But I can view images only via quote and checking links, just in case.

How many cacti do you have?

Thank you for telling. It seems like something went wrong.

Yes, sometimes I can find a really good ones but they can be surrounded by almost dead ones covered in fungi. So I suppose the good ones have a really good immunity or just luck.

I don't have much. 50 cacti tops but I have a bunch of seedlings sprouted 2 weeks ago

I also started to collect some obesas. It seems like they've become trendy. Have a bunch of them and I already pollinated few of them. So one is just developing seeds and another gave me more then 30 seeds. Half of them I sowed and have my first seedlings.

Learned in a hard way that I should put Obesa seeds deeper in a soil. In a first pot I needed to put all of them manually in a soil because all of them were on a surface with roots up in the air. And in a second pot I covered them with 5 mm of soil. It was 5 days ago and now I can see them sprouting.

I tend to overwater my cacti maybe because of the Cyprus climate or maybe I just love watering them. Slowly I learn to water them less. Even though Gymnocalyciums seem to be very forgiving from time to time I kill some of them. The last one I lost was beautiful Horstii.