CactiGuide.com

Welcome to my collections' thread where I will share with you some of my garden's highlight as some of you have requested. I've planned that this thread will be updated monthly, hopefully it'll be consistent.

Let's start this thread with this month's highlight: blue cacti! Blue plants always have a special place in my heart because the color blue is just... special for me. Look at the sky. How blue is it? Look at the ocean. How gorgeous its blue is? Look at hyacinth macaws (and cassowaries). How striking blue can be on animals?

Always being told and taught plants must be green, then found out plants can be blue, it's just setting a reminder that whatever we know isn't always right or truthful: gotta keep exploring until we found reality can indeed be stranger than fiction.

Anyway, what took me so long to post this? Well, I've been 'renovating' my garden since it's been so windy recently, my plants got toppled all over the place. Since then, I decided to add some support for them: a plenty of floor tiles just to make them level enough and be able to withstand wind better. Though I may need to work on my defense against feral cats and rats.

With that posted, here's this month's highlight. Enjoy!

I think your ariocarpus retusus is not a standard one. It is a cultivar, retusus v furfuraceus cv Daruma Seije which has round tubercles and seiji colour body.

Very nice blue cactus collection! I was gonna say that retusus was looking quite distinctive and now I see my intuition was right, and Hanazono has identified it as a cultivar.

Hanazono wrote: ↑Sun Oct 01, 2023 12:01 am I think your ariocarpus retusus is not a standard one. It is a cultivar, retusus v furfuraceus cv Daruma Seije which has round tubercles and seiji colour body.

Thank you for your kind reply, that is a good news! The seller didn't specify that when I asked about this peculiar cactus, stated it's indeed an Ariocarpus retusus but didn't say any further. Maybe that explained of all three Ariocarpus cacti I got, that bad boy is the most expensive. Doesn't matter; it looks nice and plump and hopefully, stay with me for years to come. Here's the rest of my current Ariocarpus; I'm planning to get A. fissuratus (pure species, cultivar, doesn't matter) and perhaps A. trigonus.

I'll look forward to this 'Daruma Seije' cultivar. I understand Japanese a little bit so that may mean something cool and fitting to its characteristics.

MrXeric wrote: ↑Sun Oct 01, 2023 1:06 am Very nice blue cactus collection! I was gonna say that retusus was looking quite distinctive and now I see my intuition was right, and Hanazono has identified it as a cultivar.

Thank you for your reply as well! I'm glad you enjoyed them. Hopefully I will be able to share more in the upcoming time!

We’ve entered the end of October and things are just getting bushier! With added gypsum, the plants are now feeling the Spooktober spirit. Can you hear the bones tingling and the trumpets doot?

Nothing’s really spooky about my garden now, but this month’s highlight will be Flowers! Yes, my cacti have flowered, and it surprised anyone who saw it, since they never know cacti bear flowers too. While the numbers are still scarce, but for me, this is off to a great start! Flowers galore!

It’s still scorchin’ hot here in Jakarta, while some folks stated it’ll be raining soon. Still going 35°C strong, my plants and I will wait for the victorious rain after months of torment! While few of them didn’t make it and some had to get intense care after being knocked down by the crazy wind, I’m preparing for whatever it takes to get to the sweet, sweet rainwater.

Some other cool updates:

OK, so I've been asked on how many plants there are in my garden. Well, last time I counted and there were about 600 plants. Yes, six. Hundred. I didn’t even notice that my collection has grown to such numbers for an individually-managed garden! I also suspect this is why it took an entire weekend to water them all and I’m often get tired while I’m not even doing spectacular movesets.

Here's what it looks like:

Beautiful plants. That Melocactus seems to be concinnus, not azureus.

anttisepp wrote: ↑Tue Oct 31, 2023 8:43 am Beautiful plants. That Melocactus seems to be concinnus, not azureus.

The seller stated it is azureus, though after looking at photos of concinnus, I may still be convinced it's the former. I don't mind tho except in the future when I get more serious and having bigger, more accommodating space.

Thanks for your reply, by the way

It's December and I kinda lost track on my monthly update; ironic, as I think monthly update would be more easily manageable. Okay, without further ado, let's dive in!

So, the dreaded drought is about to end, and we got tons of humidity and increasingly more rain and thunderstorms to boot. It's now the time to be more vigilant of fungi that may be lurking beneath the shadows and ready to snatch! Although, that may be the case for me years ago when I didn't understand about mix porosity and making holes at the sides of the pots. I'll keep my eyes peeled so I can prevent more plant deaths (as I've lost a couple recently thanks to the rain )

Here's the bonus thread for non-cacti plants that I think deserve the spotlight as well... since y'know, some of these are my first-timer.

I can understand flowers being a bit too intense. My T. alonsoi are too young to flower, but my Trichodiadema densum and Echinocereus pulchellus have these intense, magenta flowers that can be quite blinding in the sun that I have to look away before long!

Pachypodium is something I haven't tried growing yet. Apparently they grow relatively fast from seed and can reach flowering size within a couple years? I should try sowing seed one day. As for pronunciation, "pa-key" is probably close to what it should be. I looked it up and pachy comes from the Greek pakhus, which means "thick". The "kh" there stands for the Greek letter "chi" (pronounced like "kai", looks like an "X") and sounds something like the "ch" in the German ich or in the Scottish English loch. What I would describe as a hard "H" sound. That sound doesn't exist in American English, as far as I know, so "pa-key" is good enough for me.

MrXeric wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 6:26 am I can understand flowers being a bit too intense. My T. alonsoi are too young to flower, but my Trichodiadema densum and Echinocereus pulchellus have these intense, magenta flowers that can be quite blinding in the sun that I have to look away before long!

Pachypodium is something I haven't tried growing yet. Apparently they grow relatively fast from seed and can reach flowering size within a couple years? I should try sowing seed one day. As for pronunciation, "pa-key" is probably close to what it should be. I looked it up and pachy comes from the Greek pakhus, which means "thick". The "kh" there stands for the Greek letter "chi" (pronounced like "kai", looks like an "X") and sounds something like the "ch" in the German ich or in the Scottish English loch. What I would describe as a hard "H" sound. That sound doesn't exist in American English, as far as I know, so "pa-key" is good enough for me.

The pronunciation of the plant genus IMHO should sound like the term used for an elephant (pachyderm);

Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages
pach·y·derm
/ˈpakəˌdərm/
noun
noun: pachyderm; plural noun: pachyderms

For podium;

Definitions from Oxford Languages
po·di·um
/ˈpōdēəm/
noun
a small platform on which a person may stand to be seen by an audience, as when making a speech or conducting an orchestra.

So Pachypodium should be pronounced PAK-E-PODEUM

MrXeric wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 6:26 am I can understand flowers being a bit too intense. My T. alonsoi are too young to flower, but my Trichodiadema densum and Echinocereus pulchellus have these intense, magenta flowers that can be quite blinding in the sun that I have to look away before long!

Yeah, while I agree those colors are impressive, it seems it's not for someone with special needs like I am. But that doesn't mean I don't like it; the Turbinicarpus has glaucous tubercles/body which is what I'm looking for, so no hard feelings for that little cactus. Maybe I'll leave the flowers for someone else to admire, or perhaps for local bees around to enjoy

Tom in Tucson wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 10:11 pm

The pronunciation of the plant genus IMHO should sound like the term used for an elephant (pachyderm);

Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages
pach·y·derm
/ˈpakəˌdərm/
noun
noun: pachyderm; plural noun: pachyderms

For podium;

Definitions from Oxford Languages
po·di·um
/ˈpōdēəm/
noun
a small platform on which a person may stand to be seen by an audience, as when making a speech or conducting an orchestra.

So Pachypodium should be pronounced PAK-E-PODEUM

For the record, first I know the genus, I did pronounce it as such; however, after went to several plant events in which some vendors spelt them 'pa-chee-podium', and somehow corrected my pronunciation, I went doubtful. But thanks to you, I'm confident to stick with 'pak-e-podeum' and perhaps recite your sources every time someone (and vendors) try to correct my pronunciation again

Happy belated Holidays, everyone! In this December update, I'd show some important stuffs that happened this month:

• The weather got wetter and more humid, and therefore more rain. Thanks to this, I can skip waterings and only go with once every two weeks, for now

• Some plants kicked the bucket: a Euphorbia obesa, Mammillaria schumanii, Orbea sp, and - unexpectedly - Pseudolithos miguirtinus. I replaced them with Echinopsis cacti which I found are more resistant and financially cheaper.

• The feisty Lophophora bloomed like crazy. Now it sprouted three flowers and its pups sprouted flowers as well. At the time it happened, I didn't get to photograph it.

• Stapelia gigantea bloomed! I waited for weeks for a bloom that lasted only a day. Sources I see stated this plant's flower smells like decomposed meat akin to flowers of Amorphophallus titanum or Rafflesia. Yes, I smelled it but surprisingly, it's only a bit and no one in the house complained about 'some putrid smell'. Weird. Perhaps it already bloomed at night since when I saw it bloomed, it already lost its vigor but otherwise still bloomed so I can photograph it.

With this New Year coming, I've now planned to save/make more money to invest in a greenhouse so I expect no more plants being added for a while but I'll try to get updates whenever possible.

Bonus: a flower of Plumeria pudica, another species of Plumeria I grow. Pure white, a symbol of purity according to the local cultures.