We made it! And the timing couldn't be better, as I'm eager to get started on reviewing the summer that's about to end.
2017 was a light year for buying cacti -- only 2, and the first item was covered in
Things 'n stuff 'n such -- July special (scroll down and see "Replacing an F. castanea"). The only thing we're missing is an update with "before and after" photos to benchmark the plant's growth, so we'll take care of that now -- here it is on 7/8 and 10/1/17:
Same dates with a bird's-eye view:
The bud on the left did go into bloom, and you'll see my first (and most likely only) Frailea castanea flower in the above link. Since then, the plant has been going straight from buds to seed pods -- the pic on the right shows a bunch of seeds that dehisced last summer.
While the new castanea from Miles' To Go settled in well, 3 months wasn't enough to show us much in the way of new growth yet. I know what the old one from CoronaCactus looked like when it died, so when 2018 transitioned from winter to spring, it was important to check and see if the M2G plant would respond to its first deep drink of the year. From winter shriveling on 3/27 to spring plumping on 4/21:
Sweet! And with the biggest seed pods I've ever seen on a castanea, it's been fun to watch them quietly explode this year. I'm just letting the seeds settle into the pot, so if you follow what I said in the link, you'll know what I have in mind! The new growth has been pretty amazing too, so a nice update will be included for the 2018 review.
To set up the rest of today's post, here's a view of Shady Glen on 10/12/17:
3 cacti you see in the photo aren't there anymore. The Discocactus sitting in front of my Mammillaria guelzowiana was a crystallophilus I got from the Sunset Succulent Society in January 2015. When I repotted it at the end of that February, the unpotting revealed a nasty spot of necrosis on the base. You'll find out what happened
here. The plant seemed to be on the road to recovery that year, and it did well enough to flower for me, as you'll see
here. Unfortunately the story wasn't so good in 2016 when the necrosis slowly gained the upper hand -- a before-and-after on 9/20/15 and 9/24/16:
The crystallophilus made a valiant effort to heal the necrotic tissue by callusing, but the necrosis finally won -- the view going from 9/24/16 to 10/9/17:
I'm quite satisfied with how well my buenekeri is doing, so I didn't feel the need to find another Disco species for the collection. The dead crystallophilus' pot is being gainfully employed by something else, and I'll show you what took its place in my 2018 review. Going back to the Shady Glen photo, the other 2 cacti you won't see these days are a Leuchtenbergia principis on the upper right, and an Obregonia denegrii to the left of the Astrophytum asterias in flower. Their replacements will be part of the 2018 review too, but in the meantime, the tiny cactus sitting in between the Disco and Obregonia is a perfect way to end my 2017 review...
I
never thought I would find an Aztekium ritteri on its own roots, but every once in awhile I still had to look on eBay just in case I could get lucky. As the old saying goes, "never say never", and a seller in L.A. put one up for auction in January 2017. Score!!! Here it is a few days after arrival (1/28) and repotted the following day:
A tiny plant needing a tiny pot, and I'm glad that I held onto the 2" terracotta pot that should work just fine. (By the way -- even today, I find that terracotta pots sometimes come in handy. If you use terracotta, I highly recommend that you waterproof it with acrylic paint. I prefer clear, but you can do it with your choice of colors!)
A. ritteri is well-known for being the slowest of all plants in the cactus Family, growing at a rate of 1 mm. per year. The seller grew it from seed, so going by that growth rate, I thought I was looking at a 30-year-old plant. Imagine my surprise when I found out that my new ritteri was only 8 years old! He was kind enough to provide me with a few details, so I'll quote what he had to say:
"Hi Steve, the 1 mm per year growth might be in habitat. My A. hintonii's grow around 2 cm a year, and I get 0.5-0.75 cm per year on A ritteri. (For A. valdezii, I only have grafted ones, so data is irrelevant). I grow in a heavy pumice mix (80%), with 20% compost (with no peat moss or pine park). I use 20-20-20 fertilizer, which I use full strength twice a month in spring, half strength weekly in summer. Grown under 40-50% shade cloth. Good luck!"
We have some interesting thoughts to unpack here. First -- in the wild, Aztekium's native soils contain either limestone or gypsum. Calcium is a natural growth inhibitor, so it stands to reason that Aztekiums growing in a Calcium-free mix will grow more than their habitat brethren. I don't subscribe to the idea that we should be supplementing our mixes with Calcium for so-called "Calcium-lovers" (I believe the term is a myth, anyway), and I totally agree with the seller on this one. Second -- while his mix is nice and lean, there's nothing leaner than pure pumice-granite gravel mix. Compared to what the seller was using, the ritteri should be able to grow a more extensive root system, so my first order of business was to let those roots take advantage of growing in the mineral mix. How did I do it? You'll learn about the strategy I came up with
here. It certainly worked, with the results on 3/17 and 9/27/17:
The ritteri blessed me with its very first flower on 8/3/17, so the bud on the right was on its way to another round of blooming. A view from the side on transplanting day (1/29) and the plant in bloom on 9/29/17:
A close-up of the flower opening wide in the space of a few minutes:
Oddly enough, the ritteri's flowers are wide open between 9 and 10 a.m., and it's the only cactus I've seen that starts closing up shop in the late morning. I missed a 2nd early-morning flower on 9/30, but I find the "leftovers" to be kinda pretty -- the plant catching some rays in Shady Glen that afternoon:
And yes, that's yet another bud hiding in there. What the next morning revealed:
Although I fertilize every time I water, I'm fertilizing at a much lower dosage than what the seller was doing. Another difference in our respective regimens is the fact that he watered the ritteri once a week during the summer, and I've opted to water it every 2 weeks during late spring and summer. Such being the case, I'm not sure if I'll match his growth rate, but whatever I get should be decent. I've been quite lucky so far, and you'll see this gem again in the next end-of-summer review.
The first day of fall is less than a week away, but the growing season here in Casa de Jefferson Park ain't over yet. It'll be time to get seriously busy with the camera again, and before I start working on the 2018 review, I do have a nice backlog of pics from this year I haven't posted yet. I'll parcel them out as we keep the party going -- I can't thank all of you enough for your interest in following my activities here on the forum!
Please remember that growing cacti in pure mineral mix (including straight pumice) means that they'll need to be fertilized pretty much every time they're watered. I don't know what kind of ferts you have access to in Malaysia, but if you can get Dyna Gro, I'll highly recommend either the 7-7-7 or 7-8-6. And if you can store enough rainwater to water your plants on a regular basis, you won't have to worry about the long-term effects of Bicarbonate buildup we'll find with hard tap/well water.
