My first visit to the Huntington show on June 27 was disappointing for a couple of reasons. The first had nothing to do with the show itself, as a scheduling jam-up left me with all of an hour and a half before I had to hightail it back to my place. The second disappointment came when my "potter in residence" Joe Wujcik was laid up and couldn't be there, although the outing wasn't a complete bust thanks to the Skyview Succulents sale table and 4 pots in sizes I need. Here's what came home with me that day:
The pot on the upper right is a buy-ahead I've reserved as my Pygmaeocereus bylesianus needs a deeper pot than the one I have it in now. The other 3 pots are about to be gainfully employed. Now let's see what happened over the July 4th weekend. First up is a 2011 "veteran"...
This Turbinicarpus schmiedickeanus klinkerianus was already old when I found it at the California Cactus Center. How old is anyone's guess, although it could be positively ancient by Turb standards. Most of the corking you're about to see took place last year -- on the north- and south-facing sides of the plant, and you'll notice that the better part of the corking is on the southern exposure:
Given the plant's advanced age, corking is not unexpected, although it seemed to happen awfully fast. With that said, I hoped the klinkerianus would be done with its corking, but the orange patches clearly show that it isn't. (In case you were wondering, those patches aren't coming from mite attacks -- just the corking process.) The roots look like what one should expect, so that part isn't bad. A wonderful development came with the arrival of 2 brand-new pups in August 2013, and they're doing rather nicely:
Upon closer inspection of the plant I just unpotted, I discovered something that had been hidden in the top dressing:
Yes, indeed -- that pup is growing a double head! Time for the repot:
A common theme running in my work on the forum over the last 3 years has been discussion of the need for thorough root preparation before we repot cacti, especially when there's a change in the type of mix to be used. After moving the collection from the CCC's heavy soil-based mix to pumice-DG mix in 2012, I found myself coming up short in that regard, so I've given the roots of my 2011 "veterans" some extra attention during this project. The klinkerianus certainly needed it, and with squeaky-clean roots going into mineral mix free of DG fines to muck up the situation, I believe that my old Turb will appreciate getting the best care I can give it from now on. And since we already know it can grow pups, perhaps the plant will be motivated to pop out more of them in all that corking. By the way, my klinkerianus was healthy enough to sprout a bud when I repotted it. While the bud didn't show up well in the pics you saw, I may be able to show you the bloom.
Astrophytum asterias is on the list of cacti I had horrible luck with in my young days. Unfortunately my track record wasn't any better when I included one with the cacti I purchased at the CCC in 2011. First, their mix was all wrong for it. Second, I knew nothing about the species and how tricky it can be to grow. I had to learn this the hard way when my CCC asterias lost its roots and went to the great compost heap in the sky. No reason to be depressed about it, though -- in my first spring using mineral mix I was already impressed enough by the results to get bold about trying again with cacti I might've given up on otherwise. Since I had great first-time experience with plants from CoronaCactus Nursery that spring, I made another purchase in July 2012, and with some sound advice from the grower to guide me, I finally had an asterias that actually started growing for me. Even better, I was thrilled to see my first-ever asterias flower 2 summers ago, and the plant has favored me with additional blooms ever since.
Then and now -- this is what mineral mix can do:
Aren't those roots fantastic? Here are 2 different angles, although to be honest there's a good side and a not-so-good side:
The not-so-good side is a spot of corking that advanced far enough to be visible above the top dressing. I haven't seen a sufficient number of in-person examples to know if corking is normal with asterias, although if it is, my guess is that it would be visible only on older specimens. Mine isn't all that old yet, but even if something about my particular growing conditions (humid microclimate perhaps?) caused premature corking, I won't complain at all given how well the asterias is doing in general. Here we are in its new pot:
As the plant settles in, it'll be a good test to see if the buds abort or continue on for blooming. The asterias didn't seem to mind DG fines in the mineral mix. However, with a potful of clean mix for the roots to live in, I wouldn't be surprised if this encourages it to follow through with flowers.
The 3 cacti in this presentation are special cases, albeit it for obviously different reasons. Which brings me to case #3 and a species that IMO deserves much better representation than it gets among US collections. 2012 was a game-changing year in so many ways, one being a decision to lift my self-imposed ban on buying cacti in fall and winter. The Echinocereus rubispinus and Frailea castanea you've seen before came from CCN that December, and when I was preparing to make the purchase, the grower was kind enough to let me know about a Gymmnocactus ysabelae he had for sale. Seeing photos of the species on Cactuspedia, there was no way I'd pass it up. Such a beautiful plant, plus it helped seal the deal to know that I would be getting a rarity. I'll show you how far the ysabelae has come, here on 3/6/13 followed by repotting day last weekend:
Oh yeah! If these pics blow your mind just a little bit, check out the following -- another example of what mineral mix can do:
And the repot:
I was hoping the "terracotta out, glazed ceramic in" project would be done by now. But regardless of the unforeseen circumstances that leave me with 2 cacti still in need of glazed ceramic, I'm pleased to give you a photographic survey of the collection as it is today:
Going section by section, here's the top shelf...
...Shady Glen...
...and Sun Valley:
There's no urgency about finding the pots I have left on the "to buy" list. As much as I'd prefer getting them from Joe, he's not the only game in town -- since there's plenty of time, the remaining glazed ceramic pots will be in my hands by the beginning of next spring one way or 'tother. In the meantime, I'll leave y'all with a brief review of my concerted effort to replace the unintentionally dirty pumice-DG mix with thoroughly rinsed "play sand"-free mix.
Any signs of transplant shock I've seen were minimal, and in a few cases none at all. Because the mix basically hasn't changed since I started using it over 3 years ago, that certainly helps. What
has changed emphasizes the point I've made several times concerning the importance of being diligent about getting the fines out of the mix if decomposed granite happens to be one of your ingredients. Although the improvements are subtle, I'm noticing faster response time with new growth among cacti that were slow to establish in the past. Since it's still early in summer, dramatic progress won't start showing up in before-and-after photos yet. I'll leave that for my End-of-summer review, and when I put it together, we'll know if I can back up the claims I'm trying to make. If those claims pan out, then guess what? I have a bunch of cacti in glazed ceramic pots that are sitting in dirty mineral mix. Thus far they haven't suffered any, but since I need to be ahead of the curve before potential problems get the chance to show their ugly selves, I'll be repotting these plants in clean mix sometime in winter as they wait for the next growing season. I'm also ready for the prospect that some of them will need bigger pots too. I've run into
that problem over the course of my "terracotta out, glazed ceramic in" adventure, and it sure is a nice one to have!
Up next, I'll post a few pretty flowers for you as we move toward mid-July.
After thinking a few thoughts I wouldn't say out loud in polite company, I decided to give flickr a try. Thus far it's working great, and I'll be hosting my digital photos through flickr from here on out. Just in time too, since I'll have some nice surprises that would've been spoiled if I stayed with OneDrive.
