New temporary raised cactus garden.

[SnowFella]

Well, it's time to find out how well some of my cactii will handle the outdoors. After last weeks heatwave here in Sydney, actually broke records as the longest one recorded, I started noticing how some of my potted columnars started growing eoliated from lack of direct sunlight.
So to combat this I've decided to speed up my plans of putting them fully outdoors, originally planned on getting the bed ready for next spring...that way I could do the digging during the cool of winter rather than on a 33C degree day (90F or so) that we had today.

So I got all the things needed today, or so I thought as I didn't get enough scoria to put down as a base and will have to go back for more tomorrow, and started digging. Right now the frame is in place and as soon as I get another bag or 2 of scoria down in the bottom I'll start filling it back in again with a mix of the original soil, some regular potting mix, cource sand and perlite.

It's 120cm by 60cm now but come winter I'll extend it into an "L" shape going almost all the way to the fence.

Going into the bed tomorrow will be the following.
P. Pachycladus
C. peruvianus
T. Bridgesii
T. pachanoi
E. grusonii
N. leninghausii
N. magnificus
And possibly my Echinopsis hybrid aswell as an M. compressa.

[TimN]

Looks great, but definitely too small! Good thing you already have plans for expansion! Looks like an awesome spot!

[SnowFella]

Just glad right now that I didn't get them in the ground yesterday as it's been pouring with rain here all day today. Bed is just about all finished though, just need to mix in another bag or 2 of sand and anchor the wooden sleepers to the brickwork.

Alittle worried about the heat the spot will see in the afternoons though, it will be getting full sun from about noon till something like 5 or 6pm and by that time those bricks are generally hot to the touch.

[promethean_spark]

Make sure the plants are acclimated to the sun before putting them in there then. You can put them out somewhere where they get a bit less to let them get a 'tan' so they don't burn. I put the tag or a stone on the north side of the pot so I don't accidentally rotate them.

That spot looks too small for the columnars - they get huge!

[SnowFella]

Yup, plan on starting them up with some shadecloth put up to take the edge of the sunlight they are getting.

And as stated, this is just a temporary first start to the final raised bed. Come winter and some more favourable working conditions it's getting extended quite a bit and the columnars spread out more.

Plans at the moment is to turn that little rectangle into this, excuse the MS paint artwork...all my proper paint programs are on the desktop that doesn't much like me at the moment.

That will extend this 1.2m long bed by another 2.4m along the brick wall and by another 2 or so meters along the fence.

[SnowFella]

Well, checking the soil in the bed this afternoon it turned out to be drier than the soil in the pots the columars were planted in. And that's even though it's just on a week since I watered them last and it's been raining almost constantly all of yesterday.

So all 4 has been planted out now, waiting a few days before I toss out the small ones...want to get up some shadecloth to block the midday sun first.

[Harriet]

Good plan. The part you have done doesn't look so small when you see what is coming.

[SnowFella]

Just dreading the amount of work that will be involved in breaking up all that lawn though Plus the fact that the ground seems to be a mix of all kinds of crud they dug up when they built the pool 10 or so years ago, some is nice and sandy while other spots are more or less straight clay.

[Shmuel]

Looking veryy nice. What kind of lawn do you have? Some of the creeping sub-tropical grasses can be very nasty in crawling into and through beds - hard to get out. Also, my understanding (open to be told wrong) is that the Notocacti don't really want so much sun. Perhaps planting them to the north of bigger growers will give them a good exposure. Personally, I like the use of plants and rocks to create little microclimates for the smaller plants...

Enjoy!

Shmuel

[SnowFella]

You don't know the half of it mate, the lawn I have here is a pain in the way that it grows by throwing out runners, to the point that it's been classed as a noxious weed.
http://www.weeds.org.au/cgi-bin/weedide ... l&card=E27
Since I bought this house last year I've spent quite some time getting the front flowerbeds squared away, to the point of fully digging them up and laying down several layers of newspaper underneath double layer weedmats and the darn Kikuyu grass still grows straight through it. So I have a feeling weeding the raised beds is going to be near a full time job

[Shmuel]

I was afraid it may be kikuyu - weeding it can be never ending and I think you have other things you want to do.

There are special grass killers that don't hurt dicots like most cacti and succulents. I hate using them but have a "no mercy" policy with kikuyu. Don't know how sensitive the monocots like Agave, Yucca, etc are to
that stuff.

In any case, good luck!

Shmuel

[Peterthecactusguy]

you guys have no idea what the grass is like that grows here in Arizona. It has think mats of annoying roots the grow everywhere. the only way to actually get rid of it is to spray them with poison. However that won't work as it will kill all my saguaros, since its practically agent orange.

[Shmuel]

Peter,
As I recall, Agent Orange was a 2,4,D and 2,4,5,T combo - it was a broadleaf only killer, used to be marketed as Ortho Driveway Weed Killer. (The big problem from the Viet Nam days was contamination from some other nasty stuff.)

I suspect what you are referring to is Roundup - a general all-purpose weed killer.

I think the way to go would be one of the grass only weed killers. They leave dicots alone - that means cactus - but Agave, Aloe, Yucca, etc would make me nervous. Usually the best is to test some on a plant or area that is not so important. Be careful though because it is a poison - safety first!
Here is a Texas A&M page that mentions it against Bermuda:
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/arch ... sscon.html

Snowfella, I usually recommend for keeping grass out of a bed to dig a trench 1 1/2 feet deep (40cm) and fill it with chicken wire and concrete. Still no guarantees against Kikuyu, but it can work. Almost no one actually does it though. The grass control should work for you too, though product names may vary in Australia...

Shmuel

[Peterthecactusguy]

Shmuel,
I know. That's why I said practically. I have actually used that stuff before. It's bad to breathe it in, and you are right, they were exposed to all sorts of nasty things. As were the Gulf War vets from the first Gulf war in 1991. Thats a different subject tho. I have thought about using the round-up I am not sure. I might do some more research

Thanks for the information too. I am slowly learning all kinds of interesting things in the hobby

[SnowFella]

Likely going to curse the fact that I didn't do more to keep the kikuyu grass out but I'll just have to live with it now and keep the weeding up.

Put the rest of the planned ones out today, got overcast days for the coming week according to the prognsis but I'm going to keep a close eye on them and if they start showing hints of sunburn the shadecloth goes up.


Left to right:
N. leninghausii
E. grusonii
N. magnificus
M. compressa
And my Echinopsis hybrid.

Also found the first casualty of likely overwatering, nice clump of M. glasii started rotting from the center. Think I might of saved some of the pups that were furthest from the rot, both bodies and roots still looked and felt ok.