A small collection: 2015 and beyond

[TexasPricklyPiglet]

Awww, that's a shame. Those pots are really pretty. I like the new home for your E. Odieri. They look well together.

Have you seen any long toms around your area?

[Steve Johnson]

Awww, that's a shame. Those pots are really pretty. I like the new home for your E. Odieri. They look well together.

Have you seen any long toms around your area?

Thanks, TPP! I think one of the pots I snagged at Desert Creations today might qualify as a long tom. It'll be taken up by an Astrophytum myriostigma quadricostatum next weekend, and the roots on that plant go pretty deep. Hard to find long toms in nurseries and big-box garden centers, although you may have better luck on eBay. By the way -- I love the flower you have as your avatar! What's the species that produced it?

[Robb]

Too bad I don't have the ability to expand my growing space -- if I did, at least a dozen cacti would've followed me home!.

One of things I have learnt from this hobby is that there is always room for more haha. I love your new pots BTW.

[Steve Johnson]

I love your new pots BTW.

Thanks, my friend! I used to grow all my plants in nothing but terracotta, and after a lot of years it looks soooo boring. Although I don't take cacti to shows, it's enjoyable just to see them outfitted in a rather eclectic assortment of pots whenever I go out to the plant bench.

While we're talking pots here -- a week after its repot, the Eriosyce odieri has already settled in enough to start showing touches of new growth:



The most prominent feature on top is obviously a bud, with brand new spines surrounding it. There could be more buds coming in, although difficult to tell yet. Disturbing the roots might've been enough to inhibit a full-on flush, but even if the odieri produces only 1 or 2 flowers this year, hopefully the timing will be right to show you how pretty it (or they) is (or are).

[TexasPricklyPiglet]

Awww, that's a shame. Those pots are really pretty. I like the new home for your E. Odieri. They look well together.

Have you seen any long toms around your area?

Thanks, TPP! I think one of the pots I snagged at Desert Creations today might qualify as a long tom. It'll be taken up by an Astrophytum myriostigma quadricostatum next weekend, and the roots on that plant go pretty deep. Hard to find long toms in nurseries and big-box garden centers, although you may have better luck on eBay. By the way -- I love the flower you have as your avatar! What's the species that produced it?

Yes, it is proving to be difficult to find any long toms in any store at all! Maybe I should just plant my Turbis in a vase or something (kidding). I'll keep looking around, but I will probably eventually end up going on ebay to get them. I need to order that pumice too. I'm planning to repot some cacti soon, and I promised myself that I'd be using some pumice this time!

As for the flower, thank you for the compliment! Although, I can't take credit for it, all the credit goes to my little Thelocactus Bicolor var. bolaensis. It's doing alright for now. It has some random scarring from being poked with its own spine somehow, and it seems to have shrunken over the winter, and has not returned to its original size, but it looks healthy otherwise.

[Steve Johnson]

I know that casualties are a sad part of every grower's experience, but it was really discouraging to see this happen so soon...

Here's what I said after I repotted my Mammillaria blossfeldiana on March 8:

The repot was 2 weeks ago, so the plant gets a deep drench tonight. Should be back on track in no time, and given the great history I have with it, the return of flowering in summer is a safe bet.

Yep, that was the blossfeldiana's first deep watering of the year on March 21. The daytime heat all throughout March was perfect, so no problems then. The plant was scheduled for its next soak on April 4, although I held off since a promising change in the weather forecast indicated the good possibility of rain a few days later. Why not let an early April shower do the watering for me? A handful of cacti didn't need it, so I brought them inside. Here's what the rest of collection got on the 7th as the weather made good on that promise:



Fine for everything else, but the "gotcha" moment caught on camera and 20/20 hindsight tell me that this Baja Mamm is trickier than I thought when it gets watered under the wrong weather conditions. In this case it was a week with overnight lows in the mid to upper 40s, and rather cool daytime highs that took their sweet time about ramping up to the 70s. A week or so later, something about the plant just didn't look right. At the end of April, I finally unpotted the blossfeldiana -- staring rot in the face:





Chalk it up to bad timing on my part, and there's no point in playing the "shoulda coulda woulda" game. Don't want to squander the opportunity for a learning experience either, so we'll bring portable GH 3.0 into the equation. If rain was the only factor, it should be stowed down in the garage so I can take advantage of whatever spring rains come my way. However, the daytime temps in L.A. haven't been exactly spring-like lately. Since 3.0 does a marvelous job of trapping in the heat, I deployed it again Sunday night to begin an unusually cool first week of May. (Thanks to a clever design, this is so easy!) Outside the daytime highs have been in the 60s, but 70s under the GH. My cacti still feel like it's spring, and with another cool week in the forecast the GH will be staying up. A bunch of them are getting watered tonight (including a few plants due to receive their first soak after repotting), so this is how I can play 3.0 almost like I'm the conductor of an orchestra -- and it's all about the front. Keep it up with the velcro side flaps attached, and it'll add up to about 20 degrees to the outside temps. Take the side flaps off for some extra ventilation, we're looking at an increase of 10-15 degrees. When I take the front off entirely, the increase is about 5-8 degrees. Paying attention to the 7-day forecast on a daily basis is a part of the routine for "Mr. OCD". Such being the case, I'll continue playing the GH until I'm able to rely on more consistent heat heading into summer. Then it'll goes back in the garage again before the next rainy season begins in November.

I didn't waste much time in replacing the poor thing, and with show season underway, I thought it might be fun to take a chance on what the SoCal sellers are offering at their tables. I'm eager to show you what followed me home after the Sunset Succulent Society show last weekend, although for the moment I'll just say that it was a little more than ceramic pots. Could it be a new blossfeldiana or a different Mamm species? You'll find out soon!

[Steve Johnson]

Even with an unusually cool start for the month, my Frailea grahliana still wanted to bloom:



That was as open as the flower would get, but pretty nonetheless:







The real heat hasn't kicked in, although Memorial Day seems to be about the time when we know summer is around the corner. If the weather obliges, then perhaps the grahliana will show us a wide open flower this summer.

Mammillaria deherdtiana -- 2 flushes followed by a small encore, and here's another one:







To the Rebutia fans out there, this bud's for you!



I didn't think the pygmaea was established enough to flower yet, so it was a pleasant surprise to see this gem showing its first bud today. If the timing is right, I'll be able to get the bloom on camera.

Mammillaria hernandezii setting buds way out of season:





My guess is that the weather lately has been cool enough to fool the plant into thinking it's back in winter. Or maybe the hernandezii just likes me? Either way I'll take it!

And now for something completely different -- Epithelantha micromeris showing its first fruit of the year:



The first of many, and right on time too. It'll be fun to see more fruits popping up after all the flowers that wonderfully odd little cactus produced.

I'll end for now by giving a special shout-out to my mother as she continues to enjoy what her son is doing here on the forum. Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

[Arjen]

a shame for the blossfeldiana, not an unexpected casualty under those conditions though
you're of to a very good start with your flowers there!

[Steve Johnson]

a shame for the blossfeldiana, not an unexpected casualty under those conditions though
you're of to a very good start with your flowers there!

Thanks, Arjen. Didn't like losing that pretty little cactus with the "candy cane" flowers, although it led to a new chapter in my experience with Mammillarias. More about that one later, but in the meantime...

I have a nice mid-May update with buds and then some! We'll start with a couple of actual flowers.

Mammillaria deherdtiana -- the song may be over, but the melody lingers on. And on and on:





Oh yeah, 2 new buds are hiding in there, so the deherdtiana hasn't finished showing off its gorgeous blooms just yet.

Rebutia pygmaea with its very first flower -- I already posted these pics on the General forum, but definitely worth a look over here:







In my General forum post DaveW made a good point about variability of both spination and flower color with this species. The individual I have is incredibly attractive, and while I may see only a few more blooms out of it this year, the pygmaea should put on a fantastic display next spring.

I thought my Epithelantha micromeris was done with its blooming this year, but obviously not. From yesterday -- 2 fruits crossing swords next to 3 flowers being shy due to the cool, cloudy weather coming after SoCal's strange off-season winter storm:



There's more than just fruits and flowers in this pic -- let's zoom in closer:



These are the results of an experiment when I sowed seeds in the micromeris' pot last spring. The seedling on the left popped its little head up in September, and the one on the right is brand new. A Darwinian approach to be sure, although seedlings grown this way tend to be amazingly tough, strong plants as they get bigger. We'll keep an eye on the progress of the micromeris seedlings as we find out how they do this summer.

E. gregii 'rufispina' usually blooms in summer, but mine decided to get an early start. In the middle of all that wool, there's a barely visible flower:



Could that be the work of portable GH 3.0? I've had it up since the 3rd, but mostly to compensate for the unusually cool May we've had so far. Daytime highs in the upper 70s to 80s under the GH mean that the cacti still know it's springtime, so that would explain why my gregii is already in the mood for flowering. I had to take off the front so I could repot a few plants yesterday -- and there went the heat, otherwise the flower would've opened more. No biggie, though -- gregii is a fairly prodigious bloomer when the hot summer weather kicks in. And like the micromeris pic, there's more than just the flower you're seeing here. The 2 pups toward the bottom are readily apparent. However what you may not notice at first are 2 dense swirls of spines at the top. Yes indeed, those are new pups too! I knew that Epithelanthas can produce some wonderfully odd growing behavior, but this really takes the cake. They're such fascinating plants, aren't they?

And now for buds -- Turbinicarpus pseudomacrochele with 3 about ready to pop:



Eriosyce odieri working on a bud:



Since I repotted the odieri 4 weeks ago, I'm pretty sure that disrupted any possibility for more than the 1 flower we'll see. Once again no biggie, and since it'll be fully established by then, seeing a flush next spring is quite likely.

I'll sign off for the moment with a couple of odds and ends. Mammillaria crucigera -- from tiny flowers come tiny fruits:



Pygmaeocereus bylesianus -- no buds, just growing. And I mean really growing!



The 3 pups in front arrived toward the end of March, pup #4 is recent. I've found that bylesianus is remarkably easy to grow, and I highly recommend adding it to your collection, especially if you love night-blooming cacti. It was a treat to see mine blooming last summer, and because the pup in back may be mature enough, I have a feeling I'll be looking forward to summer nights that'll be even better this year.

Another round of "terracotta out, glazed ceramic in" on the way!

[Steve Johnson]

And here we go!

It's not often that we see a new C&S nursery starting up here in the Los Angeles Basin, so I had the pleasure of attending the April 25 grand opening of Desert Creations in Northridge. Wonderful place, and I highly recommend a visit if you're ever in the area. Wish I had more growing space, but if I did, about 15 cacti would've followed me home! Anyway, DC was also offering a nice selection of ceramic pots, and after I came up empty at the South Coast show, I was hoping to have better luck with the nursery's resident potter. In speaking with him beforehand, I learned something about ceramic I hadn't known until then. Clay pots don't necessarily have to be glazed -- whether they're porous or nonporous depends purely on firing temperature. The cheap terracotta pots we get at big-box stores, etc. are low-fired, which makes them porous. But since high-fired pots are nonporous, glazing is purely decorative, and traditional glazes aren't the only game in town anymore. Given my eclectic taste in pots, why not add a bit of spice straight from Northridge?



The pots in front are buy-aheads for cacti that'll need them in a year or two. The ones in back are now gainfully employed. Echinocereus rigidissimus rubispinus:





Sulcorebutia callichroma longispina -- then and now, representing 2 years of growth:



Coming out of its 4.5" Azalea pot:





Wow, I really underestimated how big those taproots had gotten! Unfortunately I couldn't save the parts growing under the drain hole screen, so here's what was left behind:



Oh well, the roots will grow back. Now for the repot:





That pot would've been perfect if it were a little deeper, although without the benefit of seeing the roots first, I was essentially "flying blind" when I chose it. While the longispina should be fine for the rest of the year, its taproots will eventually jam back down into the bottom of the new pot. Something I'd like to avoid if possible, so I'll find a deeper pot in time to repot the plant (again) before the next growing season begins.

The last DC pot I'll show you may not be all that attractive. However, a square pot with sufficient depth was all I needed when I selected it for my Astrophytum myriostigma quadricostatum. Ooh, a pot-shaped root ball!



More like rootbound -- it was quite a chore to break up the party. Now the myriostigma is in its new home, and I think this is a nice fit for the plant:



X marks the spot:



The nasty split you just saw came from a watering boo-boo I made early last spring. Since it had plenty of time to heal and form a good, solid callous, I was safe in hiding most of it with a thick layer of gravel top dressing. The myriostigma looks more presentable than it did prior to the repot, so as long as I'm careful about watering frequency, there's no way the split will open up again and get bigger. In the meantime we'll keep an eye on those buds -- could be a double flower on the way!

[keith]

Northridge not too far from me I'll check it out. Not many cactus nurseries here at least compared to Arizona.

Nice pots I'll have to talk to them about that. I use clay that I seal from the inside with either spray paint or polyurethane. I also use plastic that I place in Clay pots.

Screen in the bottom of pots I had the same results you are having so I only use it on cactus without tap roots.

[Steve Johnson]

I really scored at the Sunset Succulent Society show, when I snapped up 9 new glazed ceramic pots from SoCal potter Joe Wujcik. And they weren't the only items which followed me home on May 2. Here's a new acquisition that went right into one of Joe's pots the same day:





Although the species is similar to Mamm guelzowiana, it was different enough to catch my eye, and I now have 2 very pretty fluffy Mamms with colorful fishhook spines. Nice pups on the bocasana too -- in the not-too-distant future, I'm sure it'll need a bigger pot!

Here are the other pots as they wait to be filled:



And filled they certainly were, although before I show you more terracotta going out, I'll skip ahead with the potting of my latest arrivals. From Miles' To Go in AZ:







These pics are from May 16, and the buds you see went into flower only 2 days later:





With a Mamm deherdtiana that won't stop blooming:



Takes the sting out of the blossfeldiana I lost. Truth be told those black fishhook spines weren't doing it for me anymore, so maybe this was a blessing in disguise -- IMO the theresae is way more attractive on all counts!

Now for my other M2G acquisition:







This replaces an Echinocereus pectinatus 'Coahuila' that lost its roots. The plant is still with me as I try to re-root it (more to the story here). However, limited growing space is a problem, so if the re-rooting effort is successful, I won't mind giving the pectinatus up to someone at the Sunset club. I like viridiflorus better anyway, and my selection has it all -- compact miniature form, deep purple in the spines, and very unusual green flowers. Unfortunately too late to see it blooming this year, but we'll get to see those velvety light green flowers next spring.

I'll devote the rest of this post to the "veteran" Turbinicarpus pseudomacrochele I found at the California Cactus Center 4 years ago. Spring 2012 was the time when I moved everything from the CCC's heavy soil-based mix to pure pumice-DG mix. Then a year later, I waterproofed the pseudomacrochele's terracotta pot. Here's what came out beforehand:



Looking at that photo now, I'm shocked at how much of the CCC soil I left behind. At least I can finish the job I should've done right the first time:



I'll observe a plus and a minus in the before-and-after pics. On the plus side, the taproot has become deeper. On the minus side -- not much in the way of fibrous roots, and most of them came off in the unpotting process. It was quite a pleasant surprise to see the pseudomacrochele growing a pup in the summer of 2011, but not much in the way of new growth since then. With a bolus of compacted soil sitting right under it the entire time, that may explain why the pup hasn't been growing as much as it should. Not treating it well, was I?



The bolus is gone with the rest of the soil I finally cleaned out, so here are 2 sides of a thoroughly prepped pseudomacrochele:



In a nice new glazed ceramic pot provided by Mr. Wujcik:





"Clean" and "thorough" are keywords here -- I'll remind y'all that the mineral mix has been thoroughly rinsed so it's clean and free of the sludgy DG fines which weren't doing the pseudomacrochele's roots any favors before. The plant should be happy enough to start regrowing new fibrous roots, and maybe that pup will thank me by putting out better growth over the summer. First watering after the repot comes up next weekend, although I'll have to be careful about watering frequency after that. Because it'll take time to rebuild a healthy root system, my guess is that every 3-4 weeks should be about right for the rest of this year's growing season. Then again, if the pseudomacrochele looks thirsty enough to need water a little more often before summer ends, I'll happily oblige. By the way, it was sweet to watch the flowers open up literally as I repotted my lovely old Turb!

Before we move on to my next post, here's an interesting question we can ask regarding the pseudomacrochele -- is that a pup or a seedling? For the longest time I thought it was a pup. But upon closer inspection and rethinking the matter, I believe what we have here is a seedling that fused to the parent plant's taproot very early on. I saw 2 Turb polaskii seedlings fuse together, although the process took longer in that case. Regardless of whether it's a pup or a seedling, my young pseudomacrochele should be fine staying with the parent from here on out.

[Steve Johnson]

It's Memorial Day weekend, and as a cool May comes to an end there are a couple of things I'll look forward to. One is the return of seasonably warm weather heading into summer. And the other? Well, let me say that by the end of the week, I hope I can finally take off the portable GH until I need it again when the next rainy season begins in November. Now let's see what the cacti were doing today...

First a few flowers -- nothing spectacular, but they're still kinda pretty:

Cumarinia odorata





Mammillaria crucigera



Epithelantha micromeris -- the flowers are done, but they're leaving behind some nice consequences.



Speaking of consequences, I should really take a closer look at the top dressing -- not 1, not 2, but 3 seedlings as the result of my pot-sowing experiment.



There's still plenty of seed lying in wait, so more seedlings could pop up at any time.

These cacti are working on their buds:

Astrophytum asterias



Astrophytum 'capristigma'



Eriosyce odieri



Strombocactus disciformis



Mamm deherdtiana -- again!



Looks like this Mamm hernandezii is about to make good on its out-of-season buds.





And finally, the newest star of the flower show with another round of buds:



To my fellow Americans, have a happy Memorial Day!

[Robb]

Nice Mamm therease, Steve! I hope it flowers well for you! Your new Mammillaria bocasana looks more like a guelzowiana, the dried flowers look too big.

[Steve Johnson]

There's a Part 10??!!?? Yep, that's how long the project has been taking -- and I'm still not done yet...

This post is about 2 other 2011 "veterans" now sitting in Joe Wujcik's handiwork. Both also happen to be Mammillarias, so I'll begin with one doing what columnar Mamms do as they get older. I give you The Leaning Tower of Grahamii:



The last time I looked at the roots was a little over 3 years ago, when I waterproofed the grahamii's terracotta pot. Oh my, how far that plant has come along!



The repot:





I did a good job of straightening it up, although I'll be interested to see how long it stays that way before the grahamii starts taking on a southward tilt again.

My other 2011 veteran Mamm has made some incredible progress. That would be spinossissima, it was so small back then -- more like a "redheaded Irishboy":



Here's what came out of its pot last weekend:



The repot:





I had one of Joe's pots earmarked for the Mamm guelzowiana I received in July 2013, but the Irishman needs it more. As I'm deep into the project, a consistent part of this experience has been that I keep underestimating how extensive the root systems on some of my cacti are after 2-3 years of growth in pure mineral mix. The pot I originally selected for the Irishman is now sitting empty as it waits for something else. That leaves me with a ceramic pot I'll have to find so the guelzowiana can say "terracotta, get outta there!" Nice problem to have, huh?

By the way, nice catch from Robb on the labeling boo-boo -- the Mamm I found at the Sunset show is indeed another guelzowiana.