My cacti and succulent garden

[Cactifan800]

My name is Zane, 35 years old from Australia and I was too lazy to start a newcomers welcome thread.
First up I will post some pictures of my balcony where I keep my smaller plants, once they mature, they get moved to the jungle (my backyard).

[Cactifan800]

I will also keep my thread updated with new buys and projects. Hope you guys enjoy!

[hegar]

Hello Zane,
you do have a nice collection of beautiful plants, succulents and others. What impresses me the most, is the orderliness of your collection. Do you already have any plants in the "backyard jungle"? My wife gives me constant criticism, not only because she does not like cacti, but also, because my plants are all planted haphazardly. I get a new plant, then look, where I can find a still unoccupied spot, and in goes the plant. I do intend, however, to make amends and put all the Ariocarpus spp. cacti in one location and all the Turbinicarpus ssp. in another within the next few weeks.

Harald

[Cactifan800]

Hello Zane,
you do have a nice collection of beautiful plants, succulents and others. What impresses me the most, is the orderliness of your collection. Do you already have any plants in the "backyard jungle"?
Harald

Thank you for your kind words Harald.
I only posted the neatest part of my garden, as not to scare away potential readers.
I will post pictures of my backyard in the coming days (it's basically a hoard of cacti, succulents and tropicals).
It's become walking room only and i'm a little embarrassed to show it.

[Cactifan800]

My queen of the night flowered again last night.
This must be the third time this season.
They start opening around 7pm and is gone by sunrise the next day.
They also emit a very strong funky smelling odour that can be detected from far away.
None of the flowers bear any fruit.

[hegar]

That certainly is a nice plant! Epiphyllum spp. and Hylocereus spp. do have rather large and showy flowers and there are many hybrids around.
I did have what I believe was an Epiphyllum cactus with thin petals, when I lived in Brownsville, Texas. One evening, when I was returning from work, the room in which the cactus resided did have a rather strong smell emanating from it. It was as I recall a sweet smell and not unpleasant at all.

Harald

[gemhunter178]

Very nice Epi you have there!

Don't worry about neatness - I have a miniature jungle of seedlings in addition to my 'pile of spines' that is the larger bunch of my collection.
Very neat from what I can see so far though!

- oh, and a belated welcome from me!

[Cactifan800]

That certainly is a nice plant! Epiphyllum spp. and Hylocereus spp. do have rather large and showy flowers and there are many hybrids around.
I did have what I believe was an Epiphyllum cactus with thin petals, when I lived in Brownsville, Texas. One evening, when I was returning from work, the room in which the cactus resided did have a rather strong smell emanating from it. It was as I recall a sweet smell and not unpleasant at all.

Harald

I find the smell of the flowers to be revolting. You can smell them fron a long distance away.
My neighbour asked me about the funky smell coming from our place as well lol.
I have a few variety of epi growing next to it...they are all day flowerers and last for a few days.

And thanks gemhunter for your kind words.

[Cactifan800]

Euphorbia flanaganii aka Medusa's head.
This succulent is very pricey in my country and a mature specimen can fetch around $50 to $100. It's popular and most people buy it as it looks like such a novelty.

However this is a very easy and relatively fast growing succulent that can take hot afternoon sun in summer and survive through shade in Autumn and Winter.
It can also cope with a fair amount of water as it's not rot prone.

Picture 1 is one of the offset that a friend of mine gave me.
Picture 2 is 4 month later. It took a while to get established.
Picture 3. 1 year old. The pot is 21cm in diameter, so the plant is roughly 25cm in diameter.

Best way to propagate this plant is not by stem cuttings, as the plant took 6 month to get to that stage in picture 1.
Best way is to wait for the stems to mature, they will produce babies at each ends and later develop aerial roots (like spider plants), thats when you pull them off and stick them in the soil.

[ElieEstephane]

This is my first time stumbling in your thread. Very beautiful collection! It's crazy how fast euphorbias grow

[Cactifan800]

This is my first time stumbling in your thread. Very beautiful collection! It's crazy how fast euphorbias grow

Thanks Elie.
Yes Euphorbia's get very large where I live.
Tirucalli, lactea, trigona, milii and ammaks are some of the fastest growing species I have.
People get tricked into paying a lot of money for euphorbia because they look like cacti and people associate cacti with very slow growth and being pricey.

[ElieEstephane]

The euphorbias you cited are the ones i have been luckiest with. My E. Ingens grows sometimes up to a meter per year.
I think columnar euphorbias ade a good substitute for columnar cacti that grow slowly though i guess cereus and trichocereus grow like weeds in your climate right?

[Cactifan800]

The euphorbias you cited are the ones i have been luckiest with. My E. Ingens grows sometimes up to a meter per year.
I think columnar euphorbias ade a good substitute for columnar cacti that grow slowly though i guess cereus and trichocereus grow like weeds in your climate right?

Trichocereus can definitely compete with the fastest of euphorbia's for height per year.
Euphorbia's like trigona, lactea, ammak...etc go dormant around late autumn and start growing again in early spring.
So for 4 month it does nothing, while trichocereus continues to grow at a good rate during winter.
Other cereus like stenocereus, pilocereus and poliska chichipe are much more slower growing.

[Cactifan800]

I propagated this cereus monster shortly after Christmas.
I let it callus over for 1 month and basically put the heavy stump in the ground on January 3rd and I dug it up on February 3rd, exactly 1 month.
We had warm weather and a lot of rain over that period, but I'm still surprised at the root system it developed in 31 days.