While there are a lot of vendors in Flona 2023 attracting anyone who walked through the venues, I only attended few of them, which I learnt lots of things regarding fertilizing plants, in particular cacti and succulents, since it is one of the most challenging part for my gardening experience.
My apologies I didn't get to acquire any contacts or social media accounts for the vendors I've attended and talked with, though I took lots of photos which I think I could share with all of you here on the Attachments.
I'd like to give some of the highlights:
- One of the vendors brought one of the most eye-catching plants I've ever seen: cycads with astonishingly monstrose caudex/rhizome. The vendor stated he takes care of those cycads like how we'd take care of our cacti, except he doesn't use any greenhouses. If they got too much sun, so be it; if they got too much rain, so be it. It's quite jaw-opening some plant owners really go this far yet their plants still prevail. Though due to this, he's mostly specializing in cycads with a few other caudiciforms: adeniums and several palms, as well as several aloes and snake plants/sansevierias. He's been doing this for years and he stated him opening a venue here is one of the means to share his collections to those who draw interests to plants like his.
- Another vendor showcased the one of the most sought-after plants in my plant community: Tillandsia xerographica,the king of tillandsias. Their silvery leaves struck me with wonder, awe, and curiosity, knowing a plant this beautiful exists and I saw it in person. Also the fact it barely requires special care - just plain water per few days, barely any if no fertilizers - makes it a plant worth my appreciation (though I may be wrong about this tillandsia's care).
- The last one specializes in sansevierias, with fancy hybrids and pure varieties galore. I'm not a fan of variegated plants, but this vendor showcased lots of variegated snake plants and I later found out this vendor used to own non-variegated plants, pure or hybrid, which eventually shifted to variegated plants because it seems variegation gave more challenges on taking care of them. Well, again, we may share the same cause, but certainly our paths are different.
- If you're in Indonesia, you can visit this event up until October 16, 2023.
- Too bad only few of them sale any cacti I was looking for. There were some vendors who sold Astrophytum and Stenocactus - one of them even sold Ferocactus glauescens, crested Cereus/Monvillea spegazzinni, and several Uebelmannia pectinifera - but Lophophora, Ariocarpus, and Gymnocalycium that is not G. mihanovichii were absent.
- The venues were okay, some - esp. the tillandsias' vendor - were amazing, but most of them could be more improved. There's this one cactus vendor that was really, really narrow I had to take lines to get in, see the collections, take and purchase them, and leave. I really had to be extra careful because it was so narrow I could accidentally bump into one of them, toppling them and potentially destroy them.
- Crowd management can be more organized. I don't know if other countries have the same problem, but I'm sure there should be paths for anyone entering and leaving the event.
- Its marketing could be improved. Last year, I barely knew anything about it until I saw one of the plant content creator on YouTube uploaded his vlog in Flona 2022. This year suffered the same case but thankfully, I was more vigilant.
Plants that came with me:
Three plants! I wasn't planning to shop but the prices were just too tempting. I bought this old-man cactus, an Espostoa of unknown species, this crested Monvillea/Cereus spegazzinni, and this clustering Tephrocactus articulatus var. papyracanthus. They were all in good shape when arriving home, except the Tephrocactus which had one of its segment popped off (which is to be expected).
While the cacti were on a good shape, hopefully, they came in with the most unacceptable soil mix:
Too. Much. Organic. Contents!
I knew this was to happen - this mix was covered by a layer of scoria, which didn't raise a red flag to me when I purchased them - so I immediately pop all of them off their pots, rinsed their roots - and plucked some of the rotten roots - and air-dry them for about three days before I planted them into a more appropriate mix, hopefully.
That, using that terrifying soil mix, has become a common routine in Indonesian cacti vendors. They say it holds more water - of course - so they don't have to water them often. Also, they are cheap and easy to find, purchase, and carry around. Fortunately, now there are growing numbers of vendors who cared enough and slowly shifted to more porous, less nutrient-rich mix.
Now it's been weeks the cacti are in my garden and they still look good.
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