Blooming Haworthias

[oldcat61]

I keep reading that haworthias are winter growers but all of mine are blooming now or have just finished. Is this OK or do I need to do something? I sure hate to withhold water from something flowering. I didn't fertilize them when I did the cacti. Do they bloom & then go dormant? Thanks, Sue

[Aiko]

I treat mine as summer growers. And they do grow in the summer with me. Mine are also in almost full sun, just a bit shaded with shading cloth. Many others will provide lots of shade to they Haworthias and Gasterias. In winter I let them go dormant like any other cacti I have. They do very fine, year after year. This includes the touchy Haworthia species like H. sordida, H. truncata, H. springbokvlakensis or other retuse Haworthias.

[oldcat61]

Thanks - nice to know I don't have the only haworthias that don't read the books. Sue

[Pompom0551]

Greetings,

I am new to this forum, but not to growing Haworthias. Fall is the time of year that they all perk up and start blooming and growing well. Of course, there is so many different kinds and some bloom at different periods depending on what part of Africa they come from. I water through out the year, and grow under lights. At times I do take them out during spring to Fall but have to be careful if there is a lot of rain. Mostly, I keep them indoors due to the snow in winter here in Maryland. Some people grow them hard with full sun and little water, but that depends on where you live in the world and your climate, which produces different results. Grown hard shows some beautiful colors for sure.

Good luck with growing!

[Saxicola]

Winter growing doesn't literally mean "only grows in the winter", just like summer growers don't actually mean "only grows in the summer". It really means plants that grow during the cooler months of the year which coincide with the rainy season in the country of origin. In fact, the dead of winter is the slowest part of the growing season for my plants. Late winter through mid-spring is when most of mine really do their thing, but this time of year is definitely part of the growing season.

Some of this has to do with geographic location. Haworthias come from the winter rainfall regions of South Africa that are very similar in climate to Southern California. So those of us out here usually see them just starting up now and they grow through the spring. However, in a place like the Netherlands where Aiko is from his summers aren't all that different from winter in South Africa (they don't get hot summers like we do even in the cold regions of the country like the Northeast US). New Jersey gets pretty hot and humid in the summer so I'd be worried about pushing Haworthias too hard at that time. For you the fall represents the hot weather being over, but it is still nice enough for them to grow and flower. If your plants are growing and looking active then treat them accordingly.

[iann]

Only a very few Haworthias come from winter rainfall regions. The rest are found across a wide swathe of the "all year round" rainfall region towards the South of South Africa. They are found well into the Eastern Cape which is most definitely not a winter rainfall zone. Some of the "easier" commonly found species are very much adapted to summer rainfall, while the real winter specialists are difficult and rare in cultivation. I water all year round, but hardly at all in winter (no sun at all for them) and not very much in summer. I have flower stalks coming now but don't let that fool you, they show up almost any time and they take a long time to develop fully.