UK growers thoughts please

[adetheproducer]

After a particularly mild winter and preceding autumn my plants look very much like they are waking up. It seems early this year but I am thinking about giving them their first drink of the year. They have been dry since the end of September and some are very much looking thirsty. I have had to give my largest obregonia a light watering yesterday as it was looking very parched and it's gripped into the soil firmly now so that one is alive and ready for spring. I have also given my escobaria missouriensis a good watering and my echinocereus knippelianus, triglochidiatus and viridiflorus a drink but am a bit more cautious with the rest.

Any thoughts on whether its too early for things like lophophora, ariocarpus, astrophytum, gymnocalycium, mammillaria, turbinicarpus, thelocatus....and so on.

Have anyone else in the UK already started watering?

Any responses will be very much appriciated.

[esp_imaging]

I'm taking a slightly robust approach with a few of my plants - for example Cleistocactus strausii has been watered periodically all winter, a Mammillaria which has been holding some health looking flower buds from the autumn and Notocactus mammulosus also had a drink recently. These are grown on a fairly cold window, so in very cold weather, frost would form inside the glass (although maybe not this winter!)
I'm holding off the most of the others for a while yet, especially as the next week may be quite cold. If kept in cool conditions, I don't think I'd be watering the plants in your list, except maybe a few robust and cold/wet tolderant species, such as a Gymno bruchii, for example.

[Aiko]

My climate is probably about the same as yours, although you might get more dull / rainy days? And you probably live at a higher altitude, which might cause a bit colder nights?

Are your plants inside a greenhouse throughout the year?

Mine go into an unheated room for their winter dormancy. I always keep my eye on the calendar when it comes to know when to stop or start watering when it comes to summer active succulents, like cacti. I wait for late March / early April for a first watering, when the plants go back into the greenhouse. No way I will water sooner, but maybe the seedlings up to one year old. Definately the northern-Mexican species will have to wait until the weather really improves in spring.

So I would say: don't water. But if your plants are in a greenhouse, you might start a bit sooner. But still I would wait until at least early March...

[adetheproducer]

Yeah they are in a green house we have had only 2 nights if frost this winter one was quite severe and in had a bit of condensation freeze inside but look as thought everything survived. As a result when that frost melted a few plants got a watering albeit slight they took up some and look better for it than the rest that stayed dry. Ventilation is good and night time lows are ranging between about 1°c to 5°c day time is up to about 15°c so inside the green house in a good bit warmer. It has been very dull and cloudy but the sun has broken through intermittently with a few good clear days and then due to the altitude have got a good amount of sun so inside the greenhouse during the day is easily getting up to 20°c. I might try a few of the tougher species from higher natural altitude but leAve the rest another week or two maybe.

[iann]

Waking up? Did you ever get them to sleep?

You have already taken the step of treating some species differently, and all the ones you list are capable of surviving outside so no worries there. I would suggest they don't actually need water yet, but perhaps I'll change my tune when it is 30C in the greenhouse when the sun comes out this week! I find that many Echinocereus remain quite shrunken even if they are watered, until March or April. Escobarias are more interested in taking up water in winter, but also more likely to die if you overdo it. E. missouriensis can be treated more or less as a snow-melt plant though, easier to kill in summer than winter.

So what makes you think all the other cactus species can be treated the same way as eachother? Some of them it is absolutely too early to be watering, others will be raring to go. Which you dare to water now will depend on how much you are prepared to heat when it is -5C in the next few nights. Or perhaps whether you get any sun or not in the next week or two (ie. is the greenhouse 5C or 25C). Thelocactus are pretty hardy and also quite tolerant of some water when nights are still chilly, Ariocarpus and Turbinicarpus ss definitely not. Some Mammillarias are coming into peak growth right now, although perhaps you don't have many M. tetrancistra. Others should be left dry until the nights and days are consistently warm, especially the tropicals. Lophophoras and Astrophytums are hardier than most people realise but not especially fond of being wet and cold at the same time.

[adetheproducer]

Yeah I did manage most into hibernation but it was definitely Warter induced rather than temperature. It's been a strange one this winter with night time temperatures still in double figures right through most of November December and in to January its only really the last week or two we have had cold weather it's rained like crazy just very mild with it. I didn't even worry about insulating the green house this year. I know typically to hold off till March but this is not a typical winter. I think playing it by ear is gonna be the way forward, maybe in a week give the most shrivelled a drop and then see what the weather does

[DaveW]

A lot depends on how warm you can keep your greenhouse. Mine is a cold greenhouse so I would not water until winter is over in the UK, which is about middle of March for me. As with growing anything out of season if you can keep the greenhouse at growing temperatures you can start the plants off earlier. You should know by now our climate is fickle and unpredictable, we could still get a late winter. It has even snowed in April in the past, though it does not last long then.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weat ... -forecast/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

They don't always get the dates of their forecasts right though, but are they plain wrong, or just too early and it may happen in March?:-

http://www.express.co.uk/news/weather/6 ... unge-alert" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also remember with some early flowering cacti, too early watering can abort early forming buds.

[adetheproducer]

Yes I had heard it was supposed to turn cold late this year but "they" also said November then December and then January would be cold and that didn't happen. Mine is also a cold greenhouse so by right nothing should be growing yet with the 5 months ish of drought they have had so far but there are definate signs of growth showing on quite a few of my plants. I think being cautious is best but some plants look as though they now need a drop. I have moved all plants to pure mineral as a project for winter as a result of loosing my mammillaria polythene and astrophytum miriostigma, they where some of the last plants I had with actual soil in the pots and when it got very wet through December the soil got wet with condensation after a leak in the roof and rotted them from the roots. By the time they showed signs of I'll health it was too late to cut off the heads and re-root. Other plants including my turbinicarpus' and a few lophophora and gymnocalyciums also got a bit wet but they where already on pure mineral so the dampness cleared away quickly and all survived with out any isues. I took this as a bit of a sign and reported the whole green house checking roots and putting in better sized pots. I'm pretty confident if I where to give a drink they would be dry in a few days to a week with the mineral mix they are all now in but if freezing temperatures are on the way a drink just before could be the nail in the coffin of my collection. Just very difficult thinking the weather is gonna get worse when I'm sat here with blinding sunshine and the bluebells, daffs, trees and my strawberries all growing and a lawn that needs mowing again. The signs that spring has sprung are all around and I guess I'm just being a bit eager to get things going with the greenhouse too.

Let's give it a couple more weeks then see how things go with the weather and curb my enthusiasm until it's a bit warmer.

Cheers everyone.

[iann]

My Pediocactus pots are all soaked through now, plus some others. It is still fairly early even for them, but the way this winter has gone this week might be the last frost we have! I have some very fat Pediocactus since they never really got a long dry spell over an extremely humid winter.

[DaveW]

Just woken up to a dusting of snow on the ground and greenhouse roof in Nottingham this morning. As the sun has come out it will clear quickly, but winter is certainly not over yet in the UK and you cannot be sure until the end of March. If you can keep the greenhouse frost free then by all means water, but if you can't keep it a few degrees above freezing it is risky starting this early.

[adetheproducer]

Yeah it was cold down here last night but very little frost just on the car roofs and in a few cold sinks in the bottom of the valley but nothing serious and definitely none in the green house. Had another day of clear skies and sun light so with it being a bit of mixed event from night to day I think I will leave it a bit longer. Don't want to see cactus shaped ice lollies sticking out of pots again. I think my gymnocalycium mihanovichii frozen solid back in January and it now starting to look ill. The damsii and vatteri either side had no issues and even got buds growing, I'm guessing the plants from the lower altitudes are just not happy with cold even when they are kept dry.

[DaveW]

Mine have had newspapers over them the last few nights. OK to leave the papers on for a few days even if they were growing, which mine are not yet.

[adetheproducer]

Yeah I have done that a few times since that bad freeze in January but it really hasn't been needed it's difficult to stress how mild this winter had been around here. That one night and day in January was all it took to freeze my gymno' but since then it's be ok. Last night's frost was not in any way harsh. Strange strange weather not really a winter at all.

[DaveW]

Well glad I left the papers on as hard frost again this morning. Now the sun is shining brightly in a blue sky. However that's the problem in the UK at this time of year. Ideally you want sun during the day and it to cloud over at night to keep the heat in. Clear skies at night mean the heat simply radiates out into space and we get frost and the greenhouse drops close to, if not below freezing at night unless the greenhouse is heated. The only hope is the floor of the greenhouse is heated enough by the sun during the day to act as a night storage heater to keep it above freezing at night.

[adetheproducer]

Yeah was a slight frost with us last night mainly sunny today but not particularly warm. Clouds are coming in and I have a feeling it might snow the air smells right for it so think I will be cover with news paper just in case.