Minime8484's C&S Collection - 2012

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peterb
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Re: Minime8484's C&S Collection - 2012

Post by peterb »

Tristan, the mariposensis can be a touchy plant in cultivation in my experience. It does well in limestone or decomposed granite with no peat or coir at all and a lot of grit. Go easy on water and provide a cool, completely dry winter. Just my .02. I find it the most challenging of the Chihuahuan Echinomastus.

Everything looks great! What a job on that outdoor bed. It's fantastic. How are all your Fouquieria doing?

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Minime8484
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Re: Minime8484's C&S Collection - 2012

Post by Minime8484 »

Would you believe 18? :D

Admittedly, some are quite small species!
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Minime8484
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Re: Minime8484's C&S Collection - 2012

Post by Minime8484 »

peterb wrote:Tristan, the mariposensis can be a touchy plant in cultivation in my experience. It does well in limestone or decomposed granite with no peat or coir at all and a lot of grit. Go easy on water and provide a cool, completely dry winter. Just my .02. I find it the most challenging of the Chihuahuan Echinomastus.

Everything looks great! What a job on that outdoor bed. It's fantastic. How are all your Fouquieria doing?

peterb
Thanks for the advice on the E. mariposensis! I'll be sure to be careful of this one.

My Fouquieria are slowly coming to life. One of my shrevei, my leonilae, and one of the purpusii all started to get new leaves in the past week or so. Strangely, both burragei, and both diguetii stayed essentially leafed out all winter. Both formosa have been partially leafed out for about a month. My macdougalii started leafing out out a while ago and is 1/2 way there already with starts of many inflorescences. My columnaris has of course been leafed out since October, but started its annual growth spurt right on time in January; it's already put on over 2" of additional growth this year. My splendens started leafing out not long ago and also is filled with inflorescences about a couple weeks from opening. The rest (both ochoterenae, both fasciculata) have yet to break dormancy yet.

Spring is definitely in the air here!
peterb
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Re: Minime8484's C&S Collection - 2012

Post by peterb »

F. columnaris as you mention is a winter grower with a fairly distinct summer dormancy. Is this true of other Fouquieria also? It seems splendens is just opportunistic and will grow and flower whenever there's water. But there are tropical species, yes? I love the genus but I'm woefully ignorant of the ones that are more rare and more southern.

I look forward to seeing pics of your plants as the season unfolds.

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Minime8484
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Re: Minime8484's C&S Collection - 2012

Post by Minime8484 »

peterb wrote:F. columnaris as you mention is a winter grower with a fairly distinct summer dormancy. Is this true of other Fouquieria also? It seems splendens is just opportunistic and will grow and flower whenever there's water. But there are tropical species, yes? I love the genus but I'm woefully ignorant of the ones that are more rare and more southern.
From my experience, the most vigorous growing season for almost all of the species is monsoon season here in the desert (late July through September). Some are especially vigorous at that time of year (burragei, diguetii, ochoteranae, formosa), and some seem to have more of their growth in late spring/early summer (fasciculata, shrevei, purpusii). F. splendens does certainly seem to be the most opportunistic; though, even splendens can be predicted to leaf out in early spring and bloom (like right now - even though we've had almost no precipitation for quite some time). Most species do tend to go dormant for the hottest part of the summer (end of June through July). One species - formosa - seems to thrive in the cold of winter and usually stays leafed out the entire time; it was the only species completely unaffected by the Big Freeze of 2007 and last winter. But then again, both burragei & macdougalii usually spend most of the winter bare and dormant, but this year only both (esp. burragei) stayed completely leafed out all winter!

However, I track what each is doing from month-to-month since I obtained them all (some 10 yrs ago), and one thing that is consistent across most species: there is often little consistency!

I often am able to predict when something will happen with them, but then one year the plant will do something completely different. Sometimes, one plant does one thing, the other of the same species does something completely different.

Bloom-wise, I've only had some species bloom, but those periods seem to be rather predictable:
formosa - tends start to bloom in winter here; but, this winter didn't get anything.
burragei - only had blooms for 2 years; 2010 it was blooming from April to November; 2011 August through November.
splendens - I've recorded blooms from every month of the year, but biggest flush is Spring, with smaller numbers consistently through the summer.
diguetii - late spring/summer, although this year it put out 3 inflorescences in October that ended up aborting by December.
macdougalii - huge flush of blooms in spring & a fall (though fall is not quite as spectacular), but again, I've recorded inflorescences in this species in some state of development every month of the year.
leonilae - late winter/early spring, though this year didn't get any blooms. Yet.
shrevei - Spring for sure, though limited data for this species (my plant only bloomed last year, but the ancient plant at the DBG I've also recorded as blooming only in Spring for years).

Anyhow, probably a lot more info than you wanted, but there it is! With more data and older plants, I'm sure the above will shift, change, or disappear entirely! Just depend on inconsistency, and you'll do fine! :D

Cheers,
Tristan
peterb
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Re: Minime8484's C&S Collection - 2012

Post by peterb »

Actually, that's exactly what i was wondering, thanks! the burragei down by La Paz was flowering in July last year, completely leafless plants, if I remember correctly. I don't have access to the pics here at work.

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Minime8484
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Re: Minime8484's C&S Collection - 2012

Post by Minime8484 »

Great - glad I could help!
Yeah - sometimes Fouquieria will bloom when completely leafless - I've had this happen for macdougalii, burragei, leonilae, & splendens. But, in all those species, I've also had them bloom when fully leafed out.
Go figure! :D
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Minime8484
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Re: Minime8484's C&S Collection - 2012

Post by Minime8484 »

A couple more cacti decided to open their first flowers today.
First, a recent acquisition - Echinocereus kroenleinii (=E. polsegeri).
Echinocereus kroenleinii (Chandler, AZ)
Echinocereus kroenleinii (Chandler, AZ)
Echinocereus polsegeri ssp. kroenleinii (2012-Mar01)A.JPG (35.03 KiB) Viewed 1087 times
And, my very first Eriosyce bloom ever - Eriosyce (Neoporteria) senilis - that I've been patiently waiting on for weeks now. Looks like the show will be in town for the long run! :D
Eriosyce senilis (Chandler, AZ)
Eriosyce senilis (Chandler, AZ)
Eriosyce senilis (2012-Mar04).JPG (56 KiB) Viewed 1087 times
Last edited by Minime8484 on Sat May 26, 2012 4:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.
peterb
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Re: Minime8484's C&S Collection - 2012

Post by peterb »

Beautiful! Someone was telling me that the kroenleinii flowers are highly fragrant?

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Minime8484
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Re: Minime8484's C&S Collection - 2012

Post by Minime8484 »

Thanks for the compliments!
I hadn't heard that about E. kroenleinii - I'll have to check tomorrow!
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Minime8484
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Re: Minime8484's C&S Collection - 2012

Post by Minime8484 »

Eriosyce still going strong this week.
Eriosyce senilis
Eriosyce senilis (Chandler, AZ)
Eriosyce senilis (Chandler, AZ)
Eriosyce senilis (2012-Mar09).JPG (50.83 KiB) Viewed 1087 times
And, today, my first Gymno of the season opened its flowers; looking forward to many more!
Gymnocalycium bruchii
Gymnocalycium bruchii (Chandler, AZ)
Gymnocalycium bruchii (Chandler, AZ)
Gymnocalycium bruchii (2012-Mar10).JPG (68.43 KiB) Viewed 1087 times
Last edited by Minime8484 on Sat May 26, 2012 5:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Arjen
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Re: Minime8484's C&S Collection - 2012

Post by Arjen »

great looking flowers!
With apologies to the late Professor C. D. Darlington the following misquotation springs to
mind ‘cactus taxonomy is the pursuit of the impossible by the incompetent’ - Fearn & Pearcy, Rebutia (1981)
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Minime8484
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Re: Minime8484's C&S Collection - 2012

Post by Minime8484 »

I think I've got all the older pics added back - many of the newer ones were still here! (Thanks, Daiv - what an amazing feat you've accomplished getting this all going again!)

In the meantime, another new bloomer for me. This is my second attempt at Echinocereus mapimiensis. My first one rotted despite babying with little/no water. ](*,)
This second one headed the same direction this summer, and by fall was a bit discolored towards the base and seemed a bit soft too. I figured it was a goner, but never got around to pulling it out for lack of anything to replace it.
Two weeks ago, I decided to pull it while doing some planting...and lo and behold, much to my surprise, it had a flower bud on it! :shock:

Sure enough - it must be happy from my neglect, and the flower opened yesterday; I really love the flower color that contrasts with the stigmas, and the beautiful bluish body color. Thanks, Darryl for this one!

I'll be sure to keep neglecting it in the future! :D
Echinocereus mapimiensis
Echinocereus mapimiensis
Echinocereus mapimiensis (2012-Mar13)A.jpg (79.83 KiB) Viewed 1189 times
Echinocereus mapimiensis - close-up of flower
Echinocereus mapimiensis - close-up of flower
Echinocereus mapimiensis (2012-Mar13)B.jpg (70.25 KiB) Viewed 1189 times
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John C
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Re: Minime8484's C&S Collection - 2012

Post by John C »

What a pretty little flower! 8)
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amanzed
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Re: Minime8484's C&S Collection - 2012

Post by amanzed »

I love that odd flower color!
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