We're slowly making our way to my big End-of-summer review, but before we get there, here are a few special items of interest...
Is this cactus growing?
It's a question I've been asking myself ever since I acquired an Uebelmannia pectinifera multicostata from one of our old forum members over 4 years ago. Here's what the lovely plant looked like all potted up on 5/3/13:
Vibrant new spines on the growth point back then, although there were no telltale signs of new growth the following year. Was there a problem? Yep, and I discovered it when I began a big project to move the collection from "dirty" mineral mix to clean mix in 2015. Here's a comparison of the roots on 5/3/13 and 2/21/15:
The "dirty" mix had set up like a brick -- surviving, yes, but no wonder the Uebelmannia wasn't growing. The remedy here was a good dose of clean pumice and granite gravel with a 20% dash of soil mixed in to support the finer side of new fibrous roots that should be growing. No change after its first growing season in the new mix, but I wasn't expecting anything since the new roots needed time to establish. Let's give it another year and see what we have -- on 3/26 and 9/17/16:
The plant was taking up water, so that's progress. But still no sign of new spines yet. This year was different, and something I've been waiting a long time to see (6/17/17):
We'll get a close-up on the growth point -- 6/17, 7/1, and 7/16:
Yes, indeed -- this cactus is
finally growing!
Replacing an F. castanea
After I got out of the hobby in 1991, I had a lot of catching up to do when I built a new collection 20 years later. Cactuspedia turned out to be a great place for discovery, and any genus that was new to me became part of the hunt for cacti I hadn't tried growing before. Frailea caught my eye, and specifically castanea because it was (and still is) such a fascinating species. The only source I had in 2011 was the California Cactus Center, but they didn't stock Fraileas in their inventory. The forum broadened my horizons quite a bit after I joined in Novemver 2011, which led me to CoronaCactus Nursery as my preferred source in 2012. Darryl Craig provided me with a 2-year-old F. castanea seedling in December 2012, and it did rather well over the next 4 years. And here it was going from its first summer under my care (8/25/13) to the last one on 9/17/16:
When I cleared away the seed pod you see on the right, something about the castanea looked a bit odd -- for one thing, the center was more deeply depressed than it had been in previous summers. For another, it was slowly going from round to oblong (I hadn't seen this behavior in the plant before). However, I didn't think much about it, and since the castanea needed a somewhat bigger pot anyway, it was repotting time on 2/25/17:
Those roots looked good, the new pot was the right size, and as for that winter shriveling? My castanea usually plumps up right after its first watering of the year, but this time the response I expected just wasn't there -- repotting day on the left, then after not 1, but 2 deep drinks:
Yep, the castanea was dead, dead, dead. This quote from Cactuspedia sums up the situation: "Fraileas are relatively short-lived plants, only lasting few years (rarely more than 10-15 years in cultivation)...what looks like a healthy plant may suddenly die of old age without warning." I already knew about this, so it wasn't surprising, just disappointing that the plant couldn't live longer than 6 years. Now to find a replacement. I saw castaneas for sale on eBay, although I wasn't thrilled with the selection. I've been doing business with Miles' To Go since 2013, and since Miles Anderson has been known to stock them from time to time, he was the first one I thought of. Unfortunately he didn't have them available on his website, so I emailed him to find out if he might have one I could buy. And I was in luck as Miles sent me a gem that was even nicer than the castanea I got from CoronaCactus. The new replacement here on 7/8:
While it may seem like the new castanea is overpotted, I've been working with pure mineral mix long enough to know that those roots will fill in quite well. Truth be told, the CoronaCactus plant grew up to be kind of a "runt", so I think we'll be seeing a much bigger castanea over the next couple of years. In the meantime...
Here's the new kid in town hiding behind my Ariocarpus fissuratus (7/16):
Same view, different angle on 7/22:
I was used to seeing my old castanea going straight from buds to seed pods, so I was excited by the possibility of seeing this one go from bud to bloom. Here's what I got a day later:
The bud was set in the high heat of the Arizona desert, so this may be the first and only castanea flower I'll get to witness. Don't think my summers are hot enough for repeat performances, but going from buds to pods would suit me just fine. Actually, another part of the Cactuspedia quote gave me a good idea: "In fact they [Fraileas] reseed readily around the base of the mother plant from self-set seed if kept reasonably moist during warm weather." That pot is just asking for seedlings to join the party -- while I don't want to get ahead of myself, I'll simply say that a seed pod dehisced all over the plant in September, so I'll keep an eye out for sprouting next year.
Obregonia denegrii -- first flower!
They seem awfully hard to come by here in the US, but I found one on eBay in May of last year. Didn't know the seller, but I think he's a private collector, not a nurseryman. That would explain why he didn't disclose the presence of scale before I made the transaction. Even if he did, I would've taken the plant anyway -- after all, beggars can't be choosers. After I got the denegrii on 5/22/16, I gave it a good drench 2 weeks later, then an Imidacloprid soil soak 2 weeks after that. Between that and the plant's thick, waxy skin, the scale insects didn't stand a chance. The silly things tried to have another go this spring, same remedy, same results. Trying to clear off a bunch of dead scale was the only problem I had. A high-pressure water nozzle would certainly do it, but that wasn't going to happen. What you're about to see is a bit unsightly, but at least I was able to do some "corpse removal" first -- the view on 7/26/17:
Here's a close-up -- could that little black thing in the wool be a bud?
On 7/26 and 7/28 -- yesirree, that's a bud!
The next day, 2 look-alike flowers on completely different species (that's one of my Turb polaskiis in the background):
The denegrii's first flower up close and personal:
Small but pretty, and I love those colors. The denegrii bloomed one more time in August, although I wasn't able to get it on camera. Since this is only its first year in flower, I'll be interested to find out if the blooms might be a bit more prolific next summer.
The ups and downs -- and ups of an Astrophytum asterias
Of the Astrophytums I grew in my younger days, asterias was the one species I could never figure out. So much I didn't know way back then, but Darryl's general recommendation for using mineral mix led to a game-changing year for the collection in 2012. Credit where credit is due -- it was only fitting to know that my first success growing an asterias came from the one I bought from him that July. I was thrilled to see my very first asterias flower a year later, with more flowers in the summers of 2014 and '15. The plant itself kept a healthy dark green color until I noticed that its skin started turning kinda pale early last spring. The effects of winter heat stress, perhaps? (Believe it or not, there were some toasty days in February and March. The previous winter was even toastier.) Not the skin color changes I was expecting -- on 3/26, 6/24, and 9/18/16:
The asterias was definitely taking up water, and being slow growers by nature, the amount of growth we see here is pretty much normal. The only thing concerning me was the fact that every one of its buds aborted. No need to worry this year, as a bud the asterias set in early May looked like it'd be going somewhere -- progress on 6/18 and 7/15:
From bud to bloom on 7/16 and 7/18:
A bird's-eye view of the flower:
I don't know what accounts for the changes in skin color, but I find it very attractive, and more interesting than the vast majority of dark green asterias we'll see everywhere. The brown patches around the base would be typical Astrophytum corking behavior, although I've gone through a lot of photos online and I can't find any examples of asterias corking. Oh, well -- it is what it is, so this doesn't bother me. By the way, if you look closely at the asterias as it sits behind my Obregonia, that bud made it to blooming in October.
Before I prepare for my post covering August, we'll rewind to 6/18 and 3 of my 2011 "veterans" on the back shelf of Sun Valley -- large and lovely:
This shot focuses on the Astrophytum capricorne with 3 buds well on the way (6/18 and a month later):
I missed the opportunity to photograph the biggest bud going into bloom, but we may get another "bite at the apple" with the others.
