My flowering Cacti 2017

[Arjen]

lovely plants and flowers Harald! I especially love the show that E. eyriesii is putting on, a similar flower display ignited my cactus fever years ago

[hegar]

Thank you, Arjen, for your kind words. This year, a lot of my plants insist on blooming, when I am at work. Also, a good number of them produced only a very small number of blossoms. Early next spring I shall give the plants a little additional feeding and include some micronutrients. Perhaps that will give better results.
As far as the Echinopsis eyriesii is concerned, that plant never disappoints. The flowers are large and very numerous. I constantly have to remove some of the new stems that are encroaching on spots where other cacti are growing. These plants also flower repeatedly each year, and - because the blossoms open shortly before midnight and are open until oftentimes the next day early afternoon - I always can get a good photo of them.
I fully understand, why some cactus growers only grow plants of the genus Echinopsis.
Well, today I knew, that one of my small cacti was going to flower. It only bloomed once before, last year, and I did not get to take a look at the blossom then. This time around it did produce two flower buds. The plant looks like an Echinocereus pentalophus. However, while my other E. pentalophus plants have purple stems due to either too much light, heat, or cold, this plant stays green.
Fortunately, I was able to talk my wife into taking a few pictures. I am going to post two of them.
A member of my local cactus club told me, that my plant could also be an E. berlandieri and getting a look at the blossom would tell me, which one of these two species Is present in my front yard. Well, it does look like another E. pentalophus.

Harald

Green Penta2.JPG (315.81 KiB) Viewed 2874 times

Green Penta4.JPG (313.14 KiB) Viewed 2874 times

[hegar]

Today's flowering cactus is yet another member of the genus Echinocereus. This plant ,E. viereckii ssp. morricalii, last bloomed in my front yard in June 2014. Because the nearby vigorous and taller prickly pear cacti did not allow enough light to reach this small cactus, it stopped blooming.
Cutting some of the Opuntia sp. pads off allowed more light in and the cactus responded by producing three flower buds. This is the first to open.

Harald

E_viereckii_ssp_morricalii1.JPG (351.11 KiB) Viewed 2861 times

E_viereckii_ssp_morricalii3.JPG (294.77 KiB) Viewed 2861 times

[hegar]

Today, only one cactus that I have not yet shown was flowering. It was my Opuntia aciculate. I do like that plant, because it does not have the typically yellow flower and also because of its geometrically arranged prominent tufts of glochids, with a beautiful brown color. The plant is only producing one blossom, because it too was almost covered up by the larger prickly pear cacti nearby.

Harald

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O_aciculata2.JPG (223.51 KiB) Viewed 2835 times

[hegar]

Since my last post several Turbinicarpus members of my outdoor cactus population did flower. Unfortunately, by the time I came home from work, the blossoms had already closed. Yesterday, one cactus was in bloom. That one is a plant, that grows here where I live. It is the smallest of the cholla group (Cylindropuntia leptocaulis) and the blossoms are small and not showy. The common name of this cactus is "Christmas Cholla", because it holds onto its red fruit until Christmas time and longer, making the fruit look like a Christmas ornament.

Harald

[hegar]

Today I had some good news and some bad news concerning my cacti. The good news is, that both Astrophytum asterias (prob. hybrids, because of the pronounced ribs) were in bloom, the bad news is, that a smaller plant, which may have been a pure strain had to be removed, because it had gone into a rot. It looked fine a few days ago, then - when I was getting ready to water the plants - I noticed, that its grey-green color had darkened and lost the green color component. Touching the plant, it was like squeezing a bag with jelly.
I still cannot figure out, what went wrong. Do I water too much (once weekly, if no rain has fallen and the temperatures are hovering in the 90 degree range) or was the plant subjected to too much sun? I had placed some field stones around it, to give it a little shade. The plant was growing in rather coarse grit-like sand particles for quick drainage and surrounded by larger pebbles used as a ground cover. These failures I still cannot explain, and they are embarrassing, because I am one of the guys, who tries to give growing advice and plant health problem diagnosis help to members on this forum. I found out, that at least when it comes to my Peniocereus greggii (Queen of the Night) plants, I should not water at all. Those plants do store sufficient amounts of water in their tuberous roots. I am shying away to give the small cacti with their small bodies and root systems the same "no-care" treatment. Our sun is hot and the air usually rather low in relative humidity.
Perhaps one of the readers of this posting will have a good suggestion. I hate to kill rare plants, for which I have spent good money.

Harald

P.S.: These plants have flowered at least three times this year (May 2nd, May 22nd, and today). I probably did miss another time, because I was not at home, when the blossom(s) were open.

[hegar]

Well, I missed the flowering of my only Echinocereus pulchellus once again. When I arrived back home from work, the blossom was almost completely closed. At least I was able to see a medium pink flower color (see attachment).

In a few years, I shall be retired and will not miss anything that is going on in the cactus beds.

Harald

[keith]

Outstanding garden

[toadstar]

You could always set up a time lapse camera to take pictures while you're away.

[hegar]

Thank you, Keith for the compliment and Toadstar for the suggestion with time lapse photography. I will most likely try yet another approach: purchase several plants of those cacti that bloom at the "wrong time". That way I shall get more flowers overall and it should be highly unlikely, that all the flower buds will open on just on the same one day. I did just that when I found out, that the Echinocactus horizonthalonius cactus flowered only one day (from about 9 a.m. until 3:30 p.m.) I did stock up on them and have now six plants. Also, I found out, that this cactus will bloom several times, which makes it more likely, that I will actually be home when the event occurs.


Harald

[hegar]

Well, I was kind of surprised, when I saw one blossom on my only Mammillaria grahamii after I returned from work today. I shall place a nicer image here in a few days, when several of the buds should open, making the plant a little more attractive.
I did not really pay much attention to this cactus, because I thought, that it was on its way out - and it well may be.
Last year I noticed, that the stem had become rather lop-sided and I took that for a bad sign. This kind of cactus is actually a plant that can be found growing in the wild around my home town of El Paso, Texas.

Harald

[Grimm]

Perhaps one of the readers of this posting will have a good suggestion. I hate to kill rare plants, for which I have spent good money.

It might not be anything you did. I think many/all of us forget at times that plants can get sick through no fault of our own, and with yours growing outside I would guess that they are more prone to damage than glasshouse or windowsill plants. Even a tiny bit of damage caused by an insect or bird could have let in a bacteria or fungus.

[hegar]

Hello Grimm,
thank you for trying to make me feel better. Of course, you are correct, when you state, that outdoor plants cannot be grown with as much control than cacti and succulents inside a greenhouse. However, I seem to be losing more plants percentagewise than most of the other local established growers. That happens, despite reading and trying to implement changes in cultivation that supposedly are beneficial to growing these kinds of plants.
Also, it is a bit embarrassing, that I am actively giving people advice about insect and pathogen problems, which makes me even feel worse, when yet another cactus dies. Some of these plants seem to be doing fine for a number of years, and then - boom - they get a rot.

Now to change the topic: The Mammillaria grahamii did open the other blossoms today. So the plant does actually look more like a Mammillaria, with the typical ring-like arrangement of flowers. The first image I took with the sun almost setting, allowing the sun to shine on the plant. The second picture was taken at almost exactly the same time, but I blocked the sunlight. I think, both of the images are OK, just a little different.

Harald

[Grimm]

Very nice flowers on on the grahamii!

I'm not experienced enough to advise, but I would have thought that if you haven't changed how you look after the plants then surely it must be down to some environmental factor that you've started to loose established plants? Maybe the weather has been different these past couple of years, or a pest has migrated into your garden?

[thorneyheart]

That is a really lovely gramahii you got there. Not actually bad at all to have at least five flowers to bloom.