I started this review way back in October 2019, and for those of you who missed the "preamble" in Part 1, here's the gist of it...
I covered a lot of my history in the hobby with the 2018 review, and my 2019 review is a continuation of the 2018 experience. If you'd like to get the detailed backstories on the plants you're seeing here, the links from 2018 will do just that. The "then and now" connection seems to be working well, so we'll keep it going as we're only a couple of installments away from wrapping this up.
In today's presentation, we'll review 5 cacti, 2 of which come...
From C and D Plants (December 2015)
- Puna clavarioides and Cumulopuntia rossiana var. fuauxiana -- link from 2018 review Part 9
The Puna's first photo on 12/18/15:
It took the plant over a year to root well enough for signs of activity above-ground -- new growth on 4/9, 5/29, and 10/8/17:
Transplanted from its tiny 2" terracotta pot to a glazed ceramic pot in June 2018, here it is on 6/17 and 10/7/18, then showing another year of growth on 10/6/19:
I was hoping that the Puna would grow a new stem or two from its base last year, so kinda disappointing to see the only new growth coming from the stems it sprouted in 2017. P. clavarioides wants a hot, dry climate -- maybe the rather humid Mediterranean-type climate in my part of L.A. is the reason why its growth is so slow. However, I'm not about to kick the plant out of the collection just for that, so I'll keep the Puna going as I show you the latest in my 2020 review.
No disappointment with the other cactus I got from C and D -- first photo on 12/18/15:
Another tiny plant in a tiny 2" pot, but unlike the Puna, the Cumulopuntia rooted easily. Spanning a year of growth on 10/8/17 and 10/20/18:
The plant grew well enough for the move to a bigger pot in July 2019, so you'll see that in the following 4-panel pic on 9/17/16 and 4/29/17, repotting day on 7/13/19, and 10/6/19:
The view from above on 7/13 and 10/6/19:
C. rossiana's flowers are huge compared to the plant -- although mine isn't mature enough yet, I'd love to see its first blooms. In 2021 perhaps?
Although eBay can be a minefield of badly overpriced (and sometimes poached) cacti, responsible and trusted sellers offering plants at fair prices are to be found there if you know who they are. One of them happens to be Kyle Williams, and coming out of his eBay storefront, we'll review a couple of cacti...
From Kyle's Plants
First photo on 7/30/16:
9/18/16, 9/23/17, 9/29/18, and 10/5/19:
A bird's-eye view on 10/22/16 and 10/5/19:
All of those spent flowers on the right came at the end of a wonderful summer, so here's the beginning -- nice crop of buds on 7/1/19, and the subterranea's first bloom of the year a day later:
Same flower on 7/3, and another one on 7/16:
1 flower on 8/24 turns into 2 on 8/25:
And it appears that we have a monstrose bloom on 8/31:
The plant is a reliable bloomer, and I have a new crop of subterranea flowers held in reserve which I'll post at a later date.
First photo on 6/24/18:
9/29/18, then for 2019 we have the end of normal winter stress and shriveling on 3/31, spring plumping after the denegrii's first good snootful of water on 4/7, and the end of its summer on 10/5:
Hard to see the Obregonia's growth point from the side, so we'll do something about that with a "helicopter shot" on 9/29/18 and 10/5/19:
Kyle is a talented grower, and I recommend Kyle's Plants highly to all of our US members.
We'll end this installment with a genuine rarity coming...
From a private collector in West Hollywood, CA (January 2017)
First photo on 1/29/17:
The backstory on this plant is pretty amazing, so if you haven't seen it before, check out the link and read through the commentary I posted. Then after you see the photos below, I'll have a couple of comments following up on what I said in the 2018 review, and you may find them to be interesting.
A. ritteri is notorious for being the slowest-growing species in the cactus family, so with that in mind, look carefully at these shots from 9/27/17 and 10/13/19:
At first blush, it doesn't look like the ritteri is growing at all. But if your powers of observation are keen, you'll see that it is in fact growing.
Yet another tiny plant in a tiny 2" pot -- no disrespect to the seller, but he didn't leave me much in the way of roots to work with. Now let's see if I did a good job of growing a better root system in my soil-less pumice and granite gravel mix -- a side view on 1/29/17 and 10/13/19:
Guess I did, because the roots pushed the plant up above the black line on the right representing its "soil line". While the pot's diameter is still correct, the ritteri could use a deeper pot. I happen to have one, so I'll repot it accordingly when the new growing season begins. When I do, I'll post before-and-after photos so we can see what the roots look like these days.
I was pleasantly surprised to see my very first ritteri flower in the summer of 2017, and the bud you saw in the 9/27/17 shot led to the 3rd of 5 blooms that year -- not too shabby, huh? No flowers in 2018, but the ritteri made up for it the following summer -- from a bud on 7/27 and 7/28...
...to a bloom on 7/29:
A "twofer" of buds to blooms on 8/13 and 8/16:
The best of the bunch with the ritteri's first "threefer" on 9/25/19:
Going back to the 2018 review, I usually don't quote myself, but this time I have to:
Steve Johnson wrote: ↑Sat Aug 03, 2019 5:11 pmIn the wild, Aztekium's native soil contains limestone or gypsum. Since Calcium is a natural growth inhibitor, the absence of a Calcium supplement in the seller's mix would explain the better growth rate of his Aztekiums, the ritteri included. And while his mix is nice and lean, there's nothing leaner than pumice and granite gravel, so my ritteri has been in clean mineral mix from the start. (Not even a hint of limestone added, by the way.)
MikeInOz recently corrected a serious factual error I made, and what I said turned out to be a myth that's been perpetuated by wrong-headed folks spreading it over the years. The plain fact is that Calcium is an important minor nutrient for
all plants xeric and otherwise -- if you don't have it in your fertilizer regimen, you'll need to add some limestone to your mix as a source of Calcium for your plants. Either way, the grower who sold the ritteri to me was giving the plant enough Calcium, and I made a bad assumption about what I thought he was doing. Sheer dumb luck on my part -- it's still getting enough through the Dyna Gro All Pro 7-7-7 I've been using since 2012. A. ritteri typically grows at a rate of 1 mm. per year, and since we know that Calcium is
not a growth inhibitor, the following quote from the response I got when I emailed the seller is of particular interest:
"Hi Steve, the 1 mm per year growth might be in habitat. My A. hintonii's grow around 2 cm a year, and I get 0.5-0.75 cm per year on A ritteri. (For A. valdezii, I only have grafted ones, so data is irrelevant). I grow in a heavy pumice mix (80%), with 20% compost (with no peat moss or pine park). I use 20-20-20 fertilizer, which I use full strength twice a month in spring, half strength weekly in summer."
Here in the US, "full strength" means 1 teaspoon of fertilizer diluted in a gallon of water. I fertilize all of my cacti with half-strength 7-7-7, so he was fertilizing a lot more than I am -- that would explain why my growth rate isn't matching his. Okay, the rate of 1 mm. per year is what I've been getting, but Mike taught me something really important that could make the plant grow a little bit faster without pushing it. I won't tell you what that something is yet, but I think it might be a good way to kick off the 2020 review. It won't be about just the ritteri either. In the meantime, the end of our 2019 journey awaits.