A beginner's English windowsill collection

[Grimm]

A surprise entry at number 3 in my own flowering race, Mammillaria carmenae bought last year from Cactuscroatia. I had no idea it was developing flowers under those spines!



And, so that this post has a little more interest, a couple of outdoor succulents looking very different to their summer colours.


Echeveria sp


Delosperma dyeri

[ElieEstephane]

The echeveria is beautiful grimm! Are these cold stress colors?
Oh and and i'm jealous of your M. Carmenae

[Grimm]

The echeveria is beautiful grimm! Are these cold stress colors?

Yes, plus frost and rain burns etc. In summer the dead leaves will be hidden again and the live leaves will be a wonderful powder blue (there's a picture a page or two back). I'm not sure which Echeveria it is, I bought it unlabeled years ago. It is similar to E.secunda but more compact in its growth.

Oh and and i'm jealous of your M. Carmenae

I should hope so, given how much I paid for it At nearly 20USD it was one of my most expensive cacti! I have another that I bought locally at a much smaller size for 2GBP, almost a 10th the price!!! I wanted a larger specimen with sepia spines, rather than the red ones that are more commonly sold in the UK, and cream flowers rather than pink (the latter may indicate hybridisation with M.laui dasyacantha). Also, Spikeylover did mention in another thread that you can't get them in Lebanon, which seems odd given that they're one of the easiest to get here.

Unfortunately it won't retain the dense spines it currently has, with it having been grown in sunny Croatia until last year but now being in dull England.

[ElieEstephane]

Also, Spikeylover did mention in another thread that you can't get them in Lebanon, which seems odd given that they're one of the easiest to get here.

It's really weird what we get here sometimes. What's readily available from import here is rare in some other european countries. I don't remember the species but it was brought up by stefan m. This year some cacti from cactus andalucia in spain are starting to appear in the market that were not seen before (though still common) so i have my fingers crossed. Gymnocalycium horstii is somewhat of a commodity in Europe but i haven't seen a single one!
By the way, did your zeilmanniana bloom yet?
To make my post interesting, here are some M. Carmenae from cactuspro

2d_800x1000.jpg (50.11 KiB) Viewed 2451 times

5b_800x1000.jpg (51.47 KiB) Viewed 2451 times

[Grimm]

By the way, did your zeilmanniana bloom yet?

Not yet, but two flowers are ready to pop open. I thought it would happen today, with it being warm and sunny, maybe its waiting for some more water

A couple more outdoor succulents, first the monstrous Sempervivum tectorum that I rescued from an abandoned greenhouse in 2016:



It's covered in sawdust from me sanding down some furniture, but still looks great in its dark winter skin

Next, Sedum spectabile, a deciduous succulent. There were two clumps of this at my house when I moved in, one I later split and then last year potted up to see if it can be made happier than the ones in the ground. It started sprouting this years foliage a while back, and has survived all the snow, ice, and Siberian winds:



When it flowers later in the year it will look like this:


Sedum spectabile in October 2015

[toadstar]

To make my post interesting, here are some M. Carmenae from cactuspro
2d_800x1000.jpg
5b_800x1000.jpg

Those are interesting. Were they dyed or bleached?

[Grimm]

To make my post interesting, here are some M. Carmenae from cactuspro
2d_800x1000.jpg
5b_800x1000.jpg

Those are interesting. Were they dyed or bleached?

Carmenae has a habit of loosing its colour as the spines age, I assume that the ones Elie posted have been selectively bred to make the difference between young and old spines more extreme.

[ElieEstephane]

Yes at first assumed they loose their color but i wasn't sure so i googled it and here are a few other pics:

mammillaria-carmenae-v-rubra.jpg (42.79 KiB) Viewed 2408 times

WSY0037090_6083.jpg (28.49 KiB) Viewed 2408 times

I'm making myself want one so bad maybe i'm gonna start from seed and have a decent one in 10 years
Oh and the sedum flowers are crazy! I thought the vast majority was yellow

[Grimm]

The first carmenae has more flowers out, with more to come. I do love the contrast of the delicate white flowers, I have no idea why the nurseries have insisted on growing pink flowered ones instead:



And here's the little one:



I actually bought the little one to experiment on. Instead of trying to remove the horrible peat from the roots without killing them, as I usually do, I cut off the whole base of the cactus and re-rooted it. I did this last year and it's still doing well, and was one of the first cacti to show new growth this year, so it gives me an option with commercial cacti. However I also tried with a small Stenocactus multicostatus which didn't survive the treatment (dried up months later) so I do have to be careful.

And my Haworthia:



It's not a genus I'm particularly fond of, but I do like translucent plants, so I bought this cheaply on an impulse

[ElieEstephane]

Instead of trying to remove the horrible peat from the roots without killing them, as I usually do, I cut off the whole base of the cactus and re-rooted it.

What i do is soak the whole thing in a bucket of water for 5-10 min, hold the cactus firmly in my hand by the base, submerge the base a little in the bucket and wiggle the root ball very fast under water. It will take off 80% of the peat. The rest i rub off the roots with my fingers underwater. Let the the roots air dry for a few days and you're good to go. I did this to 99% of my cacti and never lost a single one so it's worth trying IMO because sometimes wholesale cacti have very extensive root systems and it's a shame to lose it all.
I never applied anything to the roots but now i'm in the habit of spraying diluted hydrogen peroxide on the roots because why not.
If you ever come up some very cheap cacti, try experimenting with this method

[Grimm]

Do I win?

[ElieEstephane]

Do I win?

Yes you do! The bugger i have will open its flowers tomorrow -_- i should have moved it to full sun

[Grimm]

Mammillaria carmenae at its height, earlier in the month, although it is still flowering now:



M.zeilmanniana went on a break after the first flower and only opened the second a few days ago, although it did open four/five at once! My Mammillaria albilanata has also rewarded me for the harsh treatment it got last year (removing mealy bugs, most of the roots as they were dead, and the remains of a plug of peat) with its first flower - it was closed for the day by the time I noticed so I will have to try to photo it tomorrow.

EDIT: Photo:

[Grimm]

I bought the following Astrophytum capricorne from a cactus nursery last year as I liked the colour of its flowers, not realising it was so sickly until I got it home (I must have been blind!!!) The roots were bound up in a little root-ball shaped like a pot it must have been in years ago, and the apical fuzz was crammed full of mealy bugs. I still struggle to believe it is still alive, especially as it has shown no new growth at the tip even though my other Astrophytums have done. I'm still very cautious of watering it, as I have no idea what condition the roots are in....

[7george]

It is important to kill those bugs first and than to start with light waterings since roots maybe are not spread into whole soil volume yet. May is the time when Astros start to grow normally and mine are watered just once this spring.