Introducing myself

diana.v · Post by **diana.v** » Sat Aug 31, 2019 10:27 pm

Hello, everyone!
My name is Diana, I live in London and I have a small cacti collection. My space is a bit limited right now, but hoping in a few years we will have our own place where I would like to expand it.

I posted a while ago in the ID section of this forum, and with the help of some lovely people, managed to ID almost all of the cacti in my collection.
I have been following the forum for a while now, learned a great deal in the meantime, and, decided to finally introduce myself and show some of my babies.
A lot of them have gone through some rough times, as I didn't take care of them properly, plus me being away for 3 months at the end of 2017 summer, resulted in losing a lot of them.

Presently, I keep all my cacti on the conservatory windowsill, where just recently when we had those highs at the end of August, a few of them got roasted

We only moved here in may this year, so I don't know how the temperature will be in there for the winter and how my cacti will cope; the humidity is at around 60% during the night and it drops a lot during the day.

I have around 40 cacti, mostly small, common species, nothing too fancy, but I love them all.
The following cacti are my oldest survivors

Sarraceniacrazy · Post by **Sarraceniacrazy** » Sun Sep 01, 2019 12:50 am

Hello Diana! Welcome to the forum. You have some very beautiful plants. Love that E. rigidissimus.

gemhunter178 · Post by **gemhunter178** » Sun Sep 01, 2019 1:56 am

Welcome! A nice selection of plants you have there! Nicely grown!

teo · Post by **teo** » Sun Sep 01, 2019 7:47 am

The Gasteria looks like my 'Little Warty'

WayneByerly · Post by **WayneByerly** » Mon Sep 02, 2019 11:02 pm

Hello Diana

Welcome to the forum. I joined in March of 2014 and have been piquantly touched by the friendliness, the helpfulness, the willingness of other members to expend their time in trying to assist me. I have NEVER, not once, ran across any rudeness or any other behavior that might cause one to label the person speaking as a "troll". This has not been true in other forums that I have been to. I tell you this in order that you might understand that you are going to have the most pleasant experiences here that you will ever have anywhere. The members here, for the most part, are very knowledgeable and their kindness and unselfishness are just extraordinary.

OK ... that said, I would like to say that you have a nice little collection there, I wish you the best of luck in your attempts to expand it. It looks as though you have the same addiction to cacti that the rest of us seem to have. It's a terribly difficult one to beat, but I find the benefits of this addiction (the beauty of the flowers and the very profound appeal of the plants) to be SO very powerful that I have NO desire at all to beat it!!!

Your Stetsonia coryne is just beautiful, and I think you are going to be so pleased and so surprised when your Echinocereus rigidissimus flowers! I have one, and the powerful brilliantly pink flowers look like this:

: 016 2319-05-21 Echinocereus rigidissimus var. rubrispinus DSCF6733.jpg (57.81 KiB) Viewed 5502 times

Once more, welcome to the forum, and I hope you have the same VERY pleasant experiences here that I have had.

Wayne

hegar · Post by **hegar** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 1:18 pm

Hello Diana,
looking at your posted photos, you are doing really well growing cacti and succulents. It is impressive, to see how much some of your plants have increased in size and volume over the years.
You already found out, that for some plants to flower you do have to wait a few years. That is definitely the case with the Echinocereus rigidissimus ssp. rubrispinus. I also do have one of these cacti and it has not changed very much over the years. However, it does bloom now dependably every year. This year it did produce two blossoms for the very first time.

While some cacti go wild, producing additional stems, this one is still a single stemmed plant. However, even if not in bloom, the beautiful coloration of the spines makes this cactus attractive. There is a plant, which does not look too much different and seems to be growing more quickly. It is the Arizona Rainbow (Echinocereus pectinatus). If you do have the space for it, you should consider getting one of these too. Of course, I would also suggest the Texas Rainbow (Echinocereus dasyacanthus), which does have beautiful large flowers in various shades of yellow.

Harald

diana.v · Post by **diana.v** » Thu Apr 02, 2020 1:52 pm

Hello everyone!

First I want to thank you for your welcome, and secondly to apologise for never replying, I never meant to be rude, just had some difficult moments at that time in my life, and was not able to get back online for a while.

In the meantime my collection has grown a bit. My cacti were fine over the winter in our conservatory, but I lost one: my Matucana polzii. I stopped watering somewhere at the end of October, and everything was going well, but one day, in December, I don't know what sprung in my mind that the cacti in the tiny pots might want some water, so I gave a few of them a tablespoon of water each. In a few days, the mother sunk in, and all but two pups survived.
Lesson learned

At the moment a few of the cacti are in bud/flowering. Just really keeping my fingers crossed for that Echinocereus rigidissimus to flower this year

Ever since I read on this forum about cleaning the roots of new cacti, I really wanted to do the same for mine. Last year, at the end of September, I repotted some my cacti in plastic rectangular pots, and in pure crushed lava rock. I know it was contrary to everything I read, as their roots don't get to grow back as much before winter, but with a bit of luck, all of them were fine and now showing signs of spring growth

This year I'm planning to do the same for all of them.
I have also attached some sheer curtain to the windows in the conservatory, to protect my little ones this summer. I stuck it with blue tack, so not very pretty, but it does the job

As a fertiliser, I am using half strength Tomorite, and after the spring flowering, Cactus Focus at the recommended dose.

diana.v · Post by **diana.v** » Thu Apr 02, 2020 2:19 pm

Some more pictures

Aloha916 · Post by **Aloha916** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 12:38 am

Beautiful flower on that mirabilis!

Shane · Post by **Shane** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 1:18 am

You have some nice cacti! (Very belated) welcome to the forum!

Newton · Post by **Newton** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 5:19 am

Hi Diana
Great cactus collection. Some of these will surely be still with you in fifty years or so..... I hope.
Wishing you well during the current corona contagion. I'm stuck in pakistan (there are worst place I could be) with all flights being cancelled. At least the weather is quite good here for the time being.

My sons looking after my collection in Blackburn lancashire in the meantime. I so hope he doesn't over water some of them.
Might bump into you at one of the shows, if ever you travel up north. I tend to do Tatton Park, Hampton Court Palace, Harrogate and Southport
Take care and all the best
Chas

diana.v · Post by **diana.v** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 1:11 pm

Hello hello!

Thank you everyone for the kind words!

I hope everyone will stay safe during these hard times.

I actually sown some of the Echinopsis mirabilis seeds I harvested, last year on the 29th of July, together with some mixed cacti seed packs I bought from various sellers. I now have a mini pot full of them, waiting to be repotted. Was actually thinking to repot them together in an oval bonsai pot that I have. Would be a nice show to see all of them flowering. Aaaand since I have been put on furlough from next Monday till June, I will have plenty of time on my hands to do this.

I am so excited as I bought a few packs of mixed seeds from a seller on etsy, some Gymnocalyciums, Rebutias, Melocactuses, Astrophytums, and some 'zones' mixed packets, like cacti from Argentina, from Chile and so on. Just trying to get the hang of it really, as I don't expect that I'll be able to keep all of them alive, but will try my best and learn from mistakes.
I also bought a Uebelmania pectinifera from a seller in uk and two Mammillaria perezdelarosae that are coming from the Czech Republic. I am dying to see those 2 perezdelarosae as they are one of my favourite cacti

Usually, the only show I was going to, was Chelsea Flower Show, that I was eagerly waiting for, but unfortunately everything is cancelled now. I hope when all this goes back to normal, I will be able to visit more 'cactus focused' shows.
That's what I really hope for too, Chas! I want when I'm 80 (if I get there

) to sit in my future cacti greenhouse with a cup of tea and just marvel at my old beauties

Just crossed my mind, that Mammillaria that I couldn't ID looks like a hairless Mam. hahniana. Hmmm will have to wait to see the flowers.

Best wishes to everyone!

Newton · Post by **Newton** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 3:20 pm

diana.v wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 1:11 pm Hello .
That's what I really hope for too, Chas! I want when I'm 80 (if I get there ) to sit in my future cacti greenhouse with a cup of tea and just marvel at my old beauties
!

I do that now and the grandchildren complain that I talk a lot more to the plants these days....lol

greenknight · Post by **greenknight** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 4:30 pm

I missed this thread originally, so here's my belated welcome - Welcome to CactiGuide!

The tiny flowers that don't open fully on your M. columbiana confirm that it's correctly identified, which can be tricky since it's quite a variable species. The fruits are much more colorful than the flowers, hope you get some.

diana.v · Post by **diana.v** » Thu Apr 09, 2020 11:13 am

Officially all my cacti have had their roots cleaned and repotted in fuji grit! I wish I would've learned this long time ago...

I started watering at the beginning of March, and while all the ones I repotted last autumn have been doing great, budding, flowering and just growing nicely, I was having problems with a few that had yet to be repotted, that were just refusing to plump back up. Both A. myriostigmas, Parodia, G. damsii were doing nothing and my G. baldianum was squishier then ever. It took 3 days of continually watering and eventually just soaking the hole pot in water for my G. baldianum to become firm. That's when I decided to repot everything as soon as I can.

The G. baldianum and the little A. myriostigma had the worst root bound/brick I ever seen. I probably spent about half an hour on the baldianum alone. Of course when I pulled them out of their pots, I discovered that when I was watering them, water would run through my fresh mix ( 1 part chicken grit/1 part compost/1 part sand at the time) and barely wet the outside of the peat brick where all the roots were. I proceeded to slowly free the roots out of the peat brick, only to find out that inside there was another smaller peat brick plug! No wonder they had difficulties soaking up the water. My G. damsii is so dehydrated it sunk over its roots and looks like jellyfish right now. Fingers crossed everything goes well, I'll start watering them in a week or two. I just really hope G. baldianum is not going to abort the buds

I also repotted my Setiechinopsis mirabilis seedlings, all in a bonsai pot. If they survive, I'm hoping for a nice bloom display in a couple of years.