My how things change...

[bartab]

A few years ago some friends gave us a few succulents and I began to get into cactus a little bit. I thought I was pretty cool bringing home a few cacti from the big box places. You know, the Mammillaria elongata and stuff along those lines. Plopped them into a new pot with my bagged cactus soil and tried to hold off a few days to water. Watered from the hose every week or so, it was hard stretching it out to 10 days. They sat out on a small table in full sun a lot of the day.

So was repotting a few plants last night and laughing how things have changed. I now have the ceramic pots for the most part to go along with my typically 60/40 mix consisting of a couple of different types of pumice that have been through sieves to get the size I want. The granite I finally found in the San Francisco East Bay at a landscape materials place and while there some lava caught my eye because of the mix of sizes and color. Seems perfect, although I'm not really sure what good lava does. I now have two big tables under 40% shade cloth. Maybe a few over 200 plants. But wait, one of the plants I'm potting up is a Turb. lophophoroides, and I'm going to add a little bit of gypsum to that, because that was just in a forum topic. Besides the Turb., I'm potting up a Puna clavarioides (I have 4 now), I have a tough time turning them away. Another is a Copiapoa lizard skin, and a grafted luethyi, with hopes of degrafting in the future. Not really into grafts, but also have a bonnieae on a low graft from Desert Creations that is fantastic. I won't water them for at least a week. But in the meantime I water other things on their schedule. This year I am using distilled water with Dyna-gro, thanks Steve. And paying attention to the pH of the water. Shooting for 6.5. Thanks Steve, again. My small pots that I used to water every 7-10 days early on are this year going 17 days between waterings. And I don't worry if I need to wait another day or so. The Coryphantha's and the Epithelantha's and the Echinomastus don't mind that at all. I was watering some plants the other evening at the 17 day mark and noticed a couple valdezianus that were super plump and I just skipped over them this time. Maybe another day.