Piante grasse cactus spine

Tag: cultivation

Spring is here, what to do with cacti and succulents? All out or is it better to wait?

Spring, the so-called beautiful season, has now begun: what to do with cacti and succulents? Should you take plants kept indoors outside during the winter? Remove covers or layers of non-woven fabric? Resume watering? Fertilize plants?

Spring is the season of recovery for all plants, and succulents are no exception. Many species are already in full bloom, such as Stenocactus, Strombocactus, many Turbinicarpus and several Mammillaria. Be careful, however, there is a difference between flowering and vegetative growth: a plant can flower even if it has not fully resumed vegetating. Simply, this is its flowering period and the plant respects it even if it is still coming out of the winter “dormancy” state. As regards temperatures, obviously there is a big difference based on the area in which it is grown, so in some regions of the South the night-time minimums can already be above 10 degrees, while in the North we still have relatively low values, around 2 or 3 degrees. This factor is fundamental to understanding whether we can move our plants outside or not. Equally important is the time to resume watering. Can we start watering cacti and succulents these days or is it better to wait a little longer? Finally: with the start of the summer, is it necessary to carry out some treatments with plant protection products or can this practice be avoided?

Let’s see everything in detail in the following article, so as to move correctly and avoid problems or rot damaging the plants. (…)

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Grafting cactus: when a succulent plant can be grafted and what is the correct procedure to follow

In cacti as well as in many other botanical families, grafting is a common practice, usually adopted to grow delicate plants more easily and to speed up the growth rates of the plants themselves. In short, it consists of combining a delicate plant with a robust plant, which will provide the former with nourishment and encourage its growth.

Those who follow this site know well that the “philosophy” underlying the cultivation of cacti and succulents adopted by me is based on obtaining plants as similar as possible to those in the habitat. My approach to cultivation is essentially simple and spartan and is inspired by the so-called “wild” cultivation method, which precisely has the aim of obtaining cacti with a natural, lived-in appearance and, overall, as similar as possible to what plants have in nature. It is for this reason that it is not my habit to practice grafting cacti, which can certainly be a useful technique in many cases but which does not lead, from an aesthetic point of view, to obtaining specimens similar to those that grow in their habitat. This is not only due to the very fact that one plant grows grafted onto another, but also due to the fact that grafted plants tend over time to take on very different characteristics from those of plants grown naturally. In fact, grafted plants can have much more swollen stems, sometimes deformed compared to the norm and even the thorns can grow differently.

However, given the high number of growers who practice grafting (also useful for speeding up the growth of cacti and making them flower so as to be able to pollinate them to have seeds with which to reproduce them) or who do not disdain the cultivation of grafted plants and considered many questions that they reached me over time via email, here, for completeness, is an article that deals with this practice and explains how to graft cacti (…)

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Mammillaria, a genus of cactus that is essential in any self-respecting succulent collection

Mammillaria is a very widespread genus of cacti and appreciated by succulent plant growers.

These cacti are easily recognizable by the splendid crown blooms around the apical part of the stem, which can be small or medium in size. These are cacti suitable for expert growers as well as novice growers. Some species, in fact, require a fair amount of experience (among these, Mammillaria luethyi, Mammillaria pectinifera, Mammillaria solisoides, Mammillaria lasiacantha, Mammillaria senilis, Mammillaria herrerae); other species are suitable for anyone (among these, Mammillaria elongata, Mammillaria bombycina, Mammillaria prolifera, Mammillaria polythele, Mammillaria uncinata, Mammillaria bocasana, Mammillaria perbella, Mammillaria mystax). The stems can appear globose, often clustered, very harmonious and in some cases covered with thick hair or very white thorns. (…)

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Succulent plants, a small guide for those approaching this world: the simplest species to grow

The world of succulent plants is extremely vast. It follows that the cultivation needs of individual succulents can vary considerably from family to family and from genus to genus. With a concrete example, a cactus (plant belonging to the Cactaceae family) has extremely different cultivation needs compared to an Adenium obesum (succulent plant belonging to the Apocynaceae family). Likewise, large differences in cultivation can occur within the same family or between different genera of a single family. Here too is an example: an Ariocarpus (genus belonging to the Cactaceae) requires a cultivation regime, understood as substrate, watering, etc. very different from an Echinopsis (genus always belonging to the Cactaceae).

Without dwelling too much on the broad field of plant classification (here, if you want, you will find an article dedicated to this topic) and taking it for granted that the term “succulent plants” refers both to cacti and to many other succulent botanical families whose specimens have a different appearance from any other cactus, we are addressing a very “heartfelt” topic among novice growers. Even the grower who boasts a good knowledge of a given family, however, may find the following article useful, which recommends succulent plants (belonging to various botanical families) that are less demanding, more robust and simple to grow and therefore more suitable for those who are only now approaching the world of succulents. (…)

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Succulents outdoor all year? Here are the ones that resist and the story of my “resurrected” Echinocereus

Many succulents, whether cacti or other succulent families, tolerate the cold well. Not all cacti and not all succulents, of course, but many species can face the winter without problems even outdoors not only in the regions of Southern Italy, but also in many European states or in Asia and in northern America. The story of the Echinocereus laui in the photo above contains a very important lesson from this point of view. With the exception of epiphytic cacti (Schlumbergera, Epiphyllum, Rhipsalis, etc.), for species such as Melocactus and Discocactus and for succulent plants native to Madagascar or some African regions (Adenium obesum, Uncarina, Aloe, many Euphorbia and almost all Asclepiadaceae), many succulents can spend the winter months at temperatures close to zero Celsius degrees, as long as the soil remains dry at least from October to the end of March. However, there are some cacti and some succulents capable of surprising us and surviving the rigors of winter without problems, in some cases even in damp soil (therefore partly exposed to the elements).

Among these, some species of Echinocereus, as the plant you see in the photo, which I had given up for dead, and whitch instead was reborn after two winters spent entirely outdoors, exposed to the cold and humidity whitch characterizes northern Italy. In this article here is the history of this plant and a brief overview of the succulent plants that we can keep outdoors all year round. (…)

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