Piante grasse cactus spine

Tag: curiosity

Cacti and diseases: stop anxiety, sometimes we can’t help but let Nature take its course

Let’s talk about cacti and diseases starting from a simple photo. The plant that inspired this article, and which you see above, is (or rather, was) an Ancistrocactus (=Glandulicactus) mathssonii. I had obtained this specimen with my sowing about ten years ago and fortunately eight or nine other “brothers” of this plant are still in perfect health, growing and flowering regularly. This particular plant, although treated exactly like the other specimens of that sowing and planted in the same type of substrate in which my other mathssonii live (clay, marl and 60% aggregates), a couple of years ago took a fungal pathology and within a few weeks it was dead. I think it was fusarium, but today it doesn’t matter, because the disease has run its course and what remains is… the armor of this cactus, that is a beautiful interweaving of thorns that embraces the void left by the stem which, over time, it dried up until it decomposed and disappeared altogether. The observation of what remains of this plant, which for a couple of years I have kept along a low wall not far from the greenhouse, where I usually move the diseased plants (by diseases, in this case, I mean generically pathogens and parasites) to prevent them from infecting other specimens, led me to some considerations on the cultivation and treatment of plant diseases.

Considerations that I have condensed in the following article an excerpt of which was also published in the British Cactus and Succulent Society newsletter. (…)

Per proseguire nella lettura dell'articolo Accedi o Abbonati
To continue reading the article LogIn or Subscribe

Spontaneous sowing: when cacti do everything by themselves, just like in Nature

Why damn yourself with sterilized soil, perfectly clean pots, fungicide, transparent bags and so on, when you can let our plants do everything related to sowing? Exactly as it happens in Nature, in short. Jokes aside, those who have many plants know well that finding themselves with perfectly formed seedlings inside the pots, next to the mother plants, is far from rare. Generally we notice it during repotting, when we can observe our succulents with particular attention, because the spontaneously born seedlings are small and tend to “camouflage” themselves with stones and aggregates in the substrate, or they are found so close to the stem of the mother plant to be invisible to a superficial look. Over the years, in the pots of my plants, I have often found germinated and autonomously grown seedlings, in particular of genera such as Astrophytum, Epithelantha, Thelocactus, Mammillaria. A couple of years ago I even found a small plant of Euphorbia obesa already well formed, grown among the pebbles outside the greenhouse, in the shade of a large pot containing an Agave. Today the Euphorbia is in a 5 centimeters pot inside the greenhouse and continues to grow regularly. I had to reluctantly remove it from the outside and place it in a pot to prevent the cold and damp winter in North Italy from killing it, otherwise I would have gladly let it grow where it was born.

In these days, during the repotting of some Astrophytum capricorne of my sowing, I have found many seedlings and various seedlings born and grown independently in the pots of the mother plants (you can already see some of them in the cover photo, above). Hence the idea of ​​documenting and analyzing “spontaneous sowing” in the following article. (…)

Per proseguire nella lettura dell'articolo Accedi o Abbonati
To continue reading the article LogIn or Subscribe

Mammillaria luethyi, the incredible story of its discovery in the Fifties and tips for growing it

Unlike what usually happens with cacti, Mammillaria luethyi was first observed by a researcher not in its habitat but in a… coffee can. Weird? Wait until you read the whole story, then. Yes, because the discovery of this species of Mammillaria is relatively recent (half of the Fifties of the twentieth century) and still today we cannot certainly define it as a widespread plant in cultivation or regularly available on the market. Nevertheless, it’s one of the most fascinating species among Mammillaria, one of the most intriguing and undoubtedly the one having the showiest flowering, and at the same time delicate and charming. As a counterbalance to these qualities, there are some difficulties in cultivation and the tendency of the root to rot: these aspects, in addition to the slowness in growth, make M. luethyi reserved for pure enthusiasts and experienced cactophiles, although with not a few difficulties.

The following article was published in Volume 61, Issue 2 (May 2021) of the Journal of The Mammillaria Society. Thanks to the editors for their welcome publication. (…)

Per proseguire nella lettura dell'articolo Accedi o Abbonati
To continue reading the article LogIn or Subscribe

Sudden changes in temperature and first colds: with cacti and succulents there is nothing to fear

From the highest peak to the lowest, about thirty degrees Celsius passes. This is the sudden change in temperature to which my succulents (90% cacti) have been exposed in recent weeks, almost all kept in the greenhouse which is still rigorously open 24 hours a day. All the Agaves remain outside the greenhouse, some Aloes, various Opuntia, Tephrocactus, Pediocactus, some Echinopsis and some cacti that I placed in the ground for experimentation. Can such sudden changes in temperature damage plants? Are nighttime lows starting to get too low for cacti and succulents in general?

There are many who wonder and, since I have received several messages in this sense, I have decided to write this short article to answer these questions. (…)

Per proseguire nella lettura dell'articolo Accedi o Abbonati
To continue reading the article LogIn or Subscribe

How a cactus changes depending on the type of cultivation: the difference made by soil and exposure

When they say that a picture is better than words. In this case, there are three photos, but the concept doesn’t change, and the difference between a cactus grown in a “natural” (or “wild”) way and one with a “garden-style”, based on basic notions and beliefs is quite evident. The plants I’m writing about are Ferocactus latispinus obtained from a 2012 sowing of mine. From that same planting, I’ve got at least forty plants. Over the years, I have given away some of them, but most are still with me and are growing beautifully. It’s important to point out that these are plants born from seeds contained in a single fruit (gift of a dear friend), sown the same day and grown over the years in the same conditions, i.e. in my greenhouse, in standard soil (pumice, lapilli and peat in equal parts), watered and fertilized with the same frequency. This is to say that the starting conditions, including the genetics and the grower’s hand, are the same. And yet, as you can see from the photo above, where the three plants (three at random of the twenty-five or so that I have kept for myself) are side by side, they show remarkable differences, at least to the discerning eye and the grower with a minimum of experience.

So let’s see, in this article, how and why different cultivation regimens, assumed as a whole and not just limited to the soil, affect so much the final result and really make the difference between a cactus grown and cultivated in any garden or generic nursery and a cactus grown by an enthusiast or an expert. (…)

Per proseguire nella lettura dell'articolo Accedi o Abbonati
To continue reading the article LogIn or Subscribe
USEFUL INFO AND CONTACTS​
SECURE PAYMENTS
  • Credit card
  • Paypal
  • Stripe