Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Lophophora in flower !!

Today Lophophora are flowering !!

CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW

  




             










Monday, October 28, 2013

Trichocereus Part 1 - Budding up !


28th October 2013 - Trichocereus have started the flower cycle







Sunday, October 27, 2013

The beginning of a small project ! Trichocereus Life Cycle



Many Trichocereus and other interesting columnar cacti in my collection are in the the very early stages of flower production. Over the next few weeks I plan to document the flowering cycle of Trichocereus Pachanoi and Peruvianus species plants, from the very beginning tiny flower buds to the massive open developed flowers, to pollination (cross), and finally all going well the development of the seed pods and resulting seeds.

Here are a few pics to get me motivated before I begin tomorrow


Trichocereus SP


Trichocereus SP








    

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Potting up some Mexicans


Today I potted up some Ariocarpus, Astrophytum and Lophophora. I also set up a few Lophophora pups for rooting. A few pics of the plants below...




And here are a few random shots from the yard...


Ferrocactus



Trichocereus Terschekii 



Parodia Ottonis



Trichocereus Peruvianus Hybrid
(TPM x SS02)














Thursday, October 10, 2013

Potting up the De Grafts

Today I finished off the de-grafted Astrophytum by potting them up in 120mm and 150mm Square plastic pots. The soil mix is 80% inorganic and 20% organic material and is topped with 10mm red Scoria. 




Wednesday, October 9, 2013

De Grafting Astrophytum !!


Spring is finally here! winter felt really long this year even though it wasn't that cold, but it has made me even more motivated to do some serious cacti cultivation during this growing season.

First off I have done a few de-grafts, I use a modified half de-graft method I learned from a very experienced grower from Victoria Australia, he is known by the handle Hanazono but his name is Frank, he is a well known to the cacti community and a top bloke :)

This method is best used when Hylocereus or Pereskiopsis are the stock plant but can be done with some others too.

Here is my modified de-grafting method:

1. Find a suitable plant that needs a de-graft.



2. Cut the scion from the stock but leave 5cm of the stock, I.E cut 5cm below the graft union.



3. Using a sharp knife cut all the green fleshy tissue away from the stock plant leaving the woody yellow core. Try and scrape the last bit off using the knife and scraping away from the graft union. Once it is all off you will be left this this (see below). Now trim up the woody core so it is between 2 and 3cm long.



4. Now allow the exposed woody core to try in the sun (indirect sun), for about 24 hours and then you are free to pot the plant up as you normally would a plant with roots.


Here are a few I did today;