My C&S rock garden

I wanted to create a rock garden a few years back, so I got some limestone rocks, filled in the crevices with soil, used smaller rocks to fill in some of the spaces and planted some small cacti and other succulents - even some seedlings. I was looking back through some photos and found what it looked like shortly after I set it up.



Below is a recent photo, and although I thought the conditions might have been too harsh, they have grown and done well for the most part - I've even had to take out some that were doing too wll and had outgrown the space. Two of the gymnos have bloomed there also, so it's very encouraging.



Now I'm thinking about expanding it as soon as I can get some more rocks....

This Parodia fell off its (lack of) roots today when I was looking under the pot to see if anything (like healthy roots) was growing there. Scared me when it happened because it was the last thing I'd have expected.



So I looked up inside it and saw a hole going up the centre but the body of the plant is still firm and green and it's even still growing at the tip.



I hope it will be okay - I need to put it aside and wait for some roots to appear again while I take precautions to prevent further deterioration/decay.

It's a pity this had to happen just when it seemed that all my plants were doing well, with Echinopsis and Gymno and Mammillaria blooming all over.

Echinopsis again

This year my plants are definitely doing better in flower production.

I got a fabulous bloom last week from this unknown Echinopsis. I've been anticipating it for a while now since the bud showed up several weeks ago.


I knew it was going to open soon when it got to this stage....


And two days later, it revealed its true colours!








Sadly, the bloom only lasted one night, so this is what I have had to look at since then.


However, I'm looking forward to more - two other Echinopsis (both noID) have buds that are growing so....