Sticky Fingers: September 2014

Astrophytum blooms

So I have started to feel that I'm not doing too badly with Astro's anymore. It used to be that whenever I would pot up a seedling, it would get vexed and keel over on me. Now I am having better luck in growing them up and keeping them alive to reach blooming size.

This summer, several Astrophytm senile v aureum have been blooming, and amazingly, I have no photos of an open bloom. The closest is this one (from seed 2007), despite the fatc that I brought an open bloom into the house last week (then went off to work without taking the picture - too late by the time I got home).

Astrophytum capricorne (sowed 2007) has shown a few flowers this season.

My only surviving Astrophytum myriostigma from seed (2009) bloomed for the first time this year - I missed the first flower but caught the second one today (quite by chance, but I am happy).

Obregonia denegrii

This is one species that has always fascinated me. I got two plants in 2006, but one didn't adjust to this climate and my treatment, and instead chose to leave this world. The other has slowly grown but seemed to have come to a halt in the last couple of years. Maybe the growth has just been so slow that I couldn't see it happening.

What a surprise to see it bloom this summer - twice so far. Moving the plants really seems to have made a huge difference - I guess everything happens in its own time.

So this was the small plant (in a 3" pot) when I got it in 2006.

Grew to fill that pot by 2011

Now in a 4" pot and blooming this summer.

Patience really is needed for these types of species. I have two small ones nurturing from seed (sowed in 2007) that are now about the size that ths was in 2006. Does that mean I have another 8 years to wait to see them reach to flower??