Cactii etcetera.......

We've had two Cactii given to us as gifts and it's opened up a fantastic world of wonderful plants to us.

We've been out today and got two more for the display we are going to start as there's room for 6 more in the container we bought yesterday.

The two we had were gifts - one called Pedro as it had a little Sombrero on it and the other we've called Boris - because it has a shock of white hairs all over it - a bit like Boris Johnson to look at in fact!

I've been looking at Cactii today and there are so many that produce the most amazing flowers but trying to buy particular ones for the flowers is difficult as we found today that most garden centres do not give the actual names so it's back to the internet to try to identify them.

That's a bit awkward so we are going to try to get a good book on Cactii so we can perhaps identify them at the garden centres - worth a try!

Nice to see quite a lot of seeds out at various garden centres too, especially some of the more difficult ones to source, such as determinate Tomato types that I now prefer.

Went through our seed tin to work out what we need for this year as our potatoes and cabbages did well, as did our Tomatoes, (all determinates!), but we lost our Cucumbers to flippin' cats!

Lettuce or Salad greens are always easy and last year we did Chard too - nice texture and taste.

This year I probably won't bother with Beetroot as I've had two bad years on the trot but I don't know about Spring Onions now - they grew OK last year but never beefed-up enough to actually use in salads - very odd as I always get the same type and never normally have problems.

My onions too were rubbish - can't understand what's going on with 'em as we used to grow some lovely Onions - usually Red Baron from sets but I grew Bedfordshire Champions from seed once and they were fantastic.

Something's changed in the garden or it's the weather now as we had year after year of great crops but the past two years have been very poor.

Hoping to get better this coming year! stevmk2

Re: Cactii etcetera.......

I've never been a big fan of cactii but I do have two which my mum gave me years and years ago. One is an Easter Cactus and I don't know what the other is. The thing is I hate throwing away living plants and these just go on and on and on .............

Re: Cactii etcetera.......

Hi Steve, I once had a spell of growing cacti and grew some from a packet of seeds. It's an option for you to consider as it's quite interesting finding out what you've got.

Re: Cactii etcetera.......

Used to have a few cacti, but over time they have disappeared as the kids have wrapped them up and given them to other people when they have forgotten a birthday or something ! Lost a couple of orchids that way too we now frisk them as they leave although where they hid the cacti I am not sure

Re: Cactii etcetera.......

Been reading-up a bit Alan and I'd love to grow some from seed!

We've identified one we bought yesterday - just labelled "succulent hybrid" - it's a Haworthia lymifolia!

The other one looks like a Gymnocalycium mihanovichii but that's as far as we've got and we haven't identified Boris and Pedro yet! stevmk2

Re: Cactii etcetera.......

We used to grow cactii but without a lot of success (except for 'Easter cactus'). We do have a number of Aloe Vera plants which seem to survive quite happily.

Re: Cactii etcetera.......

Years ago we had loads of cacti but I never liked them, they take ages to sprout a flower it was a hobby of hubs, can't think now what happened to them.

Re: Cactii etcetera.......

If there was ever anything to teach you great patience it has to be growing Cactii. stevmk2