Hap, I have a few skinny rhizomes sprouting up and I was wondering if i should remove them to promote the larger ones to sprout which I already have a few growing?
Thanks Dan
Sounds like an easy enough question. I wonder what Hap has to say?
But wait! There’s a picture too.
Hap, here is the picture of the small sprouts that I was wondering if i should remove them so it would promote larger new sprout.
Now what will Hap say? I think I can guess…
Dan,
The small sprouts are all that your newly transplanted plants have the resources to grow right now. Removing them will not encourage more robust shoots, but rather rob them of needed new leaves to feed growing roots and next years bigger shoots. I would leave them and let them leaf fully for this year and then after you get new larger shoots, when the plants are more established, remove any small shoots that are cosmetically unpleasing. But right now any new growth is a good sign and that the plants are settling in to their new home.
Greg asks if we can identify this bamboo and recommend a barrier for it.
Hap responds:
Greg,
I am sorry but there is not enough detail in the photos to identify which species of bamboo it is. Can you take a photo of the whole plant with some sort of size scale, as well as a close up of a branch node of one of the mature canes? As far as barrier (if the scale is what I think it is) the 40mil Rhizome Barrier we stock should be sufficient, it stops running bamboo up to 1-1/2″ in diameter if installed correctly and if you police for “jumpers” (rhizomes that go over the top and then dive back under ground) twice a year. The barrier is 30 inches tall and needs to be buried 28 inches, so there is a two inch lip above the soil. You can surround the grove of bamboo and glue the barrier to its self to make a buried bottomless pot. Or if this is invading bamboo from a neighbor, run a trench along the property-line and install the barrier as a single long line.Of course if it is a large grove it can come around the corner of the barrier with time, so some policing will need to be done at the ends of the barrier.
Asclepias subulata is Hap’s new favorite perennial. These are very cold hardy (down to 20F) and need only a little water through the summer dry season. They’ll get 4 to 5ft. tall and will attract the usual complement of butterflies and bees and even some birds too.
Native to California as well as Arizona and Nevada and down into Baja too. It will get leaves, but they don’t last long.
These are classically inclined to be complementary with a very dry cactus garden, so go ahead and plan it out that way.
Cactus Jane has raced once at Del Mar, and won, so that’s good. Bloodlines go back to Native Dancer and Secretariat, successful horses both. I thought you should know, in case your bets on the horses are biased on their botanically based names.
The Austin Statesman doesn’t think you can tell the difference between Texas and Spain, botanically that is.
This display of xeric, or water-thrifty, plants such as agave and palm could be found on many streets in Austin, but was in Madrid’s Real JardÃn Botánico. Photo: Diana Kirby
Don’t forget the blooming Kniphofias too. Never forget the Kniphofias.
Here’s another picture from Madrid’s Real JardÃn Botánico.
Now that’s a very different view of the gardens. I wonder if you can climb inside the head and look out through those eyeholes?
Joel wants to know if we have a blooming cactus in stock.
I love my neighbor’s cactus plant which flowers often. Do you know the name of it and can you get it for me? I live in Santa Rosa. I would also like to take one of these plants to plant at a friend’s house in Rancho Mirage (near Palm Springs). Would that work?
Joel
Joel,
It is a hybrid, Echinopsis x Echinocereus and we have them in a myriad of bloom colors.
They will grow in both locations and the older they get the more flowers you can expect.One of our parent plants had over 400 blooms last year!
Pachypodium rosulatum var. drakei is much skinier and taller than the standard P. rosulatum, although it will also get a large 12″ +/- caudex too. It’s from Drake. Actually it’s from Madagascar like so many of the best Pachypodiums. We don’t like to let these get below 45F in the winter, and if they lose their leaves, which they can, then water no more than every 6 weeks. During the hot growth periods we drench them every 1-2 weeks.
Hello,
Came across your excellent blog and had a question I could not find an answer for. There are lots of instructions and advice on how to cut portions off of a small cactus, but I have a large cactus that is about to grow through my eight foot ceiling!! I’d like some advice on cutting it in half and repotting the cut portion. I’d really appreciate any help you could give me. My guy looks like this.
Thanks in advance for your help.
John
John,
Your Cereus is actually fairly easy to cut and re-root. You should be able to cut it at any height you like and then root the top cut as a new clone. The stump will eventually branch, so you should think about cutting somewhere about the height of the chair rail so it has room to grow in to a multi-branched tree form.
We use a pruning saw or a serrated bread knife to cut column cacti, cut at a slight angle with the down slope side towards the wall, so the scar is less evident on the stump. You can wrap the top piece you are cutting off with a towel or carpet scrap to make it easier to hold while cutting.
With the height it looks like it is a two person job, one holding the top and one using the saw. After you have cut off the top piece, spray or paint the cut ends with household hydrogen-peroxide to disinfect and help seal the injury. Re-treat daily for a couple of days to make sure it does not catch a fungus or bacterial infection. The top piece should be stood up against the wall on newspaper and let dry for a week. After a week the cut tissue should be scabbed over (think abrasion scab like after a bike crash…). Generally you don’t need rooting hormones for this type of cacti, but if you have some on hand or have any liquid kelp you could treat the cut end before potting it up to speed up rooting. If you use IBA rooting hormones only use it at low strength. Then pot up in dry cactus soil (fast draining and chunky). Stake as needed. Keep dry and warm for several weeks and then water.
It should grow roots in a month or two. If it starts to look dehydrated during this time frame you can mist the column at night with water. Cacti only open their stoma at night to transpire as it helps them preserve water in the deserts, so misting during the day will not help. You can give the stump a bit of low strength fertilizer to speed up branching and help it through the trauma of loosing it’s head.
Pachypodium eburneum is new to us this year, and here we have succeeded in capturing the rare act of flowering. Well, not so rare since it happens reliably every year or so I’ve been told.
Wired Magazine is fascinated by the idea that seed pods can open up after they’ve been detached from the plant, i.e. after the tissue is “dead.” It seems to me that lots of seed pods that open do so after they’re “dead” but what do I know, I’m neither a botanist nor a reporter for Wired.
The article uses a Delosperma seed pod as an example of the “rare” phenomenon of dead plant “origami.” Since succulents’ cell structures can store lots of water, this example’s seed pod can unfurl, i.e. open, when the rains come.
Seed capsule from the ice plant Delosperma nakurense in the hydrated, unfolded state. (M. J. Harrington).
Now, what about the fact that these unopened seed pods, or “fruit”, are edible and often eaten by the birds?
I blogged this a couple months ago or so, when it first bloomed and we got our first shot at ID’ing it properly. Here’s another specimen in bloom – with 2 blooms (and a 3rd coming)! I’m so excited I could plotz.
There are some short-lived pink flowers from this plant and then these amazing rose and gold colored flowers you see here. It’s a variable flower. Also, I made up the name myself. There was a plant previously named Notocactus roseiflora (or roseiflorus) with these flowers but it was renamed Parodia rutilans but there’s already a Parodia rutilans with standard Parodia yellow flowers. So I combined the names to create this one. Yay for me!
The Oakland Tribune wrote a whole article about someone’s Agave getting ready to bloom and didn’t include any photos. Although really, they get some of the facts wrong and they didn’t call us, the local experts, and most mystifying of all is why would they print this at all? I mean, it’s not like there aren’t hundreds of Agave blooms every summer throughout the Oakland and Berkeley hills, shooting up 40 feet tall. Just look up in the hills in mid summer and you can’t miss them.
FREMONT — At first glance, it appears that Susie and Jim Richardson have grown the world’s largest asparagus.
But the 25-foot-tall stalk that sprang up on their Niles district property last month is actually a type of cactus that goes out with a very big bang.
Commonly known as the century plant, the agave americana lives a modest existence for decades as a relatively small succulent until its final months, when it shoots up a mighty stalk that blooms like a tree in spring. Then it dies.
Errors? It’s not a cactus. Genus is always capitalized. And Agave americana is a relatively small succulent???? Hah! They get 12 feet across! They should have called us. I give good quotes over the phone to reporters.
