Cereusly Speaking. Cactuses and succulents of the season: celebrate summer growth

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1 Cereusly Speaking September 2014 Vol. 7 Issue 3 Cactus and Succulent Society of Alberta In this issue: 2 Upcoming events Recent events 3 Cacti for connoisseurs 4 Book review: The Oldest Living Things in the World 5 Seed-raising and soils 6 Photo gallery 7 Photo gallery: Celebrations of summer 2014 growing Cactuses and succulents of the season: celebrate summer growth When we plunk our favourite plants into pots or into the ground, we always hope they will like our attentions and grow. Some plants make their new growth very evident, for example the colourful new spines on barrel cactuses and the bright leaves on Haworthia rosettes; others are more subtle, often just getting bigger. To celebrate growth, here are some photos of summer 2014 s growing, which for most cactuses and succulents will continue for a while yet. More growth celebrations are in the photo gallery. Have you got it? We are always eager for newsletter content from members. If you have any articles, travel stories, questions, photos (e.g. to add to the growth ones in this issue, or any other photos that would be interesting to other members), please send them along to Mike Gibbins at melocact@gmail.com or at Street NW, Edmonton T6J 5C4. Thanks in advance!

2 The Cactus and Succulent Society of Alberta was established in 1997 by a group of people sharing an interest in these odd and unusual plants. We meet at least four times a year usually on Sundays to exchange information on how to propagate, grow, and take care of cacti and succulents. President Colin Bundred Secretary Mike Gibbins Treasurer Rene Haasdyk Vice-President, Comminications Olga Mikheenkova Contact the society at: Cactus, St. Edmonton, AB T6J 5C4 or melocact@gmail.com Message from the President Hello everyone. We had our first frost the other night, so we all know what that means. It s time to start cutting back on water even though many plants are having a little growing spurt before settling in for a dry cool winter. Don t forget the correct winter conditions play a huge part in ensuring a wonderful display of flowers in the spring. We ve had another excellent year, with a number of regular meetings plus our annual social at Jean and John s plus our AGM/ barbecue over at my place. One very successful innovation this year was a garden tour. Mike Gibbins, Rene Haasdyk and Michael Barton opened up their homes, gardens and collections for a couple of hours. The weather cooperated, and a very pleasant and informative afternoon was had by everyone who attended. Our next club endeavour is the open house day at the Muttart Conservatory on Sunday September 28th. This is a wonderful opportunity to showcase our plants and our club. And hopefully sell some surplus plants to swell the club s bank account. I always enjoy talking to the hundreds of people who pass by our display and the day passes very quickly. Please consider coming down for an hour or two. Colin Recent events The Society s Annual General meeting and potluck was held at Colin s house August 24. Voting for the Executive is held every two years, and this was the in-between year, so the formal meeting was short and there was good time to enjoy Colin s plants, the food and the fellowship. We also enjoyed Jean and John Wieprecht s annual plant viewing and BBQ on July 6. See the photo gallery. Your Executive met on August 6 to do some planning and organizing for the AGM and other upcoming events. At the AGM, Colin asked members to consider standing for the Executive next year. Please do so! Also, if you would like to try your hand as newsletter editor, a change would re-invigorate the newsletter, so please consider that too. Upcoming events Two important and, especially, interesting events are coming up: On Sunday September 28 from 10 am to 5 pm, we will have our annual show and sale at the Muttart Conservatory s free day. Please contribute plants for sale or for display we need lots of both so we can show off our favourite plants and encourage new members. And please plan to attend so you can add your enthusiasm and knowledge to the day: Olga Mikheenkova is arranging to have T shirts advertising the Society for everyone helping to staff the tables! It s quite an enjoyable time. If you would like to share in the proceeds of sales of your plants, the procedures you should follow were set out on page 3 of the June newsletter, or contact Mike Gibbins at melocact@gmail.com or (Basically, put a price tag in each plant so we can use the tags to keep track of the money due to you, up to 50% of the price.) If you just want to donate plants for sale, then you need only show up with the plants any time after 9:30 am on the 28th. In any case, please provide some identification of your plants for sale or display. A couple of added points: (1) Muttart wishes us to park at the back, in the employee parking area rather than in the general parking area, which fills up on the free day; (2) Please arrange to take your display plants or unsold plants away by 5:00 that day. On Sunday October 19 from 2 to 4 pm, we have another annual event: the meeting that includes voting on the submissions to the photo contest. This year we have 114 interesting and often striking photos to choose among, with descriptions provided by the photographers, so going through them and voting on them will be great fun. With the help of Fred van de Voort s projector, we hope to have a better colour projection as we admire the photos. To increase the enjoyment and make the day a little festive, snack food will be provided. The meeting will also feature other regular content: a presentation, show and tell (take your interesting plants), door prizes and of course lots of conversation among friends. The meeting will be at the Strathcona County Library, 401 Festival Lane, Sherwood Park, as it has been in the past. 2

3 Cereusly Speaking Publisher The Cactus and Succulent Society of Alberta Editor Mike Gibbins Design and layout by Olga Mikheenkova Cereusly Speaking is published four times a year: at the end of March, June, September and December. Cereusly Speaking is distribu ted to the members of the Cactus and Succulent Society of Alberta by mail or . The electronic version of the newsletter is an exact co py of its printed version. Cacti for connoisseurs by Colin Bundred Here is another in the series about Colin s favourite plants, this time a re-visit with more news about Sulcorebutia rauschii. Edmontonians will remember July 24 this year for the torrential rainstorm that hit the city. One of the worst in living memory. I will remember it for a different reason. That was the day I finally took the plunge to un-pot my prize clump of Sulcorebutia rauschii. This plant had rather unbelievably been bought at a well-known chain store (the name begins with a W and ends with a T) about 15 years ago for $5. At that time it was about the size of a large grapefruit and in the ensuing years had grown to a massive clump nearly 9 in diameter and consisting of approximately 200 heads. This is not a common plant nor is it particularly easy to grow to a large size. For the past couple of years, the plant had been growing well on one side while the main part of the clump had turned red and seemed to be stagnating. On turning the plant out of its pot, there was some evidence of mealy bug, but not a lot and also evidence of root die back in the part of the plant not doing so well. Where the roots had died back the rot appeared to have stopped and there was evidence of new roots forming. The end result of the ensuing surgery was three or four nice clumps being separated from the main plant as well 9 or 10 single plants with roots. I m not sure whether I m happy or sad. One the one hand my magnificent clump has been greatly reduced; on the other, I have a number of potential successors which, with some TLC, will one day equal or even surpass the parent plant. The other winners are our society members: anyone who didn t get a plant at our AGM can pick one up at our next meeting. Readers are encou raged to sub mit articles and photographs. The publisher reserves the right to edit any material submitted for publication. Cactus and Succulent Society of Alberta Plant before surgery. Roots with soil washed off. White spots are pearlite. New root starting (tiny white root in centre of photo). One of the separated clumps. 3

4 Book review: The Oldest Living Things in the World by Mike Gibbins The Oldest Living Things in the World by Rachel Sussman, with essays by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Carl Zimmer, The University of Chicago Press, ISBN 13: (cloth), (e-book). So far, it is available from the Edmonton Public Library, or in paper or Kindle from Amazon.ca. This is a personal, sobering and informative portrayal of a sample of 30 oldest living things from around the world, mostly plants. It s an artistic project, supported by science, and has grand photographs of most of the 30 examples and several of their relatives. But it is sobering because many in the book are seriously threatened, and a few have died between having their portraits taken and the book s publication. Extinction is a theme of the book. It is informative because each of the 25 plants and 5 others (a mushroom, lichens, a coral, actinobacteria and stromatolites) is accompanied by a personal essay (sometimes angry, sometimes a little too personal) and the book features other essays, a deep timeline of life s development, a location map, a very useful chart of Linnean taxonomy depicting the 30 examples, and lots of other discussions, source citations, glossary, a growth strategy index and two more indexes, by age and by habitat. Here are five examples of the book s content, leaning toward arid biome plants that might be of interest to cactus and succulent fanciers: Mojave yucca, from the Mojave Desert in California and dated at 12,000 years old. This is a group of cloned plants, arranged in a circle like a botanical Stonehenge. The whole group is threatened by armed forces installations and all-terrain vehicles. The accompanying photo is from page 23. happens, a photo of this plant taken by one of our members is in the 2014 photo contest! The plant looks like a bunch of nearly dead leaves flopped on the ground, but the book says that in fact it is a tree with a deep tap root/trunk underground, an ancient pine relative that produces cones. The collection of leaves is actually only two leaves, all that the plant ever produces, but shredded and tossed about over the centuries. The essay on this strange plant is one of the most interesting in the book. Underground forests, Parinari capensis and other species, near Pretoria in South Africa, in arid fire-prone surroundings. Like Welwitschia, most of the plant is underground, with just the top, the crown of the tree, showing on the ground like a broad flat succulent. The plant in the book was about 13,000 years old but was destroyed by construction activity at a botanical garden (!) before the book came out. There are other younger ones in the neighbourhood, though they too are threatened because their underground networks are disliked by farmers, who can fool the thirsty plants into drinking poison. Llareta (azorella compacta), which lives in Chile s Atacama Desert, one of the most arid places on Earth. One of these carrot and parsley relatives, growing at 15,000 feet up, is dated at more than 2,000 years old. The plant looks like moss-covered rocks but is a shrub having thousands of branches with tiny leaves at the ends. It is dry and dense, so local folks sometimes burn it for fuel, endangering it because it grows no more than a centimeter a year. A review of the book in The Economist magazine featured a photo of this distinctive plant, which certainly hooked me! Creosote bush from the Soggy Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert also dated to 12,000 years old. The plant is called King Clone because it is the centre of an oblong oval of cloned bushes about fifty feet across. It is not far from the yucca above and is threatened by the same human activity. Welwitschia mirabilis, a stubborn and unique resident of the parched Namibian Desert in Africa. The featured plant is about 2,000 years old, but some younger ones are also noted. As it Only a single photograph from the book is included here. It would be wonderful to include more of the striking photos, but only one illustrative photo can be used in a review. In any case, it wouldn t be possible to do justice to the book by using more photos, separate from their essays and other content. To conclude, there is much in the book for anyone who likes plants in general, including those who are interested in arid environment survivors like cacti. Unfortunately, the author s age cut-off for inclusion was 2,000 years, and she has not discovered any thousands-of-years-old cactuses, though the Galapagos, the Andes and the Chihuahuan/Sonoran deserts do have some very old ones. Perhaps they ll be in her next book! 4

5 Seed-raising and soils From time to time, we reprint features from earlier issues of Cereusly Speaking. As we head into winter and start thinking about growing things for next year, perhaps the following will be of interest. It s from the very first issue of Cereusly Speaking, March 2008, and is taken from a talk by Colin Bundred to the March 2, 2008, Society meeting and the resulting discussion. If anyone has updated ideas or corrections about growing from seed, we ll put those in the next issue! A bag. The key is a bag, an ordinary clear plastic re-sealable kitchen bag. Cactus seedlings like moisture, and growing them inside a bag is a great way to maintain moisture. Perlite. You need a bag big enough to hold a couple of small square pots or one larger one. No need for the pots to be square they just fit more easily into the bag and are less likely to get jumbled than round pots. Fill each pot about 2/3 of the way with perlite, with a thin topping of sand, or even use pure sand. Soil isn t needed, and the perlite makes it easier to see what is going on and reduces the likelihood of mould. Sowing. Soak your pots in a tray, then let the excess moisture drain off. Sow the seeds on top of the sand/perlite. No need to cover them, though if they are bulky you can push them slightly into the surface using a pen or toothpick. Place them close together, no more than 1/4 apart. A microscope or magnifying glass helps to place tiny seeds. Don t fertilize them. Neglect. Then put the pots in the bag, put them in a bright but not hot place, room temperature is fine. Then leave them alone. After about 3 months, you can start opening the bag just to check the moisture. Before long, you ll have seedlings showing. No need to fertilize for at least 6 months, even a year. And keep them in their pots in the bag for up to a year. After a year or two, you should have a cluster of small plants in each pot. Then you can start thinking about separating them into individual pots. Don t rush it, though. Soil. Cacti will grow in almost anything. The key is that the soil has to be free draining, so that it can completely dry out between waterings and the plant is not exposed to dampness for an extended period of time. Damp will lead to root rot. Your soil should be heavy on the sand, though you could add some peat pellets or perlite to help the soil retain some moisture without dampness. The forest cacti (such as Christmas cacti) can use a heavier soil, perhaps like an orchid mix, and euphorbias might like some peat moss mixed in with their sand. All of these growing mediums are essentially without nutrients, so you must remember to feed from time to time with one of the commercially available fertilizers, which are specially formulated for the low-nitrogen needs of these plants. (Editor s note: Colin has more recently become a fan of growing cacti in kitty litter!) Pots. Controversy still rages about the suitability of plastic versus clay for the successful cultivation of our favourite plants. Nearly everyone has a preference. Plastic containers are increasingly part of modern practice, with all the soil-less growing mediums out there. The variety of shapes and sizes is almost endless and they do need less watering. My preference is to use shallow clay pots for older, more established plants. Cacti in general are shallow rooted, so they do not need deep pots. Especially for the clumping species, shallow clay pans the way to go. The really shallow pans can be hard to find and the closest you closest you may come is a bulb pan or azalea pot in a specialty garden shop. Online resources With thanks to Rosario Douglas, editor of The Offset, the newsletter of the Central Oklahoma Cactus and Succulent Society, here are two online sources for your interest: We ve mentioned this before: an excellent and free source of information is The Cactus Explorer. You can find the latest, and earlier, issues at journal1.htm. The most recent (August 2014) issue is packed with great photos, information about books and other online sources, and several in-depth articles about some striking plants. Rosario s latest newsletter has an extensive article about the Canary Islands and its plants. See sites.google.com/site/cocssok/ and go to for this and prior newsletters. 5

6 Photo gallery On June 26, Rene Haasdyk and Mike Gibbins took a day trip to the Spruce Coulee and Paintearth Creek areas south of Camrose. Because of the delayed spring, there weren t a lot of cactuses in flower, but it was a beautiful day. Opuntia polyacantha almost in flower, north side of Paintearth Creek Rene stalking the polyacantas on a steep slope, south side of the creek On July 6, Jean and John Wieprecht held their annual flower viewing and sausage BBQ, much enjoyed by all who attended. Badlands in the Paintearth area, lots of sunny spots for the cactuses Some of Jean s blooming cactuses Folks enjoying themselves Some polyacanthas in bloom in a sunny outcrop, north side of the creek Inspecting the cactus beds The cactus beds were swarming with tiny bees living in the gravel. Here is a larger bee in a flower. 6

7 Photo gallery: Celebrations of summer 2014 growing 7