succulent treasures

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strombocactus disciformis PDF Print E-mail
Written by bruno   
Thursday, 27 December 2007
Strombocactus disciformis B&R is a dwarf solitary cactus form the mexican states of Hidalgo and Queretaro. For many years strombocactus has been a monospecific genus, then, in 1996 Glass and Arias described a new specimen from the state of Guanajuato as strombocactus disciformis ssp esperanzae. This new plant is even smaller than the species and bears deep magenta flowers, similiar to those of turninicarpus alonsoi  Glass & Arias, which grows in the same locality. 

These notes are only intended to describe my esperience in raising these plants from seed and are limited to growing strombocactus disciformis because the newer species is not yet part of my collection.

If kept rather dry mature plants are not difficult to grow, they flower freely and produce large quantity of seeds



Why then they are so difficult to find and sold at such high prices?


In my opinion the main problem is in their slowness of growth, they tend to remain very small in their early stages of development which makes it difficult to keep them growing and reach a manageable size. The first attempts to raise these plants failed when the very small plants (1-2mm in diameter, 1-2 years old) suddenly disappeared from their pots. Eaten by birds? Lack of water?

Because of this failures I decided to use a method for speeding up their early growth. I sow the seeds in a 6 cm pot, I watered with a fungicide and put the pots into larger transparent plastic pots with 2 cm of quartzifer sand on the bottom. Pots are closed and esposed to the morning sun, the mix is 100% lava, a thin top layer of quartzifer sand is added to avoid the formation of mold.

Plants are keep this way for about 2 years, I regularly check the pots to keep the mix moist, watering is suspended only during the deep winter months (Jan-Feb here in Rome).


2/3 years old seedlings at the end of the growing seasons, some are well developed some still very small

When 3-4 years old the seedlings have been repotted for the first time, gradually moved in a more esposed position and watered less often. For the 4/5 years old seedlings in the photos below this process is still ongoing and this is to me the most critical phase to get the plants to flowering.





 
Last Updated ( Thursday, 27 December 2007 )
 
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