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The Unc-tanical Gardens

unclefishstick

Fancy Janitor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
they do actually,i planted some mazar i sharif out in the local mountains in a plant em and come back in the fall since it was pretty deep in not to mention the 3000 feet of elevation gain from the parking area...they did great right up until the rippers got em...which was dumb since it was a seed crop so i could just sow them anywhere there was water nearby,there would have been free weed for anyone who cared to hike in....
 

unclefishstick

Fancy Janitor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
one of the most interesting things about this process has been watching the local cactus i have raised either from cuttings taken this winter or a couple of plants i relocated from an empty lot behind the house.there were a pretty good slice of the local species of prickly pears and cholla,both members of the opuntia family.all the really super common varieties like engleman's prickly pear,pretty sure i have a tuxedo spine,a christmas cholla,a chain cholla,a santa rita(not local but naturalized) a cows tongue prickly pear (also naturalized) and a dinner plate prickly pear...

anyway,im guessing because i have simply never watched a single plant grow,especially not one being cultivated and given pretty plush circumstances for a cactus,amended medium,compost teas,and bloom nutes on occasion,not to mention being watered a couple of times a week,one of them is popping out almost full sized pads in about 48 hours...

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unclefishstick

Fancy Janitor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
all the "walls" i built to define the mini garden areas are just dry laid and as much as i could i used things like sempervivums and sedums as a sort of mortar to bind the walls together with drought tolerant and frost tolerant self spreading species. either by offsetting like the semps where they produce little mini plantlets complete with roots that you can pull free and tuck into wherever theres a little dirt,or spread out and drop roots wherever they can like the sedums and ice plants and other mesembs,many of which flower over a long period of time.

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unclefishstick

Fancy Janitor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
flowers...
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unclefishstick

Fancy Janitor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
the outdoor full sun cactus collection is growing as i get more hardened off to the sun..

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unclefishstick

Fancy Janitor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Staggering how many species of cactus you have.
:) and thats just the ones that are outside! apparently theres some part of my brain that unconsciously keeps track of what i have since i only rarely end up with doubles of anything unless its on purpose like when i find a specimen in better condition than what i have or a more interesting form...i still of course have quite a list of species to acquire and a number i would love to have multiples of....still working my way up the ladder from easy to cultivate to the more challenging ones...im starting to get some nicer specimens now,getting into the more expensive "oh man i better not kill this" kind of stuff...i just bought a totem pole cactus,very cool,almost 200 dollars,easily 50 years old,it has a back story,i guess we could call that provenience....

lol,screw the cactus,theres a few dollars worth of pots sitting there! even cheap terra cotta adds up after 5 or 6 dozen...:tumbleweed:
 

captain planet

Active member
Veteran
Hey Unc, did you get your ladybugs? How many did you get, and do you put them all in right away, or fridge some? Found great deals on ordering them, but I'm not sure I need 80,000 lol..... They also had , cpl 100s , ...... I'll prob use in, and outside
 

unclefishstick

Fancy Janitor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
i did release 1500 the other day but then realized i had screwed up and not read the helpful instructions and let them loose mid day in a dry leaf garden,if i had waited until evening and sprayed the plants down they would have stuck around more,i still see a few here and there but for the most part i wasted my money,gonna try again,someone said to spray them with some sugar water to glue their wings together,but i think i will get a ladybug house since that can go on the veggie bed "roof" and be protected from too much sun so maybe they will stick around this time...
 

unclefishstick

Fancy Janitor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
a few stuck around,maybe there just werent enough bugs to interest them staying,i had sprayed with neem oil 4 days before i let them loose...
 

unclefishstick

Fancy Janitor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
the flower i have no idea what they are for the most part except i have ended up with a few medicinal plants here and there,im going to plant some echinecia since they do well here,and ephedra grows wild,yarrow should do well,theres a bunch....
 

unclefishstick

Fancy Janitor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
after 4 months in the high desert sun the 6 dollar roll of plastic sheeting finally gave out after numerous days of 30-40 mph winds and uv index 11 sunshine...

went with white fiberglass cheap panels for now,ordering double pane poly carb 30 year greenhouse panels in the fall...these are 75% light transmission so right in the ballpark,85% is a little too much,65% too little...the bottom part of the sides will get paneled,the top triangle and the strip along the top will get screened in for ventilation,with the front window open and the swamp cooler going it actually stays pretty cool in there..

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went and picked up my Lopocereus schottii monstrose ( totem pole cactus) today.these are a sterile mutation that only occur over a very small range in baja and only reproduce by asexually when offsets break off and root themselves,indeed you can see proto roots dangling from the two larger offsets on this one,if i were to cut those off and root them,a relatively easy process that i have already done 3/3 times successfully since this was the source of my smaller clone as well,they would be worth more than i paid for this beast...to have attained this size it must be in the 40-60 years old range,and it has the scars to prove it...i know part of the back story on this one,but im betting there must have been a pretty interesting story behind this cactus and its origin...the age is about right for some sort of crazy 60's hippy adventure or a vw van full of surfers...

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Biosynthesis

Member
Veteran
Great idea with the green house setup. Crazy mutation on the totem pole. So when you take a piece of the cactus off to root a new plant do you use any commercial rooting product? Or do you just stick it in the dirt?
 

Biosynthesis

Member
Veteran
Oh I bought some smoke colored panels for the porch and its killer. Lets light in yet shades and helps keep things cool. Kinda like sunglasses for the porch. Something I thought you might consider as well. I think it may come dark enough to still afford you the privacy your white panels are doing for you now.
 

unclefishstick

Fancy Janitor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
what you do with cactus is sever the offset cleanly and then set it aside to dry and form a callus for a week or so,with these i take some powdered charcoal and dust the wounds to keep them protected from fungus and insects while they heal. once a good callus has form then you can just stick them in an appropriate medium and carefully start to water them.my small one took about a month to root in but the 2 big offsets already have roots on them so they should root quickly and easily,they love the heat so now would be the time to do it...i need to repot it so i may take to offsets and root them and wait to repot the main body when im sure them have taken since i may need to bare root the big one during repotting,but cactus have really tough roots,a little trimming and fresh medium in a nice pot,get it hardened off to full sun and those offsets may get 50% bigger over the summer...
 

unclefishstick

Fancy Janitor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Oh I bought some smoke colored panels for the porch and its killer. Lets light in yet shades and helps keep things cool. Kinda like sunglasses for the porch. Something I thought you might consider as well. I think it may come dark enough to still afford you the privacy your white panels are doing for you now.
by fall/winter there will be clear greenhouse panels instead,it will mainly be for cactus and most of what i have is sun loving,but i will still get shade cloth to cut it down in summer to 85%,but even in winter privacy wont be an issue since the foliage plants will be indoors and they form a wall of leaves around the window and thats all you can see really..
 

Biosynthesis

Member
Veteran
Yes I see you have plenty of privacy in the house. Looks like the plants are taking over what looks like the living room window in winter. lol
 

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