In bloom

My Echinopsis has been quite busy the last few hours. The bud started opening, and in a couple of hours it opened up:





The smell is incredible, my whole apartment is filled with a fantastic odor..

Tentacles

Around two years ago I bought this cactus which I believe is a Echinopsis subdenudatum. I kept it in a cold window sill during winter, with temperatures around 12-15C. This results in blooming for most cacti, and these Echinopsis'es has some real big flowers compared to their size. Here is the first tentacle coming out:

Gear

Here is how I propagate my seeds (very useful in the dark wintertimes and in rainy & cloudy periods). I use the following stuff:

2 Megaman flourescent plant-bulbs, 15W
1 banana cartboard box
1 mini greenhouse

The bananabox is beeing repapered with white sheets, which act as excelent reflectors. When the seedlings get to a certain size, i will put on the dome on the mini-greenhouse. I open the plastic sheet over the seedling a couple of times a days to air out. The megaman bulbs works quite fine, but I give them some real sunlight when the weather is on my side..

Also, if the box is kept in a cold room, you can easily put a heat-mat under it (adjust with some wooden boards or something like that).

These pictures should explain most of it:

New seeds

Today I got a packet of seeds in my mailbox, from Succseed:

Lithops fransisci C 140
Lithops marmorata v. elisae SB 1205 (N Jackalswater)
Lithops schwantesii v. marthae H4886
Mammillaria sempervivi ML 24
Pilosocereus magnificus HU 224
Trichocereus bridgesii

So, tonight I'll probably put some of them in soil. I will also plant some of these:
Lophophora williamsii (Huizache, Mex)
(these are the same kind as "little Pete" mentioned i my previous post. He is doing very well, actually.)

Little Pete back from the dead

Around 10 weeks ago i made my first grafts, one L.Williamsii and one T.Bridgesii (both on Pereskiopsis). Unfortunately I have been busy doing other stuff, like moving to a new apartment etc. I entirely forgot the grafts and left them in a dark spot.

The Bridgesii one was half failure. The graft grew very slowly, an indication that I didnt get the vascular ring alignment correct (a common mistake, there are some luck involved in this). The lopho, on the other hand, had imploded to a tiny brown something that didnt resemble anything living at all. Anyways, I placed it on a sunny spot.. and 3-4 days ago, I could actually see something happen. Amazingly, its alive! I can now see growth every day. In a week or two i will maybe know if it will grow fast like it should do.

First entry

Allright, this is my first post.

Last year I got a Trichocereus Pachanoi (San Pedro) cutting from a friend of mine. While surfing around for finding the best way to root it, I also found lots of interesting stuff about cactus-growing . Suddenly I got myself a new hobby.

Then I got this ridiculous about making a blog about my quasi-scientiffic mad experiments here in my apartment. Maybe somebody might find my trials and failures useful ? :)

Anyways, the cutting mentioned above started pupping in middle of February.. and has grown quite a bit since then: