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Cactuses in Flower

Ferdinand2000Ferdinand2000 Posts: 537
edited August 2020 in Plants
Taken today. This is the second flush of flowers this year.

My highly developed plant neglecting skills have an upside.

Can anyone identify the cactus type?

 
“Rivers know this ... we will get there in the end.”

Posts

  • BijdezeeBijdezee Posts: 1,484
    Beautiful
  • fidgetbonesfidgetbones Posts: 16,659
    I think it is one of the Echinocereus.  Quite a few of the 70 or so in the species have white flowers.
  • HalleSHalleS Posts: 105
    I love it! I’ve had my two cacti for probably three years now and they have never flowered. Perhaps I’m not neglecting them enough. 
  • Ferdinand2000Ferdinand2000 Posts: 537
    fidgetbones said:
    I think it is one of the Echinocereus.  Quite a few of the 70 or so in the species have white flowers.
    That sounds like a species of rhinoceros which is good at anagramming.

    This is the best piccie, which was taken with a Samsung S6 phone, with flash on to wash out the background.


    “Rivers know this ... we will get there in the end.”
  • Paul B3Paul B3 Posts: 3,054
    Looking at the prolific offsets , I would have opted for one of the many Echinopsis hybrids.
    Very tough and can tolerate fairly hard frosts if kept bone-dry for the Winter months .
  • Ferdinand2000Ferdinand2000 Posts: 537
    edited August 2020
    HalleS said:
    I love it! I’ve had my two cacti for probably three years now and they have never flowered. Perhaps I’m not neglecting them enough. 
    Not sure if I can help.

    Mine are in a normally unheated conservatory that faces north (though it has very good insulation and is open to the kitchen about 8 months a year).  They get very little direct sun, though the temperature usually sits at 3-4C overnight in winter and runs up to 26-28C in summer on hot days. Humidity runs at perhaps 50-65% as there are also microveg there.

    I have only watered them maybe twice in the last 9 months. I added a bit of seaweed fertiliser last time as I was getting scared that I would kill them after they grew half a dozen flowers at one point earlier in the year.
    “Rivers know this ... we will get there in the end.”
  • HalleSHalleS Posts: 105
    Thanks for the info @Ferdinand2000. 🙂
  • Ferdinand2000Ferdinand2000 Posts: 537
    edited August 2020
    fidgetbones said:
    I think it is one of the Echinocereus.  Quite a few of the 70 or so in the species have white flowers.
    The other candidate is Echinopsis. I am told.
    “Rivers know this ... we will get there in the end.”
  • Joy*Joy* Posts: 571
    It is important not to water them between October and March and keep them cool. Mine stopped flowering when they lived in SW France where they got a lot of sun and high temperatures in summer. Now back in the UK they are starting to flower again. I  moved some to the potting shed last winter, gave them a stern talking to (don't laugh, it seems to work!) and there's only one which hasn't done as it was told. If you do get flowers which set seed, leave the flower on the plant until spring, open the pod and sprinkle the tiny seed on some gritty compost and they should grow. I expected them to take a long time to germinate and after a couple of weeks thought that the compost had turned green but it turned out to be babies! They are interesting to watch, need gentle regular watering and hey presto, I'm expecting flowers next year on seeds planted 2 years ago as they have grown to the size the parent plant was when I bought it, in flower. I maintain watering all year for these young plants.
  • Alan Clark2 in LiverpoolAlan Clark2 in Liverpool Posts: 2,029
    Echinopsis oxygona, the Easter Lily cactus. Mine lives outdoors all year, with only partial protection from the rain.
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