I am a cultivator, enthusiast & educator of the botanically weird and esoteric; mostly cacti, caudex and succulents nurtured from seed. This channel is dedicated to sharing knowledge about these strange and alien plants.
I’m located in Sydney, Australia - adjust my advice to suit your growing context.
Keep going - this channel is bound explode! Most informative + researched plant videos i've seen. Well presented, you have great charisma. Appreciate the lack of standard 'RU-vid' gimmick stuff. Can't wait for more videos, cheers. 🤝
excellent advice. Mine grow and flower under lights . Once I figured out how to grow lithops had a lot of fun growing them form seed. The quality of seed grown plants is much better than those I found for sale.
Another great video thanks!! I had a follow up question on the video about fertilising, was wondering if you've come up with any clever methods to mix it in with water? Hose watering takes me about an hour usually, but if I have to mix in fertilizer it takes much longer - mixing up 1 tsp searles flourish cacti and succulent with 9L water, then transferring to a watering can to dispense. I find the containers you can pressurize with a nozzle are too high powered and knock around potting materials or the plants themselves.
Yeah, the tsp of Searles into the 9L can and then into the smaller can with a rose is my current method, and completely tedious! I am a very lazy grower by nature , so always looking for ways to make things less tedious. Currently working on solving this process - can’t confirm its effectiveness until growing season commences again, but this is what I’ve got lined up. Plants that aren’t exposed to the weather are going into trays without drainage holes. I’ve drilled a 10mm hole in the corner of these which I’ve plugged with a silicone plug (about $4 for 20 from a Chinese seller on eBay.) I’ll mix up the ferts, pour into the tray to soak from below and when done, pull the plug and drain it all out. Can also be used without ferts to save time on deep watering from above. Will see how it goes or if I just kill all my plants! 😅
The thing is that just because a plant has adapted to withstand harsh conditions it doesn't mean those are the best conditions for the plant. Most times it is simply not competitive enough to grow in more ideal places so when plants go into cultivation they might grow better in slightly different conditions than their natural habitat.
You’re not wrong. That said - there’s also the notion of growing these plants hard, replicating their appearance in habitat. It’s an interesting concept!
I was really happy this year when i found a good source of course sand / small stone near me. I live in a small town and there arn’t many options for course soil mix additive’s around. On a hunch i ended up contacting a nearby quarry to see if they had what i was looking for, and sure enough they did! They are one of very few quarries around here that have a wash plant, so they are able to provide 1/4 minus wash which is mostly between 1/16 of an inch up to 1/4 inch in size, it is quartzite and calcite with other mineral mixed in as well. It’s a lot heavier than broken down wood bark which i could use as i mostly grow tropical trees but that wasn’t something that i could get a hold of so heavier components it is. But I’m very happy with it! $60 for a 6 foot trailer load full. I actually end up using what is more like a cactus mix for a lot of my tropical trees because here we get sooo much rain in the summer and the winters are cold so they need that extra drainage. For my cactus mix i use 50% of that coarse sand, 20% coco coir, 10% perlite, and 20% of other various mineral sands dependant on what i have at the time and what the plant might want, say limestone.
It sounds like a good mix you’ve found. Buying in bulk straight from the quarry is a top solution too - wish I had something convenient like that around here!
I don’t bother - but our water is fairly neutral. If I had more time I’d use rainwater, but tap water seems to be okay for my purposes straight from the tap. If it was more alkaline I’d look at amending it somehow.
I once bought a poor overwatered Lithops at a store... It looked ready to burst! I haven't watered it for over a year to get it into its normal/appropriate shape.
I was hoping you'd do a video on Lithops and there it is! Thank you! How about seedlings though? I have sawn some in April this year and they are currently about 5-6mm in diameter. I have been bottom watering them once a week and top watering with a pipette every 2 days from above. Is that correct? They look good atm and one of them seems it might be starting to split. But I'm not sure when and how I should transition them to their regular watering cycle. Also, these poor things have the unfortune to have been sprouted in Scotland, so they are confined to the great indoors, about 7cm under an LED light that gives them about 1500 foot candles and in a quite constant environment temperature wise (17-19C). Do they stand any chance? I kind of feel sorry for these guys, I wouldn't want them to die a slow horrible death. I'd love to see info on seedlings as it is quite scarce, maybe you can help? Anyway, love your channel even though I have none of the plants you're growing (apart from the lithops).
Thanks, glad you’re enjoying what I’m making! As for your plants… their current watering sounds good, I’d ease back on the pipette after their first leaf split. After about a year they can probably go onto their regular watering cycle (maybe sooner, see how they’re going.) Even though I grow plants under lights, I’m not much good at understanding the technicalities of it, so I have no idea if your footcandles are sufficient but you’ll be able to tell if they’re growing leggy or their colour is anaemic that they need more. As for their cycle - 17-19 isn’t too bad, they don’t desperately need a summer dormancy (although it might affect flowering, not sure.) If you can find a way to keep them cold and dry over the Scottish winter, they can undergo their leaf change and then come back inside?
Thank you, that is so reassuring! It seems the light is good atm at least for this stage. They are not etiolated and are quite colourful (mostly shades of muted purple). The light is a bit more than stated in my previous comment(around 1800 foot candles), I measured again yesterday. The sun is supposed to give about 10,000 fc which is why I was wondering if they'll be happy long therm with their environment, but so far they are cute little snubs with no stretching so fingers crossed they will be ok in the long run. I think I can do cold, dry might be a challenge but I have a few months to figure out a solution. Thank you for your help and looking forward to see your next amazing plant (which I might never be able to grow 😂).
I’ve never actually grown Pleiospilos, but after some cursory reading, their care sounds very similar. The main point of difference seems to be that ideally Pleiospilos will have two leaf pairs in a healthy plant rather than one.
Pleiospilos are a lot more forgiving,bake them and treat them mean and then you can water the same as other sucs or cactus....lithops too,just coarser soil mix...
I'm so glad you're pumping out all these videos. This is just in time as my partner just bought some lithops, which I will have to care for despite my warning that I usually kill them
Cant ever talk spines, and leave out the Stetsonia Coryne!! Also, you should see my young Tersheckii.... its got spines so long and plentiful that they curve to accommodate each other as it grows new areoles.
Would you be averse to putting your dormancy table into a "Community" tab post, for those of us who don't use Instagram? Whether yes or no, thanks for considering. After watching this video, I suddenly feel badly for all of the lithops that found themselves flooding hardware and grocery stores durin the late '90s, early '00s. Most of them probably haven't survived, given improper watering.
If I can figure out how to post to a community tab, I’ll do it for sure! Still learning this RU-vid stuff. As for Lithops… I have no doubt there are many of them out there dying slow miserable deaths due to improper watering. 🥲
How do you know if the cactus needs a deeper skinny pot? Most of what we have sold in my area of the US (seedlings in general cacti included) will come in those little 2 inch pots. How big do cactus roots grow? Can they fill a large pot completely like a typical houseplant?
Rule of thumb for cactus is that the pot diameter should be an inch or so wider than the body of the plant, at least for low growing plants. Tall, columnar species can do with more width. And yes, their roots will fill up a pot but you don’t want to leave too much room for them to grow into, just in case the soil retains too much moisture. As for deep pots, I reserve these for plants that grow deep, thick roots - usually non-cacti caudex growing plants or others that I know send out deep root systems.
When I was a child I had bought a cactus from a big box store, that I now believe was some sort of euphorbia. It was a beautiful deep green with these vibrant thick red spines. We had to go on an extended trip and I was worried about my favorite cactus and I watered the hell out of it, per my mom's instructions. I was horrified to come home to a dying and pretty much mush cactus. Core memory right there. And I've NEVER seen a cactus like this ever again. Some come close, but are not quite there. I miss that thing and I wish that child me had better knowledge.
@@AridZine NEARLY. The colors are just the slightest bit off. The shape of it was different slightly as well. The creases, idk if there is a technical name, were deeper as opposed to more rounded. Less barrel shape and more angular corners. Dark green a few steps lighter from a lime peel but darker than the average tomato plant. Very striking. The spines were that type though, kind of soft. But again very red and they would stay vibrant they didn't fade as it grew (that I noticed). My pet theory is that it was a variant of some sort of this type of euphorbia or similar and that is why it had these small differences. Or the memory itself is corrupted! Thanks for the suggestion :)
got any tips for growing lithops indoors? should one try to emulate the changing seasons or just let the eternal spring ride haha. thanks for the vid, it was great.
I can’t speak from experience, but Lithops really need changes in seasons to help them through their annual cycle. Specifically, they’re going to need a winter drought period where their old leaves dry up and new leaves emerge. I’ve seen videos where growers manually tear the old leaves off to expose the new leaves - I suspect these are growers in more tropical locations where they don’t experience that winter drought - so this might be a method that you’d need to try if growing indoors? Looks brutal to me, and I don’t really know if it’s good practice. If you can find a place to put them that’s cooler and totally dry… that would be ideal.
@@AridZine appreciate the response. I'm in a subtropical area with monsoon weather, so wet and dry season. I might try putting them outside with the rest of the gang when it's dry and cool.
Good stuff! Thanks for another great video. I have been wondering about when cacti do their water uptake. Considering CAM, do you think it might be just at night? or just in the day? or both? 🌵
I’ve done a bit of reading on the topic and although I’m not 100% sure, I suspect that most of the water uptake is at night when the stomata are open. However there are likely other biological forces at play too that allow the plants to uptake some water through the day as well.
@@AridZine Thanks! - I believe that plants basically create suction to their roots and up the stem by expiration through the stoma, so night could be the time. However if they did not do it at the night they could have a lot of suction ready for the day? I have someone else that I will ask as well, and will let you know what I hear back.
Excellent information! I had to convert your Celsius to our Fahrenheit for our nighttime this summer has stayed in the 80s several nights. That is top notch info to know! I also finally tracked down a Euphorbia Abdelkuri too, it should arrive by next week! Thanks again!
Fantastic score on the abdelkuri. One of my all time favourites. Let me know if you’ve got any questions for growing it - they seem relatively relaxed in cultivation though.
Question: this night temp max 25c does it also count for seedlings? You see i have a grow tent full of moist cacti seedlings (Copiapoa, Ariocarpus, and Astrophytum), and i have lights on during the night, to keep temperatures down and cheaper power. But this also makes the plants "nighttime" in the daytime hours which can pass 25c. i didnt have an issue so far, but it is a bit of a worry ^^ Thx for awesome video mate! Best regards from Denmark :)
Cacti seedlings don’t actually use CAM - I’m not sure precisely when their metabolism changes but it likely won’t be an issue so long as they’re small enough to be raising under lights.
@@AridZine Interesting, and thanks for answer. Next year lids will be off incubators, and high temperature wont be an issue without the lids, they really hold the heat in. so it will just be over this summer. 👍
Yet another great video. Finally a person who acknowledges how specific plants and conditions work when it comes to watering. I hate it so much when I buy a new cactus or succulent and owner starts "educating" me how I should just water every two weeks, like I know nothing about plants. Sometimes they even mislabel plants. I am always on brink on correcting them, but they think they know better, so I steer away from "argument". I know I already said it, but you are probably only plant-youtuber from whome I've learned new things from each and every vid you make. Thank you for that! 😊
Thank you! Glad my message landed. It’s hard to make videos about topics as broad as watering - there are just so many variables to try to account for. 😂 Glad youre enjoying them!
the only succulents i have are haworthia, crassula and kalanchoe (i don't know the scientific name), i don't have any idea about grafting and mutating etc, i find it extremely entertaining and exciting to be able to do what you do, i would want to but i just fear i might kill it by accident, i have a really hot direct sun (39 celsius and 102 fahrenheit),i would certainly appreciate any tip please
The three plants you’ve mentioned are all pretty forgiving - although I’d keep those Haworthia out of any really hot direct sun. I have a big Kalanchoe and keep it in ordinary nursery bought bagged soil and it seems happy. Haworthias though will really appreciate a bit more grit in their mix
I’m from South Africa and really enjoy your videos, but please do a video on the poaching of our rare succulents to make people aware that they should purchase responsibly. Some of our succulents are now critically endangered due to illegal poaching.
It’s a great idea and a topic I’d really love to discuss. Will need quite a bit of prep work to do it justice, but I’ll get there. Thanks for your feedback.
I love your videos, they are always so interesting…I had never seen a cactus like the Pachycereus pringlei loose it’s spines and callous over, amazing. Are there any other cacti that do that? Does the callous serve any further purpose? Tropical plant shirt contrast with arid cacti nice. 🌵🌴
I’m by no means an expert on all the huge cacti species, but you see a similar phenomenon in the Saguaro - huge spines on seedlings, becoming much reduced in maturity. As far as the callous - I’m not quite sure if that’s what it is. They don’t necessarily lose their spines as such, moreso that new growth in mature stems don’t produce spines (or they produce much reduced spines.) Someone better versed in these species might be able to chime in about the nature of these scars and whether they serve a purpose because it’s not something I know unfortunately!
i would love a jumping choler, everything in WA is soo much harder to get cause of flora/fauna quarantine laws its also interesting to see how the different shapes and spines do matter for they're individual needs
I’ve never heard of one reverting, but they can take different shapes - sometimes they can crest, sometimes they stop spiralling and look more like they’re melting.
Do these Fred type cacti still need the same care as other cacti? The texture and skin of it doesn't make it less light/heat tolerant? I literally paused the video a second before you answered these questions lol. Whoops! Can you explain more about the rot susceptibility? Is that if they get water on them? Or just in general?
Ive not investigated it too much, so I can’t say for certain - but I suspect that the many cracks and crevices in the plant allow water to pool on the body, which invites fungal infection. I’ve never had any problems with watering, but I’ve seen some huge specimens and their owners have told me they only bottom water the plants to avoid this sort of rot.
