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which_chickSure you would. It's very exciting, it is, and I'm certain you're all on the edges of your seats about this. Thrill a minute content around here, for sure.
I started with a batch of 50 assorted cactus seeds from the internet. Of that batch, I have 14 or so baby cacti. I sowed them early November (the fifth maybe?), so they're about a month and a half old at this point.
They're starting to have wee spines and stuff. It's adorable. And I got almost 30% survival, so YAY! for a first try.
Encouraged by this rate of success, I ordered some more cactus seeds, of actual named kinds of cacti, from Mesa Garden, a US-based plant nursery with a kinda-weird website but an absolute literal shitton of catalog. They were ACES on service and I would 100% recommend dealing with them if you're in the US and want to maybe try to play cactus from seed.
Since out of fifty seeds from rando seed seller, I got 14 cacti on the first go, I figured that (a) I sucked at seed starting and (b) it would be OK to get the 20-to-30 seeds seed packets because that would ensure I got a baby cactus or three from each effort. Plus, the seeds were super cheap. Super, super cheap. Like two bucks a packet.
So... I bought some.
I also found a different source for astrophytum caput-medusae because they are fucking amazing and delightful and so weird and New To Science (Discovered in 2001! Bet you didn't think we were still Discovering Shit as recent as that, but yes!) and why the hell not. I don't need a reason to do things and if I want to grow dumb cactus that do not even look like cactus, I can do that. #adulting
Mesa Garden was out of seeds for caput-medusae, but I found an etsy shop selling what purported to be them and what they sent looked just like google image pictures of the seeds (they are a weird shaped seed) and so... I don't think I wasted my ten bucks there. I got ten seeds, so... not a high risk venture, here. And I wanted them because they are the dumbest fucking cactus things I've ever seen.
So anyway. I sowed this round of seeds the first week of December. They were for the following things...
Astrophytum caput-medusae (10 seeds) 9 sprouted
Astrophytum capricorne (20-30 seeds) 23 sprouted
Astrophytum ornatum (20-30 seeds) 22 sprouted
Echinocactus grusonii (20-30 seeds) 16 sprouted.
Stenocactus crispatus 'lamellosus' (20-30 seeds) 24 sprouted.
Assorted Echinopsis (20-30 seeds) Not as many, but not zero.
Assorted copiapoa (20-30 seeds) Not as many, very small and slow. But not zero.
I did better with these seeds. The echinopsis and copiapoa sets didn't do quite as well, but still they came up and better than the 14/50 that I had the first go-round. Also, for the studio audience, astrophytums fucking grow from seed. They are legit prompt about it, very rewarding. Would recommend as a trial genus.
Anyway, turns out that watching some youtube and making a bit of an effort to improve one's approach to growing cactus from seed can produce better results than just fucking around and finding out. Also, note that I did not get "super difficult" cactus. I got pretty basic "easy to grow" cactus. And they did grow. So yay? But now I have a literal shitbucket of baby cacti. So, so many. SO many.
To be fair these are currently tiny green dots in food storage containers. They're all very tiny. You need to zoom with the camera to see these damn things. They are pretty darned small and they'll stay that way for a while.
How big do they get? Not real big. The Astrophytums all stay houseplant-sized. Echinopsis are commonly grown as houseplants and don't get super huge either. Stenocactus crispatus is small, topping out at about 5" diameter (it's a ball-shaped thing). The assorted copiapoa species will probably stay small for the duration of my lifetime if I don't kill them with rot first.
Echinocactus grusonii gets big, but it doesn't get big *fast*. Max size about 3', it's a globe-shaped cactus, but that would take a lifetime of growth.
But still, it's a lot of cactus seedlings. Perhaps there will be some attrition. I mean, just because they sprout is no reason to assume that they will actually grow for real. It's entirely possible that they'll damp off or something. I have another few months before they can grow in "real air" instead of their humid little food trays. This is a vulnerable period, wherein they could all just... die on me before I get them to "looking like cacti" size.
But for right now, "succeeded beyond wildest dreams" is kind of what I'm looking at. Or possibly "drowning in cactus seedlings". That's also an option.
I ordered some more seeds. Mammilaria cacti this time. They're pretty and stay fairly small. Mostly this is because (a) I have more food storage trays and (b) I have more space under the lights and (c) it's winter and I generally pursue projects in the winter.
I started with a batch of 50 assorted cactus seeds from the internet. Of that batch, I have 14 or so baby cacti. I sowed them early November (the fifth maybe?), so they're about a month and a half old at this point.
They're starting to have wee spines and stuff. It's adorable. And I got almost 30% survival, so YAY! for a first try.
Encouraged by this rate of success, I ordered some more cactus seeds, of actual named kinds of cacti, from Mesa Garden, a US-based plant nursery with a kinda-weird website but an absolute literal shitton of catalog. They were ACES on service and I would 100% recommend dealing with them if you're in the US and want to maybe try to play cactus from seed.
Since out of fifty seeds from rando seed seller, I got 14 cacti on the first go, I figured that (a) I sucked at seed starting and (b) it would be OK to get the 20-to-30 seeds seed packets because that would ensure I got a baby cactus or three from each effort. Plus, the seeds were super cheap. Super, super cheap. Like two bucks a packet.
So... I bought some.
I also found a different source for astrophytum caput-medusae because they are fucking amazing and delightful and so weird and New To Science (Discovered in 2001! Bet you didn't think we were still Discovering Shit as recent as that, but yes!) and why the hell not. I don't need a reason to do things and if I want to grow dumb cactus that do not even look like cactus, I can do that. #adulting
Mesa Garden was out of seeds for caput-medusae, but I found an etsy shop selling what purported to be them and what they sent looked just like google image pictures of the seeds (they are a weird shaped seed) and so... I don't think I wasted my ten bucks there. I got ten seeds, so... not a high risk venture, here. And I wanted them because they are the dumbest fucking cactus things I've ever seen.
So anyway. I sowed this round of seeds the first week of December. They were for the following things...
Astrophytum caput-medusae (10 seeds) 9 sprouted
Astrophytum capricorne (20-30 seeds) 23 sprouted
Astrophytum ornatum (20-30 seeds) 22 sprouted
Echinocactus grusonii (20-30 seeds) 16 sprouted.
Stenocactus crispatus 'lamellosus' (20-30 seeds) 24 sprouted.
Assorted Echinopsis (20-30 seeds) Not as many, but not zero.
Assorted copiapoa (20-30 seeds) Not as many, very small and slow. But not zero.
I did better with these seeds. The echinopsis and copiapoa sets didn't do quite as well, but still they came up and better than the 14/50 that I had the first go-round. Also, for the studio audience, astrophytums fucking grow from seed. They are legit prompt about it, very rewarding. Would recommend as a trial genus.
Anyway, turns out that watching some youtube and making a bit of an effort to improve one's approach to growing cactus from seed can produce better results than just fucking around and finding out. Also, note that I did not get "super difficult" cactus. I got pretty basic "easy to grow" cactus. And they did grow. So yay? But now I have a literal shitbucket of baby cacti. So, so many. SO many.
To be fair these are currently tiny green dots in food storage containers. They're all very tiny. You need to zoom with the camera to see these damn things. They are pretty darned small and they'll stay that way for a while.
How big do they get? Not real big. The Astrophytums all stay houseplant-sized. Echinopsis are commonly grown as houseplants and don't get super huge either. Stenocactus crispatus is small, topping out at about 5" diameter (it's a ball-shaped thing). The assorted copiapoa species will probably stay small for the duration of my lifetime if I don't kill them with rot first.
Echinocactus grusonii gets big, but it doesn't get big *fast*. Max size about 3', it's a globe-shaped cactus, but that would take a lifetime of growth.
But still, it's a lot of cactus seedlings. Perhaps there will be some attrition. I mean, just because they sprout is no reason to assume that they will actually grow for real. It's entirely possible that they'll damp off or something. I have another few months before they can grow in "real air" instead of their humid little food trays. This is a vulnerable period, wherein they could all just... die on me before I get them to "looking like cacti" size.
But for right now, "succeeded beyond wildest dreams" is kind of what I'm looking at. Or possibly "drowning in cactus seedlings". That's also an option.
I ordered some more seeds. Mammilaria cacti this time. They're pretty and stay fairly small. Mostly this is because (a) I have more food storage trays and (b) I have more space under the lights and (c) it's winter and I generally pursue projects in the winter.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-22 04:48 am (UTC)