Ziggy's Cactus Blog

Trying a cutting of the new Monkey Tail. Might be a bit late in the year but worth a try.

Was given this plant as a rescue today, it's an African Milk Tree - Euphorbia trigona. Will do a short video with more information on it on my YouTube channel - Ziggy's Cactus Youtube.

Blowing a gale most of the last 24 hours. Cold too. Decided it was time to get the outside plants in. A lot of the succulents such as Aeoniums and Crassulas spend the summer outside the cactus house. Last year they came into the Bothy but this year I'm doing too much work in there so they'll have to chance it in the unheated polytunnel. I'll keep some fleece handy if the weather turns too cold.

Things should be slowing down at this time of year but there's still some flowers coming on. This is a Bulbine frutescens from South Africa.

Probably the last flower on the outside Opuntia this year.

This Echinopsis flower just didn't open fully today, not enough sun. Highly unlikely that it'll last until tomorrow so hope it has better luck next year.

This is a rescue from last year. Still haven't got an identification for it. I put a picture up on Youtube as well as here so if anyone's got any idea feel free to leave a comment 🙂

Despite harvesting 2 trays of seed pods from the Mammillaria bocasanas they are still throwing out loads more pods. The seed pods are produced from earlier flowers, or even last years flowers, appearing suddenly long after the remains of the flowers have withered away. There must have been a fair few hover flies about earlier to pollenate them.

Only a few weeks since I trimmed the top of the Austrocylindropuntia subulata and already it's putting on new growth.

I've not tried putting a video into my blog yet so I'm going to try with a timelapse I made of the moving cacti - Austrocylindropuntia vestita. They aren't thrashing about as much as they were in last summer's video but a few of them are having a good look around.