Eleven Months from First Flower

Last year’s seed project from my Caribbean tree cactus from Puerto Rico was wildly successful. All those germination trays with tiny green plants kept growing and have been up-potted to plug trays where they’re quickly gaining size and white wool. Some seeds made it around the world and even into a botanical museum in Thailand. With that success and joy comes the challenge and stress of keeping crop pests from eating them. Spring has been all about watering and frequently misting with Bacillus Thuringiensis Kurstakii to control army worms. The loss count is only about 20 out of at least 10,000 so far but still too high for my comfort. Under one of the trays I found a huge fuzzy wolf spider to which I said “oh, am I glad to see you….deal with these roaches already!” Squirrels knocking over a few Myrtillocactus pots finished ruining the morning. Imagining the spider’s shoulder was too small to cry upon, I then wondered….which one?

The gift of discovering a blackish flower bud on my 8ft tall blue Pilo turned the day around quickly as I had just finished watering and spraying. Everything here is growing like crazy and starting to flower or produce multiple arms. Through the new green Tent #3 you can see just how tall the native prickly apple cacti are getting.

The larger young Royen’s tree cactus from St. Croix seeds (above, next to mature cactus) is only about seven months older. In Puerto Rico its ecological companion cactus is Melocactus intortus – “coast melon, or Turk’s cap”. When those grow big they’ll grow a velvety red cephalium “fez” from which flowers emerge.