Astrophytum
 

Well, the weekend is past and I trust we all enjoyed friends and family and some great food. I thought I'd share some plants in the genus Astrophytum. Not only are the flowers a sunny yellow with red throats but typically the bodies are interesting even "sans" flowers.

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...strophytum.jpg

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...-x-asteria.jpg

Cool. You make me think I should start collection succulents as well... but I think the orchids take too much of my time for that ;)

Nice cacti, Howard! I'm with Rosie, I'd love to start collecting cactus species but I just don't have the time... :biggrin:

--Nat

those are very cool - and the bloom is beautiful!

Rosie and Nat - I'm sure Howard will chime in - but cactus don't generally require much care - most don't want much water

even my Christmas cactus, while wanting more water than desert types, don't require much care, especially compared to the orchids ...

That is correct. Most people kill off their cactus and succulents by over-watering and trying too hard to give them that little extra care. Intellectual neglect ks much better. Having said this, I'm just as guilty of too much care. And if anyone is inerested I will have some rooted plants that will want a new home for the cost of S/H.

I once had a small clay 'bowl' with a few little cactus in it, on my desk at work - at some point I notice one of the cactus dying, and then another (this bowl had no drainage, and I only gave it a very small amount of water once a month) - I noticed one day, the girl hired to do filing, and odds and ends stuff, watering the plants in the office - turns out she had been watering my cactus WELL - EVERY WEEK! :shock:
I took the one remaining cactus home, stuck it on a windowsill, and NEVER watered it at all - over two years - I finally got rid of it, because it had grown so much, I didn't know what to do with it!

Howard, if you have some small plants, that would be inexpensive to ship (I'm very broke :( ), I'm interested :)

Yeah, I guess the few cacti I have are pretty low-maintenance. So maybe 'time' isn't what I'm lacking for them, it's more like 'space' and 'amount of tolerance I can expect from my wife if I add dozens of cacti to the 200+ plants already residing in and around our house'. :biggrin:

Someday...

--Nat

Great photos of stunning plants

Even if they are "sans fleur" they are superb plants. Love them! :D

Interesting about not needing too much care. I do have a couple of Christmas Cactuses on my kitchen windowledge. They seem to do OK with just occasionally remembering to water them although they started to struggle recently but re-potting (they were completely pot bound) seems to have kicked them both into a growth spurt.

Maybe I should try more of them again. :hmm