A Profile In Diversity: The Holiday Cacti

            Generally speaking, most people think of cacti in a very limited light; they expect cacti to look like the Saguaro, Prickly pear, Barrel Cactus, or even the Mammillaria, and yet this is only part of the big picture when it comes to Cacti. To further blur the line, a lot of cacti don’t have the word cactus in their common name while a lot of succulents are called cacti but are not. A good example of the former is the Eve’s Needle (Austrocylindropuntia subulata) which is a true cactus and a relative in the Prickly pear family. An example of the latter is the Pencil Cactus (Euphorbia tirucali) which is not a true cactus. To add to this confusion, many thing that cacti grow only in deserts, and dry areas in the Midwest when in fact cacti have adapted to survive on mountainsides (san pedro cactus), grasslands (lawn peyote), and even in forests (the holiday cacti). The diversity as seen is quite impressive and thus many ask what defines a cactus since it’s known that all cacti are succulents, but not all succulents are cacti. The key defining features of a cactus are the following.

1.      They tend to originate from habitats with some level of regular drought.

2.      They show a number of adaptations that conserve water.

3.      They generally have a thickened stem structure that stores water.

4.      Most species have lost the ability to produce true leaves.

5.      The spines we see are actually highly modified leaves.

6.      Stems perform photosynthesis.

7.      Cacti often have shallow fibrous root systems designed to suck up any rain that may fall.

8.      Cacti stems are often ribbed which allows them to readily expand or contract during or after a rainfall.

So, with that said in this episode of LITFM, we are going to take a look at one of the most widely distributed true cacti in the world, the Holiday cactus. Now I know I did an episode on this prior but this year I have quite a number of photos to demonstrate the variety of colors that these forest cacti can bring into your home. But first, I know what some of you may be thinking, ‘Christmas Cacti are bland most of the year’, this is absolutely true however they are also one of the most tolerant easily propagated cacti known. This allows for someone to grow them with a minimum of fuss and very little special care other than a repotting every few years.

In fact, the holiday cactus are almost polar opposites in terms of care to what we would actually expect from a cactus, they like soil with organic content, don’t like being pot bound for too long and don’t like bright direct sun.  It is a common trick in the agriculture business to claim there is an absolute difference between the Easter, Christmas and Thanksgiving cacti when in fact, the only difference in their bloom time is how many photo periods of increasing and waning sunlight they are exposed to. Thus, you could get an Easter cactus to bloom at Christmas and a Thanksgiving cactus to bloom at Easter with careful management. Generally, there are two primary groups of Holiday cactus in the trade; (Schlumbergia truncata) Christmas Cactus and (Schlumbergia berkleyii) Thanksgiving Cactus. The two are differentiated by the fact that the first one has angular stem segments (they’re called pads) and is commonly also called crab cactus and the second one has rounded stem segments. Literally the number of photoperiods these two species of cacti see is all that differentiates their blooming time but of course we’ve seen this before as this is similar to what is done with Poinsettias and our perennial garden bulbs. Literally on a small scale we are playing a bit of god by tricking a somewhat simpler life form into performing its yearly ritual when it’s convenient for us. In the Agriculture trade we do this a lot; that’s why certain plants arrive at the nursery already blooming in spring, we manipulate temperatures and light and other tricks to get what we want.

But wait, there’s more, there is a third common member of the same family called Hatiora, these thin-stemmed cacti are a forest epiphyte and the most famous representative of this family is commonly called ‘Dancing Bones Cactus’, ‘Spice Cactus’ or, ‘Drunkard’s Dream’ (Hatiora salicornioides). The first name comes from the longer extended stem segments that look like bones and the fact that they tend to sway in the wind giving the illusion of dancing. The third common name comes from the shape of new and intermediate age stem segments which resemble wine bottles. I don’t precisely know where the second nickname came from, but the flowers of this cacti tend to be turmeric-yellow in color so that’s my best bet. The best part is that Drunkard’s Dream takes literally the same care as a Holiday cactus and tends to bloom roughly between February and April which gives it the common name of Easter Cactus. The difference between Drunkard’s Dream and the other holiday cacti is that you can perceive its active growth, as it’s a moderate to somewhat-fast grower especially during summer with regular water and modest fertilizing.

            Propagation of holiday cacti is very easy, simply twist off a stem that has at least three segments dip the open wound in powdered rooting hormone and stick the segment in a new pot with lightly moist soil mix and monitor for dryness over the next few weeks. The new plant should root in three to four weeks and if you are intending to sell, give it an extra four weeks and light fertilizer to get the pads to swell. For note, Schlumbergia, take a bit longer to get to a moderate saleable size often up to two or three months so plan ahead. If your taking cuttings to save a plant or as a gift then they are ready when a gentle tug on the cutting provides resistance. I should note that just because these cacti are forest cacti does not mean they will tolerate being exposed to very bright all-day sun (7+ hours) very cold, or constantly wet. But as promised I have pictures of this year’s Holiday Cactus display which started in December and is nearing its end in February.

 

Pink tubes, white petals - a true bicolor

 This one is the oldest Christmas cactus in the collection, it was bought at Home Despot in New Jersey and made the trip to NC with me back in 2009. the wispy green stuff in the background is the branches of a Hatiora salicornoides  whose origins I cannot recall but have been in that same pot for at least five or six years now.

This is one hell of a shade of red...three technically.

This Christmas cactus was added to the collection along with two others, and according to the color analysis software I used to try and get an idea of what shade of red it is, it's fire engine red, Cranberry red and Crimson depending on the angle. In case you are wondering the blossoms are crinkly like that because I think they got slightly frosted.






This was a mixed colors pot from the same source as the above red one. Pure white with pink accents and incredibly pink bordering on fuchsia. The next two photos are two angles on the same plant.

While labelled as Dark orange, I prefer to call it Fireball orange.

This is  the third one in that group of plants that came from a Sustainable neighbors Seed Swap. Before this Christmas Cactus I did not think they came in any true shade of orange.

Now with 20% more redness!

Here is another red one, labelled as 'very dark red' it sure lived up to it's name. The curling of the petals is an interesting touch. Much like all the schlumbergia in the collection, this is a crab cactus.

Quick shot of Limelight Christmas cactus about to bloom note the bud color.

Now for the big surprise, last year I was offering a unique variety of Christmas cactus called 'lime light' for sale at LeClair's General Store.  What made the variety interesting was that the parent plant demonstrated bold chartreuse blooms. What I did not expect was that the cuttings would throw a curve ball.  As you can see in this shot, the buds aren't white or yellow as expected but largely pink which should have been an indicator of what was about to happen. Normally with Christmas Cactus, the color of the buds is a strong hint to the final color of the bloom.

This true color shot seems to have skewed the color of this Lime Light.

Dancing Bones Cactus

Pictured here is the first bloom of 'Lime Light'. While I realize that the drop cloth and the true-color setting of the camera has skewed the actual color of the bloom,  the bright pink colors in the tube and reproductive parts is accurate. The bloom turned out to be more of a Chartreuse-yellow than a Chartreuse-Green. From my perspective though yellow or green on a Christmas cactus even with pink tones is still a rarity as they are colors you simply do not ever see. In the next week or so I will try a re-shoot of a 'Lime Light' in bloom as the heavily budded cactus in the above picture is about to bloom any day now. I hope I can have a better image up here in the next episode so all of you out there can get a real feel for what 'Lime Light' has to offer.

This is a close up of Hatiora salicornoides, while it is not in bloom you can see why it got the name 'Drunkard's Dream'. The stem segments with age get longer as you can see and they go from a young sort of beer bottle shape to a wine bottle shape and then eventually look like bones.

This brings to a close the first post of February 2018 and a decent look at the biology, growing habits and nature of the holiday cacti. For note this is where the advertising starts because it keeps the Test Garden’s supplied. As always barring terribly wet and cold weather or illness I still manage a vendor’s space at the Fayetteville City Market at 325 Maxwell street between 9:00 am and 1:00 pm on Saturdays. I sell four things primarily during the winter months and they are:

Soup Kits - $6.00

Seasoning Packets – $2.00

Whole Garlic – $1.00

Fresh Organic Ginger - $1.00

Also, I will be bringing a number of random house plants every week if weather permits and While the assortment is purely random, there is not a thing for sale that is above $8.00.

If the market isn’t your thing or your schedule does not allow you to go there my premium exotic house plants can be purchased in attractive clay pots with unique embellishments at LeClair’s General Store. LeClair’s General Store is located on 1212 Fort Bragg Road in Fayetteville North Carolina.

This is their Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/leclairsgeneralstore/

The Visit NC page’s Listing:

https://www.visitnc.com/listing/leclair-s-general-store

These days I am generally at the store at least twice a week, maintaining stock and/or delivering new materials so if you go to visit the store there is a fair chance I’ll be present to answer your questions. If not, you can always send me questions through this blog or visit the farmer’s market or pay attention to what Sustainable Neighbors is doing at the link below.

https://www.meetup.com/SustainableNeighbors/

            This brings to a close the third LITFM post of the new year, stay tuned the next episode which should be posted on the 21^st of February. The topic will be: A Profile In Diversity: The Philodendron Family.

P.S.

            Now is the time to start your hot-season annuals such as peppers, tomatoes and eggplant, but remember you may need a heat mat and humidity domes.

A Profile In Diversity: The Sansevieria Family

Welcome back to another belated episode of Lost in the Farmer’s Market or LITFM for short. It’s funny how one might think everything stops cold (no pun intended) in the winter because most things are not actively growing. The reality is that January, February and March are all good months to plan, and begin laying the foundations of a successful garden. Due to this and a sudden uptick in field operations my writing time got slashed so this update is a bit late, but since I know we have a rainy day this Wednesday expect the first February update to be then. Ironically as I write this post the rain is coming down pretty hard which is good because I spent yesterday afternoon cleaning up several areas of the test gardens and planting a border of white daffodils around the memorial bed. Also, a thick layer of pine straw was added to the bed since it’s been in almost a year and the cypress mulch while nice isn’t holding up well. But before I bore you any further with normal test garden procedure let me tell you what made the maintenance run special. 

In the front bed which is a bunch of overgrown, there is a single red amaryllis. For months I planned to dig it and move it to a spot where it would not be smothered by shrubs and never got to it. Yesterday I finally did, and as I was digging around to find it since it had no foliage I discovered that it was two bulbs. Two identical sized bulbs each roughly the size of a baseball which means they were mature offshoots of the original amaryllis. This was very fortunate because I wasn’t quite sure where I was originally going to put the single amaryllis. I walked up the driveway and for the briefest moment thought, “hmmm…two amaryllis I could put them on opposite sides of the Martha’s Vineyard stone in the memorial garden!” Within seconds of me finishing the thought I heard a noise up in the pines at the back of the property and looked up to see a large brown hawk landing on a branch and it sat there for a moment. As I got to thinking, how close it was and just the sheer size of it, it took off and then a second hawk farther out on the branch took off a second or two later to follow. It was a mated pair probably, but were I the sort to really believe in omens, this was definitely one. The two amaryllis went in the memorial garden and the maintenance run was completed. This means that sometime in summer 2018, the garden will be all white, except for those two-red amaryllis.

            Test garden happenings aside, today’s plant topic is the Sansevieria family all of whom are commonly called ‘snake plants’, ‘mother-in-law’s tongue’ or ‘Lawyer’s Tongue’. Only the first common name really is any sort of kind to this family of sturdy succulents from Africa. In general, all forms of Snake Plant take roughly the same care, they are soil insensitive as long as the soil isn’t constantly wet. You can fertilize them, but do it sparingly and only during the growing season (April-October in NC) and even then, use a liquid fertilizer with low nitrogen. Snake plants can tolerate somewhat low light, and can weather some cold temperatures but will not tolerate freezing or frost. Frost damage can permanently disfigure a snake plant or be the cause of phantom frost damage. Phantom frost damage is generally seen in succulents and some cacti, the signs of PFD, are that an otherwise healthy succulent that may have been exposed to a frost upwards of a week or two prior suddenly suffers stem collapse and or growing tip disfigurement followed by stem or root rot. Only close observation can reveal this  culprit as root and stem rot may move in so quickly after that a misdiagnosis of rot may occur. Of course, some think that the snake plants are bland, and for the most part they are right, the common plain green snake plant is bland as hell. However, as proven by NASA, and a few other organizations Snake plants are able to remove benzene, formaldehyde, trichloroethylene and xylene from the air.  Below is a link to a rough list of what houseplants clear what pollutants from the air, yes, I know it’s Wikipedia, but at the bottom of the page it cites where the information came from.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Clean_Air_Study

Sansevieria trifasciata – Snake Plant

So, with all that said let’s look at some of the varieties of snake plant one could have in the home. Starting with plain old common, variegated snake plant. This specimen (on the left) was brought into the Test garden houseplant collection as a fairly small offset of a plant grown at Fayetteville Tech. In the time I’ve owned this one it’s reached mature form and bloomed twice and the flowers are something to behold. They come out on thin stems and look like little off-white pills with droplets of honeydew/nectar which probably is to entice ants to hang around for when the flowers open so they get pollinated. The flowers once open are pure white, have tassel-like petals and are incredibly aromatic, but do not stink. Unfortunately, the picture of this specimen does not reflect its current state as this plant was heavily damaged by our two plus weeks of temperatures at or below 20 degrees. It may or may not survive.

Sansevieria trifasciata - ‘Moon Shine’

            Although tiny, this little one is quite spectacular because it is all-white…sort of. It has a noticeable variance in how it’s off-white variegation works because on one leaf you see it has the traditional banding and on the other the leaf is solid white with a green margin. This little plant was given to me by the Cactus lady at the Fayetteville City Market because she found out I was looking for one. This is a cheap promotion here but please hit her up this spring and summer she makes some great full decoration terrariums. As for care, I presume ‘Moonshine’ is to be treated like a traditional snake plant, limited water, small infrequent fertilizing during the growing months and, unlike the normal snake plant, one should expect a much slower growth rate. In plants with a white or nearly white leaf color, often the striking hue comes with a cost as the given planet is unable to photosynthesize as readily so it may need more regular fertilizer or special care to prune out any reverted growth.

           

Sansevieria trifasciata ‘Hahnii’ – Bird’s Nest

            The Bird’s Nest is a dwarf form of Snake plant that forms an almost cup-like cluster of leaves that someone at some point decided that it resembles a bird’s nest. I personally can see the comparison and really, I’m glad it’s not called something negative. The chief advantage to swarf forms of snake plant is that they don’t use up as much vertical space so you get all the air purification, but less of the clutter. Also, dwarf snake plants offset more readily and require repotting less frequently as they are cluster forming and adapted for close quarters.

Sansevieria trifasciata ‘Golden Hahnii’ – Golden Bird’s Nest

            I know what you are thinking, ‘hey that’s not much different than the last one!’ you are right, it isn’t, that’s is because the golden birds nest comes in a few separate forms, and the yellow-green banded type show is one of them. I should note that a golden-yellow variety is sold that carries all its color on the leaf margins is also called golden bird’s nest. These succulents take the same care as the bigger snake plants, and seem to respond more to fertilizer.

Sansevieria laurentii – Golden Snake Plant

            I should note, that the Laurentii type snake plants don’t actually have a common name so I just rolled with a rather obvious one for them. The bright golden-yellow margins of this plant are striking and help define the green banded parts incredibly well which is why this is the preferred type of snake plant for living arrangements and generally for gift-giving to those who seem to be unable to take care of house plants.

Sansevieria cylindrica – Spear Snake Plant

            I first read about Spear Sansevieria in a book called ‘Bizarre Botanicals’ by Larry Mellinchamp and Paula Gross (pg. 272-273).  Honestly, I agree with their assessment of the plant, it’s literally as minimalist as it gets and yet as with plain snake plant it’s blooms are incredible, and it is equally as interesting as a pencil cactus for the fact it is so simplistic. I bought this specimen about five or more years ago from a Nursery in Sanford North Carolina called ‘Big Bloomers’ when they randomly and out of the blue had a crop of spear sansevieria. Since then the mother plant you see has been repotted a few times, and I’ve given away or sold numerous pups. As far as houseplants go, this one is easy, and in theory could be the plant I decorate for Christmas next year given it’s size.

This brings to a close the second post of January and a brief look into the Snake Plant family and a few of it’s options. For note this is where the advertising starts because it keeps the Test Garden’s supplied. As always barring terribly wet and cold weather or illness I still manage a vendor’s space at the Fayetteville City Market at 325 Maxwell street between 9:00 am and 1:00 pm on Saturdays. I sell four things primarily during the winter months and they are:

Soup Kits - $6.00

Seasoning Packets – $2.00

Whole Garlic – $1.00

Fresh Organic Ginger - $1.00

Also, I will be bringing a number of random house plants every week if weather permits and While the assortment is purely random, there is not a thing for sale that is above $8.00.

If the market isn’t your thing or your schedule does not allow you to go there my premium exotic house plants can be purchased in attractive clay pots with unique embellishments at LeClair’s General Store. LeClair’s General Store is located on 1212 Fort Bragg Road in Fayetteville North Carolina.

This is their Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/leclairsgeneralstore/

The Visit NC page’s Listing:

https://www.visitnc.com/listing/leclair-s-general-store

Currently, as of last delivery (02-02-2018) the store has a number of barrel cactus, a few tree philodendrons, some prickly pears, haworthia, rare and unusual aloes and other surprises. These days I am generally at the store at least twice a week, maintaining stock and/or delivering new materials so if you go to visit the store there is a fair chance I’ll be present to answer your questions. If not, you can always send me questions through this blog or visit the farmer’s market or pay attention to what Sustainable Neighbors is doing at the link below.

https://www.meetup.com/SustainableNeighbors/

            This brings to a close the second LITFM post of the new year, stay tuned for the first February update of 2018 this Wednesday. The topic for the next update is Christmas cactus, and there is a special treat because the Test Garden’s specimens of ‘Lime Light’ Christmas Cactus bloomed and I snapped a photo and trust me, the colors are not what you expect.