samaipateño cleistocactus

order: caryophyllales
family: cactaceae
genus: cleistocactus
species: samaipatanus
cultivar: f. cristata

This is a cleistocactus originating from Samaipata in Bolivia in crested form. It came into my possession over the winter 2011/2012. Since there was nothing to do in the garden and the tropical plants in the room were mostly dormant (my plants were still countable back then), I felt the need to go around hunting for some lovely plants. I found it amusing that different plants can develop crested form. I must have had the idea of expanding a collection of crested form plants for some time. Regrettably one cannot have an infinite amount of plants and an infinite amount of time to care for them.

Generally all of my cacti give me the impression that they never grow. With this one, it is especially true. It hasn't grown tall, it hasn't grown long, and it hasn't grown fat since the day it came home with me. So if there's one plant in my nursery that I cannot be proud of, this must be it. This year, the months of March, April and May turned out to be on the cold side. The plant is still being kept in its winter quarter besides on a couple of warm sunny days in April on which I brought it outside for sunning and watered it thoroughly. (It must be very thirsty after a long winter of aridity.)

I'm not really expecting it to give me a bloom this year, though I've seen lovely flowers on cacti, and they are to wish for on your own cacti. This year I'd like to slightly increase the amount of water and fertiliser on the cacti and I hope it helps them grow.

grey ghost thin candle

order: caryophyllales
family: cactaceae
genus: stenocereus
species: pruinosus
cultivar: 'grey ghost'

first published on 23/02/2013:

I've been meaning to keep up with my frequency of posting at every week, but my architectural studies kept me very busy the past two weeks. I've been pondering to write an entry yesterday and today but was hesitating because at this time, I'm being very negative about leaving my plants to the care of my friend over the next 3 weeks, while I'll be visiting my family in Borneo. I don't feel appropriate to write about any plant that may or could die because I'm taking a break. I was beginning to go through the list of my entire plant collection to see if there's any plant which I can be sure will make it till my return even if left alone. I even thought about writing on some seeds that I plan to grow this spring.

But, well... I think anyone who doesn't do gardening can also easily come to think of cacti or succulent plants of some sort. I looked at my list and found 4 cacti that I've been having for a year, and another one (an opuntia) which I gifted a friend for her birthday and which came back to me at the end of last year, as she moved away to another city. The opuntia has an interesting story, though for this time, I decided I'm going to write on my "grey ghost thin candle". I don't know how people would usually call this, but I'm going to just call it this way. "Thin candle" is derived from its scientific name Stenocereus. Actually, I cannot even be sure about this, because the mini cactus was offered at a... say, very affordable price; so people couldn't be bothered to put a label on it. According to cactiguide.com's "the top 10 most common cacti to identify" list, I most probably have a Pilosocereus pachycladus or a Stenocereus pruinosus, but it's difficult to tell with a juvenile plant. I only came to the conclusion that I'm having a Stenocereus pruinosus after a whole year of research and comparison with hundreds of photos online. As I'm no expert in cacti, don't be too serious with the "grey ghost" label. I know the part about spines, areoles; full stop.

My plant is barely 3 cm tall and was probably even less than 2 cm at the time I brought it home. But I think one day it will even outgrow me. I first imagined that cacti like this will grow to be short, rounded columns or cylindrical. But as I can see on the internet, most Stenocereus tend to grow very thin and long, hence its name. There are five candles growing in the miniature pot, probably linked at the base. I had given it a cooler environment to overwinter. Now, it came into my warm study (about 16°C) 3 days ago because, I think the March days are sufficiently long for it to resume growth. Upon coming back to life, I thought it deserved a soak, so granted him. The next watering will be in 3 weeks when I'm home again. I'll keep my fingers crossed while I'm away; not only for this little one, but also for all of my other plants.


>>Update (27/07/2013):

First of all, I found out that this cactus does have a common name. Most people call them grey ghost organ pipe. But in its native habitat in Mexico, people call them pitayo de octubre, something to do with the month October.

This plant has been weakened as the growing season began. I found some white tiny bugs that fed on its juice. I don't know if they were the main cause of the problem. I've been trying to get rid of those creatures, but so far they still keep on reappearing. Other possible problems might as well be sunburn and injury that was caused by crowding. I used to have 6 columns coming from below but 2 were damaged. I think they could have swollen after receiving water to the extent that they started to puncture into each other with their spines. Currently the remainder isn't looking like the grey ghosts I knew because of the pinkish tan they'd got from the direct sunlight exposure. In order to avoid sunburn, I've moved them to a less sunny spot. Frequent checks on bugs will continue on. Oh yes, I've also repotted them into a bigger pot, so they have more room to grow. Hopefully, they will recover and grow.