Prickly passion

I have loved and grown cacti since I was a boy. My parents bought a collection of baby ones for me and my brother from Worfield Gardens in Bridgnorth when I was eight and I was hooked, or more accurately, transfixed (literally as well as figuratively!). I have just one of those original tiny plants left that has been with me for all the years in between: it is now more than 3m tall and withred tubular flowers annually. The flowers seldom open fully – my first photo, taken this week, shows a group on my plant as they typically appear. The picture is looking upwards towards the top of the 3m stem (it is not lying flat – that’s a vertical wall behind it, not the ground!). This cactus is a popular houseplant when small and known as the silver torch Cleistocactus strausii (Hesse) Backeb. and is endemic to the Tarija Department of Bolivia.

There are no native British cacti, although there many that are quite hardy as long as they are not allowed to linger in damp soil. We do have a few native succulents, though, such as orpine Hylotelephium telephium (L.) H.Ohba, and biting and English stonecrops Sedum acre L.and S. anglicum Huds. 

Relevant to our current COVID-19 plight is that many cacti make great houseplants for a sunny windowsill. Give them plenty of sunlight (but not so that they scorch), very free-draining, gritty compost, and water them weekly from March to October but not at all in winter. They will repay you with fascinating, if prickly (keep out of reach of children and pets!) growth and, with a bit of luck, simply gorgeous flowers. Wear stout gloves for potting them and if you have to hold them while doing so, a well-folded sheet of newspaper wrapped around them works well.

My second photo is of a small part of my collection of cacti and succulents. Be warned, starting a collection of cacti is addictive!

Many cacti, of which there are more than 1,700 known species, are easy to grow from seed and I have done just that with more than twenty of those in the photo.(NB. 

All the plants in the picture are xericoles (thriving in drought) but not all are cacti.) Ecologically, their morphology and biology have been shaped to succeed in arid climates where there are long spells without rainand occasional downpours or brief wet seasons. They are pollinated by insects, often nocturnal ones, and by hummingbirds and bats. The fleshy stems are where photosynthesis occurs and the spines, which are highly modified leaves, protect against herbivores as well as providing some shade from fierce sun and desiccation.

Finally, here are some pictures of a few of the wonderful blooms my cacti produce. All these I have grown from seed except the Echinopsis chamaecereus or peanut cactus which came from my late Aunt many years ago, a lovely reminder of her.