Specific Families and Genera > Cacti and Succulents

Alpine Cacti- Winter Emergence

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Kristl Walek:
These pictures were taken in May of 2006, just when they were emerging from under the ice and snow.

Escobaria vivipara is a tiny, clumping species and the most northerly-ranging of the barrel cacti, occuring in the Canadian prairie (to -45C). It has been long-lived in my garden, although I sometimes lose individual stems to rot after a particularly wet season.

Perfect in an open, exposed rock garden or trough...

Maggi Young:
I am captivated by Kristl's "frozen"  cactus pix. Of course, the flower colours are so striking in that season... who could resist them? I have noticed that cactus do seem to be appearing more often on the show benches.... they could never look as good as these en masse, though  8)

Kristl Walek:
Maggi, I had a series of about 30 pictures of the "unthawing"--like looking at time-stop photography....I did not want to bore everyone with those...even though they were fascinating to me.

By the way, I hope you all realized that I use the phrase *alpine* cacti in the loosest sense---(tiny and perfect for the rock garden or trough). These are not "alpines" in the traditional definition of the word---heck, they don't even live in the mountains---Escobaria vivipara shares space with scrub and cattle and snakes in flat-out, low-land prairie country.

kirsitn:
Cool pictures! How long time does it take for them to reach that size? I sowed this species 1 1/2 years ago, and they're still no more than 1 cm tall... But they do seem to have survived the winter outside so far.  :)

Kristl Walek:
Decades, sorry to say- not something that would show up on the show benches quickly, at least not in it's old-age clumping stage.

They can take years and years to flower from seed as a single stemmed plant--for it to start clumping is years beyond that. This example is *not* "massed" in the traditional sense of "numerous plants being grows together" --it is growing from a single crown.

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