SUCCULENT SUMMER

Succulentophile is giving way this week to this piece written by Joey de Castro and John G. Besa.

Just open your window or take a walk outside and it’s hard to ignore the heat. It’s official, summer’s here and judging by how much hotter it gets every day, it looks like it’ll be here for a while. Time to bring out your swimsuits, sun hats and suntan lotion and hit the beach. Or, if you’re anything like succulentophiles, you stay in Manila where everybody else isn’t and enjoy your succulents. And we don’t mean watermelons.

Summer is definitely the season for succulentophiles. This is the time when our little pets show off. Blooms in an ever-widening palette of colors and just about the most fascinating weirdness of any plant life found on earth shows itself. Cacti are so unlike any other form of vegetation and the difference presents itself in more than just a few thorny spines or colorful blooms. Everything about them, from their blooms to the way they reproduce, can be nothing short of otherworldly. It is precisely their uniqueness that has caught the fancy of thousands of collectors around the world. May your summer be as bright as the blooms of your succulents!

If you are interested in starting your own cactus and succulent collection, the best source of these wonderful plants would be the Baguio/Benguet growers like aling Ultina, and Elaine in the Flowermart (Quezon Avenue side) of the Manila Seedling Bank in Quezon City.

Here are some guidelines for your Baguio/Benguet plants:

Step 1: After purchasing them, let them dry out for a week.

Step 2: Repot them with a mixture of 1/3 part river sand, 1/3 part coarse perlite and 1/3 part organic compost. If you don’t do this important step, their chances of survival in Manila becomes slim and they will most likely rot and melt away in a few months.

Step 3: Water only after two to three days, then water them only once a week thereafter.

Step 4: Hope that the plants will adapt to their new environment.

For your established plants, summer is the perfect time to re-pot your babies and start feeding them with a diluted complete fertilizer.

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E-mail the author at succulentophile@yahoo.com.