Hardy Tropicals UK

Just bought these on e bay for £50 ,also included were 3 large agave Americana and 1 medium royal agave
Only problem is I have never grown cacti before
I have just unloaded them and staked them and given them a good watering.Now to make room in the conservatory for them for the winter

You got quite a lot for your money and its hard to kill cacti...
Very little water over winter and they'll be OK.

Keep little hands away from them!
You may want to stabilise those tall specimens with straight sided pots... Homebase do them, other than that prepare to shorten them in time.

Defo a good deal if you have space for them. Cleistocactus strausii is very cold hardy if kept dry. I think you have Opuntia robusta there as well which isn't quite totally winter hardy for me but could plant out and protect in situ. One or two of the smaller ones at the front look like Echinocereii and are potentially very cold hardy too. Some of those larger plants could be very old.

Hi Steph

Yes they are quite wobbly I have put a couple of thin canes into them but I thought that they should have been much more stable in their pots I have checked for roots coming through the bottom of the post and there are none ,in fact they do not appear to have much of a root system at all.Is this normal ? If I re pot them into much taller narrower pots will this encourage more root growth? Ideally I would want to grow them to much larger self supporting specimens

greyhound wrote:Only problem is I have never grown cacti before

Priceless!

And there was me thinking I would try a few Aloes and Agaves from seed ... what-a-wimp-am-I !!!

Steph wrote:Keep little hands away from them!
You may want to stabilise those tall specimens with straight sided pots...

When I have unstable pots I stand them in a larger pot and fill the space between with gravel, dunno if that would work?

Looks a good deal......especially if the gloves were thrown in as well!

You need BBQ tongs to handle them.

A great buy but was it impulse as you said you are not a Cactus collector? It looks like the previous owner new what they were doing as they are in clays, not over potted and look very good specimens.

It probably was Clive and I did not expect to get them for my bid price I thought I would be outbid by the end of the auction ,the guy that sold them had been growing them for 15 years but unfortunately he wasn't able to name them for me.he said he hadn't watered them for 2 weeks as he knew they were moving.I have had them outside all day for the last 2 days but I bring them in at night.I gave them a good watering this afternoon with the hose and they are now a bit firmer in their pots
He told me only to water them once each week and stop the water completely from the end of October onwards
If the weather is good in October I will leave them outside all day and bring them in at night I think they may benefit from a bit of fresh air

I will be honest, I was like goodness me what a lot,

Well done GH!

Instant desert

Nice haul you have there. I was told by a cacti nurseryman in Yorkshire not to water them after the end of September, until spring.

Steph wrote:You got quite a lot for your money and its hard to kill cacti...
Very little water over winter and they'll be OK.

Keep little hands away from them!
You may want to stabilise those tall specimens with straight sided pots... Homebase do them, other than that prepare to shorten them in time.

So you can simply lop the height off cactus and it will regrow? and is it essential for pot planted ones to sustain root balance vs growth?

greyhound wrote:Just bought these on e bay for £50 ,also included were 3 large agave Americana and 1 medium royal agave
Only problem is I have never grown cacti before
I have just unloaded them and staked them and given them a good watering.Now to make room in the conservatory for them for the winter

Good buy! You have a good couple of hundred quids worth of Cacti and Agave. You could probably make the £50 back by selling the smaller ones on ebay.

I prefer the Opuntia cactus over the long tall, hairy ones - they are also reasonably cold hardy with dry soil.

A really good buy, you will end up being a exspert if you get them through the first winter.