Cold Climate Cactus

The cold frames are closed again with less than a quarter of an inch on them. Maybe there will be more snow in the next day or so... otherwise I should open them again.

The cold frame lids are wood with clear plastic taped on to them. It is hard to believe this thin plastic held on by tape will support the weight of snow and ice over the winter, but it does. A cold frame doesn't get any cheaper than this. Now there is no snow, but when the cold frames were opened in freezing conditions one of them cracked. It is as if the cold makes the flexible plastic fragile like glass. I just put some clear packing tape over the cracks and that should get the structure through the winter. Next summer I probably should replace the plastic with some new plastic.

Usually in December the snow comes and covers the cold frames with the cactus plants inside. These cacti stay covered by snow for the whole winter and in March the snow melts letting them have full sun again. This year some rain came and washed all the snow off the cold frames leaving behind very cold weather with no snow cover. I decided to reopen the cold frames and leave them open until some snow returns. The problem with keeping them closed is that the air inside will become moist from the ground; then freeze on the cold frame lid at night - only to melt in the daytime - which allows water to fall onto the cactus plants and then form ice. This would be bad for the plants. Keeping the lids open and letting the cactus plants be exposed to the dry cold air of winter will be safer than letting them get water drips on them.

It is strange to have no snow protection in January, but the cactus plants should still do well.

There were plenty of weed seeds germinating around the cactus plants this fall. Mostly prickly lettuce, and it seemed like there were thousands of them. While digging out the broadleaf seedlings I found lots cactus seedling too which was very exciting because I didn't know they were growing there. I transplanted them to their own pots and they are ready to spend the winter in the cold frames. This is the first time I've tried transplanting cold hardy seedlings in the fall. They should survive well this way and begin to grow next spring, and if this works well I should try more fall transplanting. Before I was transplanting cold hardy cacti in the early spring, so we'll see.

We have had rain every day in the month of June and July is still bring plenty of rain too. Some seedlings have died under these conditions and others are growing like mad. There are probably some species relationship to the ones that survive these conditions and by the end of this summer I imagine I'll know which ones these are. The cold climate varieties in the Echinocereus, Escobaria and Pediocactus generics are all holding up very well and growing.

There has been rain almost every day for the past week. I think I picked a good time to plant cactus seeds in outdoor starting trays. They have stayed wet and the night and day temps. have been good too. Hopefully in a week or less there should be some germination.

The Pediocactus var minor seed pods became ripe about four days ago. They have to be gathered as soon as they are ripe or the pods will start letting the seeds out, which makes them very hard to collect. The seeds tend to fall down the sides of the plants and hide in the network of spines at the base of the plants. Once the seeds are trapped at the base of the plant they are impossible to remove without harming the cactus.

Another difficulty is that the pods need to stay on the plants and removing the whole pod can cause serious damage to the stem of the Pedio. The pods need to be gently split open and the seeds picked out of the pod a few at a time with tweezers. A few weeks later the empty seed pods will dry and fall of the plants without damaging their skin. If the plant is damaged by removing a seed pod the resulting injury can become infected and the whole plant will die.

It took me over three hours to remove seeds from less than twenty plants. Picking the seeds out of the seed pods is tricky because they tend to slip away while I'm trying to grasp them. I am storing the seeds in the frig. and hope to plant them later this summer.