How to get an Opuntia subulata to bloom?

[Harry B]

I have this O subulata for some years now. (and I still don't know if I like it or not) Anyway: it seems to be a happy plant, cos it's growing quite fast every year. Nevertheless I would like to see a flower. Is there a way to force it a bit? Or is it more or less impossible in our cold and wet regions?
Harry
[attachment 21430 Opuntiasubulata0091.JPG]

[Stuart Estell]

I would imagine it'll want free root run in a bed - DaveW has flowered subulata ssp exaltata so will be able to tell you more.

[Mike P]

The ones I have seen flowering have were growing 'wild' in Spain alongside a road where I guess they had been dumped. They and were much larger 'bushes' and were much more branched than yours. I would guess a free root run would be useful - this was certainly the case with my O engelmannii which refused to flower until the roots escaped the pot and found their way into the soil under the greenhouse.
Oh yes and I thought the subulata flowers were quite disappointing......

[Harry B]

Thanks Mike and Stuart.
Free rooting will be impossible; too cold and wet ..
Harry

[DaveW]

It was actually a friend of mine that gave me the plant Harry and it was in a pot not much bigger than yours when he flowered it every year, but was about 6ft high in his greenhouse.

It was curious since it flowered rather like one of these so called "chain fruit cholla's" in that after it's first flower all later years flowers were produced on the green unfertilised fruit (fruit on fruit) from the succeeding years, and never elsewhere.

I planted it in my centre bed and it flowered for me once but then grew so fast I came in one day and it had fallen over under it's own weight, so I had to cut it up and binned most of it.

Exaltata is a much more viciously spiny form than yours so I was not unhappy to see it go. I gave Stuart some for grafting on, if he could get past the spines! I still have bits growing in the bed in my small greenhouse but they have not flowered yet.

I would think yours should soon be near flowering size, but whether keeping the roots in a small pot helps or bedding it out I do not know. I do know since my friend flowered it, it can be flowered in a pot.

DaveW

[kaowinston]

Hello

I have a C. subulata, which has never bloomed for me even though it is over six feet. It started life in a pot, but now its roots have penetrated into the ground. All the ones I have come across in bloom have always been firmly in the ground, and are over seven feet tall. This gives me the impression it needs free root movement, and height, in order to produce flowers.

This photo is from the Pallanca Exotic Garden in Bordighera, Italy.

[attachment 21459 IMG_9687rzz.JPG]

[Mike P]

I found the shots of the roadside plant. Pretty impressive clump.
[attachment 21461 subulata1a.jpg]

[Mike P]

And the flower.
[attachment 21462 subulata2a.jpg]

[Harry B]

Dave, Winston and Mike thanks for your reply's.
Harry

ps Mike: not disapointing at all those flowers

[Mike P]

Harry - with hindsight I tend to agree I may have been a little unkind to it. Its interesting that there were not that many flowers on this plant unlike the one Winston posted.