Thankyou all very much for your replies. I appreciate it.
Perhaps I should have made it clear that I wasn't actually told November is when to stop watering. I am(accidentally!) new to this game and had somehow managed to collect a few cacti and inadvertently discovered in November that they shouldn't be watered over winter until springtime!
I have a small collection of 13 that are currently in my kitchen. The kitchen gets afternoon and evening sun but is not hot.
I think I'll give them all a good thorough soak tomorrow!
iann wrote:Same here, Peter. This winter was so warm that even the things I was testing for cold-hardiness and expecting to die are looking very happy. Nothing has died, but a pot of three Turbinicarpus lophophoroides look distinctly chapped and may not survive. I guess that means they'd have no chance below -4C which is about as cold as it ever got.
The drier, more dessicated the plants are, the more cold they will tolerate. That's the reason I stop watering at the end of August. I provide no heat during the winter and all my Ariocarpus, Turbinicarpus, Lophophoras (L.diffusa excepted, they mark badly in cold weather), Gymnocalyciums and Lobivias are fine down to -3C. Some Lophophoras will freeze solid at temperatures lower than this but the others are fine down to -5C. That's about as cold as my greenhouse will ever get. Prolonged cold weather of a week or more with temperatures constantly below feezing day and night is another matter however.
BCSS no.33806
Turbinicarpus, Lophophora, Ariocarpus, Lobivia and Gymnocalycium
A related question: are there any cacti that shouldn't be watered before buds are somewhat advanced? I remember, back in the olden days when I first started growing cacti (mid 80s), it was drilled into me that the likes of Lobivia and Echinocereus shouldn't be watered before flowers are well developed, or risk their aborting the buds or converting them into offsets.
I never really got around to testing this, so: any truth to this assertion?
Certainly true for Maihueniopsis! If you water these in spring, you are much more likely to get new segments and not flower buds. I withhold water until mid to late May when the flower buds are developed.
Tony Roberts
Treasurer, Haworthia Society
Chairman, Tephrocactus Study Group
Moderator, BCSS Forum
Kent
(Gasteria, Mammillaria, small Opuntia, Cleistocactus and Sempervivum are my current special interests)
and inadvertently discovered in November that they shouldn't be watered over winter until springtime!
