New northern grower

[AllanA]

Welcome Benoit.
Don't forget the conophytums are winter growers. Keep them growing for the first 18months, then rest them in summer.

[Peter]

Are these plants kept in a glasshouse/greenhouse? If so, how are the winters where you are? Many folk over here in the UK worry about heating costs and quite a few of the plants you grow will need to be kept warm!

[Monsieur Benoit]

The winter can be pretty bad where I am located, last winter we hit minus 37 Celcius, lot of snow and very few hour of sun daily. Today sun wake up is at 7:23 am and sun go down is at 4:11 am which should be the same as you folks in Britain. Keeping my plants in a greenhouse would cost me a lot of money to maintin it at 10 C, so I prefer to move all my plants in my basement under neon light at 14-15 C. It's the cheapest way to grow succulents in Canada, I have known a guy who was a cacti grower and thanks to the heat cost during winter he is out of business, I think that he told me that his average cost during the whole winter was around 40 000$ for something quite small.

[Ben V]

Welcome Benoit!
It's nice to see someone else from Canada on here,especially someone with interest in pachypodium.Do you have any good sources of seed or information for pachypodiums?I've searched the internet,but I can't find a lot of seed suppliers,and even less information on them.

[AllanA]

Welcome Benoit, You get more sun than me.It rises at 9am and sets at 3.14pm, here tomorrow!
That's why my conophytums are now autumn and spring growers, rather than winter growers. The new seedlings are under lights in their first winter.

[Aiko]

Welcome Benoit, You get more sun than me.It rises at 9am and sets at 3.14pm, here tomorrow!
That's why my conophytums are now autumn and spring growers, rather than winter growers. The new seedlings are under lights in their first winter.

That's how I try to get them going too: growing them in August, September and October, and restart them in February, March and April. Maybe May too.

Do you place your winter growers in a warm or moderate warm place, or do you keep them somewhere rather cool?

[Monsieur Benoit]

To Answer Ben V, I haven't find so far a good seed supplier with Pachypodium, they need to been sown soon after being harvest, their fresheness is what dictated their germination rate. You should try with big known seed suppliers like Mesa Garden, Koehres-Kaktus, Plitz, If I might forget some that sell adenium and pachypodim seeds. They usually have in their inventory those kind of seeds and germination should be good.

To Answer Aiko, I keep all my succulents and cacti in my basement with very low humidity and lower temperature under neon. I will restart them at the end of February with progressive watering, I have very few winter grower, they are keep in a rather cool place too. I totally understand your growing technique, we have the same problem with sun in the North during winter it's not strong enough for successfull growth.

[Roger Mann]

Hello and

[Roger Mann]

Hello and