Greetings from East Africa

[safariman]

Greetings from sunny Uganda.

I have just become a member of BCSS and I am beginning to find my way around the members website. I do hope to become an active member of the forum discussions as I gain understanding and confidence on how to use it!!

I live in Uganda for most of the year but travel back to UK 2 or 3 times a year. We live 10 miles from the equator at 3,500ft (height of Snowdon) and the max min thermometer on our patio tells me that the max shade temp has been 29.9c and min 18.5c this year. (No need for greenhouses here, but shade cloth is useful) .We get about 60 inches of rain throughout the year,(more than twice UK average?) with a couple of dryish months in Jan and Feb. Its reasonably humid here as well without being sweltering. In other words its just about perfect for all human beings and for many cacti and succulents!! The only thing is, (believe it or not) its boring waking up to the same perfect weather 365 days a year. (OK, ok, I can hear the groans!) But I really do miss a good sharp frost and snow on the ground.

I suspect some of my cacti and succulents would also agree and would dearly like a "rest period" to escape the local growing conditions!!

Although still a novice at this game I have discovered that you have to be adaptable and watch and learn from my spiky friends and on the constant lookout for enemies.

I have been collecting local indigenous succulents and have been growing cactii from seed for a couple of years now. Now that I have semi retired my collection (just like my stomach) seems to be swelling considerably. Exact identification is a major problem for a novice like me and I do hope that some of your members are able to help me out on this, plus any other "tropical" advice.

I am travelling back to Uk later this week and will be in and around the East Midlands area
I really look forward to hearing from you and maybe meeting members to exchange experiences.

[rodsmith]

Welcome to the forum safariman. This is a friendly forum and there is usually someone who is willing and able to answer questions about cacti & succulents and help identify them. As I type this the weather is typical for this time of year (or any time of year really - cloudy). I wouldn't mind giving yours a try for a change.

[safariman]

Thanks for your warm welcome, Rod. I will try and squeeze some sunshine into my suitcase for you when I travel back this week although its bucketted down here today, so everythings a bit soggy, which can be a big problem for some of my desert types. Have to maintain good drainage in the pots.

[Morgans Beauty]

welcome aboard safariman! a few pictures of your environment would be great

[safariman]

Thanks Michael,

After all the rain we've had over the last 3 days, I feel like climbing aboard.

Please bear with me for a few days as I get to grips with sorting out taking photos of my "family members" in their environment and posting them onto this board. You dont need a greenhouse in this climate. But you have to carefully choose your garden locations for your specimens. So I have my sunny spots for the sun lovers; natural shady spots under trees for my forest cacti such as epiphyllums, which seem to grow quite well here; and, artificially shady spots to protect and keep an eye on young seedlings and cuttings. One challenge we have here on the equator is that we cant use the european maxim of "south facing window cills" . Half the year the sun penetrates north facing windows, so you have to keep plants on the move here as the sun moves from Cancer to Capricorn and back again!

The heavy tropical rainfall here (5cm in half an hour is not unusual) with huge hailstones can of course cause significant damage and good draining potting material and pots is essential. So thats the climate environment. I'll talk about the pests you have to battle (fortunately elephants are no longer a problem in my location) in another post.

Are there other tropical members out there who I can share experiences with?

[safariman]

Michael and others,

You requested a few pictures of my environment. I have some ready now in jpg but I cannot for the life of me work out how to post them up here. Can someone kindly guide me on how to do this?

The photos will show cacti and succulents growing in my garden. I hope that some of you will be able to help identify them. I am hopeless at this. I have quite a few Aloes, euphorbias and Agaves, as well as a random mixture of Cacti that are desperate to know what their exact name is!

Many thanks

[Jim_Mercer]

I have some ready now in jpg but I cannot for the life of me work out how to post them up here. Can someone kindly guide me on how to do this?

There is a guide here http://www.bcss.org.uk/foruma/viewtopic ... 7&t=156306

Basically you need to reduce the size of your pictures (make a copy) to less than 256KB - suggest you re-size to make longest edge of picture around 1000 pixels then alter quality/compression of jpg to get below 256KB file size

Once you have your small files saved you can attach up to 5 to a reply but you have to do them one at a time using the upload attachment link below the box you are typing in

[safariman]

Jim,

Thanks so much for the re direct which gives clear guidance. The programme I have has compressed the photo way below the 250kb level, so the picture may be a bit grainy. Still its a start and I'll see if I can get future photos much closer to the allowed figure

My Garden environment

IMG_0737a.jpg (39.23 KiB) Viewed 2066 times

This photo has in the foreground and background two big clay bowls filled with locally collected C&S. In between you can see the tops of cacti plants that I had bought in UK.

I would be extremely grateful if anyone can identify these plants from this initial thumbnail

More, hopefully of better quality and showing plants in more detail will follow.

[Morgans Beauty]

More, hopefully of better quality and showing plants in more detail will follow.

this will be very helpful