BCSS - Forum

My wife Jenny just went to shut up the greenhouses tonight, and smelt a strong perfume - a pleasant one - and it was emanating from this Trichocereus pachanoi flowers which have just opened:
[attachment 19512 tricho_pachanoi_2.jpg]

Standing on a tall chair, you can see a bit more of the plant:
[attachment 19513 tricho_pachanoi_1.jpg]

Beautiful. I can smell it from here. Do you shut up your greenhouse for security? Mine's been as open as I can get it for weeks now, even though it isn't in a very secure spot. This includes removing some of the [polycarbonate] glazing to get a bit of a through draught.

I have something very similar under the name T. bridgesii. The multi-stemmed main plant about 7FT tall in the centre bed does not have a single bud on it. However two 4FT cuttings I lopped off it and just rested against the end wall inside the greenhouse that showed no signs of buds when cut off have opened three flowers today without any roots on either. Near death experience I guess.

The plant in the bed is too well fed and needs to suffer more, or it will have to get very high before significantly flowering, whereas those stems cut off and deprived of roots decided they better flower and pass on their genes in case their situation was terminal!

DaveW

Hi Tony, absolutely wonderful flowers and the stamens and anthers so numerous and regular. It looks to be about 15 to 20 cms across, that's some flower!

First class Tony,

Yes, Phil, I too give it as much ventilation as possible, lots of roof and louvre vents, but the doors get shut at night to keep out too many visiting foxes and cats, never mind humans!

Lovely plant Tony, how long has it taken to get to that size?

Robert,
This plant was put into the raised bed in the middle of my greenhouse naerly 11 years ago, when it was about 1 ft tall. In the intervening time it has twice been beheaded as each column hit the roof - this is the third stem to reach flowering size. I reckon columnar plants bedded out typically grow up to 5 times faster than those in pots!

Liz,
Yes, the flowers were about 8 inches across when fully open - they only lasted about 18 hours before they started to close, and tonight they are drooping! And they didn't even get pollinated by any visiting bats in my greenhouse!!

Thats pretty fast, I might have to plant mine in the ground to see if if it speeds mine up:).

Thanks

Rob