Photo Album: Best of the Rock Garden, 2012

This is a Facebook album, but you don't need to be a Facebook member to view it:

Rock Garden Progress, 2012

A video tour spanning from vole and winter induced "disaster" in April through a very successful growing season, to October 8. Here's hoping that Spring 2013 looks better than 2012 did!

Open-pollinated Opuntia seedlings

Seedlings being readied for a winter trial in the garden.

The Rock Garden, June 18, 2012

Surrey Greenhouse

The current state of affairs in my greenhouse.

The "BC 2012 Uppsala/Kew Opuntia Expedition"

We had a great 4 day trip on the weekend of June 2, 2012, looking at Opuntiads and other plants in BC's Thompson Region. From left, Andrew Gdaniec, Diploma Student at Royal Botanic Garden, Kew; Mats Hjertson, Curator, Museum of Evolution, Uppsala University, Sweden; me; and Brent Hine, Curator, E.H.Lohbrunner Alpine Garden, University of British Columbia.

Pediocactus nigrispinus in the Colockum Wildlife Area, with Dixie Dringman

Grafting Pediocactus simpsonii

These are seedlings of P. simpsonii SB930 grafted on Pereskiopsis tonight. Why? Because I sowed them in pure sand as described below! They simply stopped growing prematurely and a couple died before I took action. This has been successful in the past, so we will see where this takes us.

Spring Begins!

New starts for 2012! On the right are dormant cuttings of the Opuntia aurea hybrid "Namao Rose". To it's left in the smaller cells are the O. aurea hybrid "Pony" and a couple pieces of things I snatched from death's grip last Fall...

Grafting Pediocactus nigrispinus seedlings on Pereskiopsis

Bleach Treatment of Seeds and Sowing in Mineral Medium

I learned these techniques from two sources, and they provide much more detail. First, treatment of seeds using NAOCL solution was learned on Youtube from DRCEVNL at http://youtu.be/MGG2-YpGDWA (all of their videos are fantastic). I learned about the technique and benefit of sowing cactus seeds in a pure mineral medium from Leo A. Martin's paper "Growing Cactus from Seed" available at http://www.centralarizonacactus.org/assets/article/seed/CACSS_Article_Cactus_From_Seed_Leo_Martin.pdf.

Video and discussion of typical wintertime conditions as seen on January 1, 2012 in the hardy cactus and native plant garden.