Look what my misses picked up for me :D

[Asher7]

She always hears me talking about how my bridges never flower so she was walking through the garden place and found this. It was surprisingly not one with the glue gunned flowers. So she picked it up. She had no idea what it was.

Score.

I've never seen a trich flower live in the flesh so I'm doing the mad scramble to figure out if I need to do anything to get it to open up, or just sit back and let nature take it's course. It has another one forming out of it's side. Random stuff man, you never know what your day will bring you.8)

 

[Asher7]

Through out the night:

 

[TGO]

What a lovely flower! That is a beautiful specimen you've got there!

 

[Gone-and-Back]

Beautiful! Very pretty flower.

I'm on my third year now growing bridges from cuttings, and I have yet to see any flowers either. I have heard that the more you cut and clone, the less chance of flowers. So I'm going to leave one of the cuttings to just grow and not cut it for a year or two and see if that makes a difference.

I'll just take all my cuttings from the stalk that has a bunch of pups.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

That's most likely an Echinopsis hybrid. Are there any details on the label?

 

[Asher7]

Yeah, it's a Trich. Grandiflorus hybrid. Rather surprising to me that it found it's way to where I'm at. In true fashion the flower made it for about 30 hours and started closing back in on itself. The window of opportunity for these guys is like a flash.

Quick questions, there's loads of pollen in there. I could probably just collect it all, dry it out and save it for later right? Do you have to rehydrate pollen when you want to use it? Also I assume the entire flower body will eventually just fall off right? If I had to guess nature takes care of the removal process. It's a shame the flowers dont stick around longer but hopefully it will send out a few more before the cold hits.

Beautiful! Very pretty flower.

I'm on my third year now growing bridges from cuttings, and I have yet to see any flowers either. I have heard that the more you cut and clone, the less chance of flowers. So I'm going to leave one of the cuttings to just grow and not cut it for a year or two and see if that makes a difference.

I'll just take all my cuttings from the stalk that has a bunch of pups.

My youngest ones are at 4 years from their last cutting and still no flowers. A good friend of mine in a different location gets them and fruits each season. The only thing I can think of is 1. his are old, 2. they're in the actual ground and not a pot (which Im thinking does play a role even though I've seen photos of flowering ones in pots) and 3. he's closer to where they live naturally, so maybe some sort of weather ques are playing into the equasion. That's all speculation but, there must be something going on here.

 

[DeDao]

Thanks for sharing this. Plants are incredibly intelligent.

 

[DmnStr8]

Absolutely gorgeous!

 

[downwardsfromzero]

The hybrid will have been selected for easier flowering, I'd wager. There's something about cactus blooms. So alluring!

And a note concerning T. grandiflorus, courtesy of K. Trout:

Consider the following, fairly widely cultivated plants in light of the proposal to merge Trichocereus, Helianthocereus and Echinopsis.

•Echinopsis grandiflora Link 1857 (white flowers)
•Echinopsis grandiflora Hort? (Flowers various shades of red)
•Echinopsis grandiflora R. Mey (deep pink flowers)
•Helianthocereus grandiflorus (Br. & R.) Backbg. (flowers brilliant red; variable)
•Trichocereus grandiflorus Backbg. n. sp. (white flowers)
•Trichocereus grandiflorus (plants in cultivation are variously said to have red or white flowers)
•Trichocereus grandis Hort.? (orange flowers)

Some plants have been transferred or renamed so many times it can sometimes make even locating information about them difficult.

Gotta love plant taxonomy

 

[D.REYx420]

Ive had my grandiflorous for a few years now and not a sign of it flowering. I think I need to go see if I cant snatch something up that's flowering

 

[D.REYx420]

my intuition was correct and I did find a flowering cacti at the good ol' lowes and something new ive never seent them carry that I was excited about.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Nice finds!

That spirally one with spots looks very much like an Astrophytum ornatum.

Are the plants labelled?

 

[Asher7]

@ DRay, someone up that corporate chain must have retired and a new guy is calling the shots, or maybe one plant vendor got replaced for a different one, I dont know. Lowes is providing this year though, stuff we dont usually get here in the past.

This is the latest one, also picked up by my missis. It sat as a fuzzball for a month and some change and then for whatever reason decided to stretch out and flower. Im still a little lost in what exactly sends them their ques. This one is opening up slower for whatever reason.