HOSPITAL...

in 2010 a dear friend of mine offered me a sucker of Lophophora williamsii ssp. jourdaniana. and from one other friend i " ordered " just a little cutting of a Trichocereus species.
because i had never ever done some grafting but was enticed to do a thing like that by the lovely www.lophophora.blogspot, i rooted the Trichocereus and grafted the Lophophora in october. for it was late in the year, i was forged to grow them through winter...but they did very well until this very day. the Lophophora was at the beginning the size of a hasel nut, nowadays a walnut meets her size. the tricky thing in spring will be to acclimatize them both to the sun...without becoming sun burned.
the other 2 patients are Aloe ramosissima. i have sown them in 2009 but have been a little careless last year, so that they lost their roots. i made a clean cut at the roots, powdered them with auxine or giberellic acid AUXIN = GIBERELLINSÄURE and after that with charcoal powder. now they stand in pure lava.
the last 2 patients are Alluaudia montagnacii. i have bought my " DEVILS DAGGER " some years ago and this old plant is nearly 2 meters high. at their tip she set off 10 branches which i have cut down to 3 remaining branchlets. 2 of them have been been large enough to possibly become new plants. i powdered them with auxin and charcoal too and they too stand in pure lava.
my ceramic pot is standing on my heating. the girls and boys i am really concerned about are the alluaudias. they are to small and very sensible. perhaps i might loose them. time will tell...

MOTHER EARTH

                                            pumice BIMS

                                          granite GRANIT

                                               lava LAVA


mother earth or substrate - the latter is the scientifical and technical term - is the foundation of our success in plant culture. if you ask a million you get a million answers. that is quite sure. and right, too. so as a result, earth doesn´t really matter as long it is not like solid concrete!
what is my answer? well, i am lazy, won´t loose my time in caring to much for my plants, but only let mother nature do what she normally does. my plants stay outside on the balcony from may to october, generally speaking. they get all the rain and sun. only the extreme xerophytic ones stay under a shed of glass. so my substrate has to be very airy and draining.
in practicing WABI and SABI i keep it very simple. i am using pumice BIMS, lava LAVA, gneiss GNEIS, granite GRANIT and very very very seldomly chalk lime limestone KALK and humus HUMUS. and i always mix them 1 : 1 : 1 ...  i have started an experiment with my lophophoras in sinking them down in pure loess LÖSS. but those plants are always sheltered off the rain. time will tell what substrate pleases them more...
ciao

YOU

hey there.  you are the audience. and i am no nerd but a curious person with a good hunger for information. so if you have some interesting book titles, www sites, horticultural practices or other   " you really should know this " to offer, then feel free to share your knowledge with me. the design of my blog is not perfect and i will try to pimp it up in the future. so as it is as it is now write me your ideas under this blog here. sincerely

WWW

hello.  the www sites i am offering you are the best of the best in my point of view. since there is so much information in the web and a lot of bad, lousy and poorly constructed pages are " on their way " to our computers, i really have to promote the beautifulliest and most professional ones. if you are interested in more than our plants, than you may find some interesting new ideas on my list. maybe this is the beginning of something beautiful and new... ciao

BOOKS

hello. the books that i present you on my book list are the ones that i consider to be the best of the best. if you are an open minded person you will appreciate that i add some titles that do not in the least deal with our pets. maybe you will find some good new unknown literature that will broaden your mind. please send me any book titles that you are fond of. maybe they will become part of my list and broaden my mind. ciao

WABI SABI

hello, girls and boys. today i will explain you the principles of my art. all i do in live and therefore in the arts i am practicing is the principle of WABI and SABI. WABI SABI is not equal to wasabi, the japanese mustard that will burn the hell out of your mouth. these two words describe a principle or a philosophy that is the mother of all japanese art and culture. in our western world this idea is well known but nearly lost in the struggle against modern culture.  " form follows function" ,             " mastership demonstrates itself in simplicity", " IN DER EINFACHHEIT ZEIGT SICH DER MEISTER " , " a brilliant theory - that works in practise ! - is always simple and beautiful " ...these pictures give you an impression what these little two words mean. so what do they mean for my practice? very well, live is short, there are a thousand things to do and thousands to see, and time is the only thing that i can´t buy. so, all that i have to do has to be done in a clear, easy and simple way. no hurry, no helterskelter, no trouble. you will see in the days to come that all my horticultural practice is very much inspired by the japanese culture of the old days of the samurais. for me their mastership in architecture, bonsai, cooking, martial arts, painting and philosophy is unreached and my inspiration. ciao

TESTUDINARIA HEMICRYPTA

on new year´s eve i started my seed sowing project. one of the first ones has been Testudinaria hemicrypta and Testudinaria elephantipes. nowadays they are named under the genus Dioscorea which belongs to the family Dioscoreaceae. plants of this family have been the source of the substances that build up our first "anti baby pills" in the rocking 60s. normally i am sowing in using the FLEISCHER METHODE, a very professional and easy method in sowing seeds.  i will demonstrate and explain this in the near future. but here i just took some mineral water bottles and filled them up with coarse lava, added boiled water and the seeds and covered them with basalt grid. the only thing to consider is that the seeds are DUNKELKEIMER, that means they do not need and are not allowed to get light. so if by accident they are exposed to light, their awakening will be stopped. if seed collecting in the daylight and other "accidents" will do the same...i must have to say "yes". may be this is the reason why so many seeds disagree to grow up. so this is why you see my bottles are mantled up with aluminium foil. they stand on a warm place, receiving 20 to 25 C in the day and 15 to 20 C in the night. if some fungi will threaten their health i will treat those "little dirty bastards" with vitriole, copper sulfate. so, let´s wait and see...

AM ANFANG WAR...

hello.

i have seen so amazing and beautifull blogs that i have been decided to start my own one. as i am just a beginner with things like these, i will change my appearence in the days to come. so any comments and critics how to improve my presentation are very much appreciated. as you will learn as time passes by, english is not my mother tongue. but to get the best profit in reaching the most people as possible i have set up this  blog in english. to make it a little bit more convenient for the reader with a german tongue i will write ,if it is essential, some german words in BIG LETTERS. please feel free to correct me if my english will hurt your feelings...my home is near Basel, Switzerland, so my climate is very much mediterranean in the summer and scandinavian in the winter. i know the scandinavians will give me an icy blow and the mediterranean a sunburned kiss to get me down to earth if they will ever read this. sometimes i am really to euphoric. so what about the plants i am growing? " it started with a kiss" said my first opuntia. i never forget that one...but like all first love i let her pass away! after that i had got the cactus fever and a passion started. nowadays i have cacti and caudiciform and pachycaul succulents, ferns, orchids and palms. i will present them to you as time goes by. hopefully i can tell you things that might be new or helpfull for you.  so that´s it for the beginning. enjoy yourself and enjoy my blog. see you...