The master revealed
This is the last installment on my visit with Bill Munkacsy, a master grower of cacti, based in
As Bill continuously stressed to me during my brief visit that day, climate and, in particular, temperature are some of the vital ingredients to his successful culture of his plants. So, our respective microenvironments are already more than half the battle to successful culture and should dictate which types of succulents we should choose to grow.
Cacti need considerable temperature shifts from day- and nighttime in order to grow well and produce robust spination and healthy growth. In
Looking at Bill’s greenhouses, the outside material is made of quite opaque (to me, anyway) fiberglass. If I were to use this material here in
However, in Bill’s case, I could literally see some of his plants with scorch marks caused by excessive hot sunlight. Bill explained that the intensity of the sun’s rays in this part of the world is quite high. In fact, during the day of my visit, Bill said that the sun was actually quite hazy because of some nearby brushfires. It was also quite cloudy, and yet I found the sunlight to be quite intense. In more tropical climates like ours, the sun’s rays are diffused by the high humidity levels in the air. But in Bill’s temperate world, this isn’t the case.
Which leads me to another interesting point. Before Bill moved to
However, when he moved to the less humid confines of
Now, the other interesting cultural regimen that Bill employs is that he grows all his plants, including sensitive Ariocarpus, in a mixture of 50 percent perlite/pumice (no sand) and 50 percent organic compost. All the succulent books and Internet sites out there will tell you that using organic compost in your growing mix for sensitive Mexican rarities like Ariocarpus is a complete no. And yet Bill’s Ariocarpus were clearly thriving. Bill also likes to fertilize with each watering, using a very diluted mixture of 1/16 strength of the recommended fertilizer dosage. With an organic mix, I wouldn’t even consider additional fertilizer for my Ariocarpus.
What is the lesson here? Simply that there are no one, two or 50 secret recipes for growing mixes. There is a wide array to choose and use from. The key, however, is that this must be synchronized with your growing conditions (sunlight, temperature, air circulation) and growing habits. By growing habits, I mean your watering, fertilizing, repotting and pest control actions.
Bill’s greenhouses are all fully enclosed by the opaque fiberglass. You can’t see through the fiberglass. One of the chief scourges of growing cacti in
So, Bill had a couple of final suggestions for me. If I felt my greenhouse wasn’t getting enough air circulation, I might try using a simple electric fan in my structure. And, to simulate the wider temperature levels of day and night as one would experience in the desert, why not use air-conditioning in the night for your plants? Bill is not the first grower to suggest this to me by the way. Steven Hammer, the great Haworthia and Mesembryanthemum expert based in southern
I sure learned a lot from my visit with Bill that day. But I have to take what I learned over there and apply these to my growing conditions over here. Simply and blindly following the culture instructions in a book written by a grower based in a Western/temperate environment (which, unfortunately, many of us have done in the past) is one sure way to maim or even kill one’s succulent wards. Remember, we live in a totally different climate and environment over here, so we must learn to adapt.
If you do, I can honestly say that you too can grow some really fantastic and magnificent plants like Bill Munkacsy.