The really dreary weather - worried about plants

[iann]

Definitely not been a very good July. Seems even worse after the amazing sunny spring. I haven't been worried about my plants, though. Day temperatures still get very warm, and nights not cold, even if the lack of sun does mean less evaporation. I try not to rely on evaporation to dry out my pots, so less of it isn't a massive problem. Depotting some might be educational, can be quite surprising how long pots stay damp. I'm even going to water some this evening, things that haven't had any for a while, fingers crossed the forecast for more sun the rest of the week is right.

[Eric Williams]

High humidity, Pereskiopsis love it lol. Cheers

[edds]

As I'm fairly new to cacti I bought one of those soil moisture probes. While they may not be sparklingly accurate they seem to be good at telling whether a pot is dry near the centre and bottom. It helps me not over-water my cacti in larger pots compared to ones in smaller pots.

[Terry S.]

Great growing weather, most succulent plants shut down if the temperatures are too high. So temperatures of 20 - 30C in the greenhouse with cool nights and plenty of ventilation is good.

The genus that is particularly responsive this year is Conophytum. The old skins dried up quickly in the sunshine of April and May. With the cool nights of July, I was able to start watering them a few weeks ago and the new heads are fattening quickly. Not only that, but flowering seems much earlier than usual with many C. pellucidum already in flower along with quite a few other species.

Down here in the south, I suspect that we haven't had as much rain as you guys further north.

[ralphrmartin]

My pricked out (earlier this month) cactus seedlings are also appreciating the conditions and growing apace.

[Chris L]

My pricked out (earlier this month) cactus seedlings are also appreciating the conditions and growing apace.

I noticed that too with mine - they seem to have liked being damper for a bit longer and not baked by the sun (even though they are under staging).

[Chris L]

I've had to unpot a Gymnocalycium (that was heading for a mealy bug infestation) and the compost was quite dry, so perhaps I am worrying over nothing.

[Ross M]

It's easy to worry in this dismal weather Chris

[iann]

Dismal weather, you say? I'm just wondering how much more of my greenhouse glazing I need to remove to stop the Lithops melting.

[Herts Mike]

A very dismal 30 today and a miserable 34 tomorrow....