Huernia thuretii in bloom again.

Previously I was showing this guy nearly four years ago in this post and it was a lot bigger back then. What happened, you may ask?

Well.. it started to overgrown the pot it was in, so I decided to plat it in a much bigger bowl (the one in the photo here), but considering the pot is bigger, the soil should have been a lot more gritty and fast draining than in smaller pots. I did not do that.. so when some heavy and longlisting rains came this last spring, the soil stayed wet for a very long time. As a result, a large part of the plant rotted.

Some weeks ago I took it out again, cleaned all the rotted parts, and planted again the good one in the same pot but with better soil this time (I hope it's better anyway). And tadaaa... we have flowers :)

There is another tiny stem potted in a separate pot. Just in case. It is too small to flower and it had no roots, but I can see it growing. So all good.
For now :p

Huernia thuretii

These are small, but very cute little flowers. They look pretty impressive when there is dozens of them on a nice bushy plant.





There are more buds forming, but they will not bloom at the same time. The flowers last just a couple of days, so by the time this one is ready, the currently open ones will be long gone.

The oldest stems look pretty dehydrated and have some damage on the tips - that's ok, they will not grow any taller anyway. Just looks a bit ugly.

The younger ones (photo below) look great though. This was just the big fatty one when I planted it. The little ones already grew after the requeue mission.

And this is the whole pot. Three separate plants in total. Only ne blooming for now.





And now a little bonus. See the white fluff and a tiny little bigger above it? That is a mealybug!
And I would not see it if I didn't take photos today. Or I would when there are dozens of them already.





This one was wiped with a cotton swap soaked in alcohol. Later this year (before cacti go for winter rest) I will water all the plants with Neem oil. That should help keep the buggers away too.