I think I have said previously that I am not the most patient of people generally, yet when it comes to plants and the garden I seem to have endless patience - sometimes not even realising I am waiting for something to happen.
The Cleistocactus coladmononis is a case in point for this. I did not know I was waiting, but it turned out I was. Don't ask me why Flossy is cuddling it in this photo, I think it was the warmest spot and she was not going to miss out.
Anyhoo - back to the start. I bought this plant in 2017 at a visit to the Hampton Court Flower Show.
There she is, swaddled like the baby that she is at this point. These are such fabulous plants and whilst I was not certain I could keep her alive, I really wanted to give it a go. She found her spot in the conservatory and I let her be.
Two years pass and then there is an incident.....
She was growing really well, but some idiot (moi?) knocked her off the windowsill and she broke a limb. I tried to bind it back together but I quickly worked out this was a fool's errand. I neatened up the wound and planted the broken off bit to see if it would grow. Dear reader it did, I now have two of these lovely plants. Harmony was restored and the plant continued to grow well.
and then the other day I saw this!
Was I surprised? Was I excited? You betcha!
The sheer delight of when the flowers opened is hard to measure: is there a measure for this? It would be similar to the Richter Scale as it would measure magnitude. I think it would be called the Wowsers Scale - that is what I would/will call it and these flowers are definitely a 7 or 8, actually already leaning definitely into the 8. Hmm, I think I shall have to develop this further: expect more at some point.
The plant itself is now trying to tak over this corner of the conservatory, but K9 keeps an eye on it in case it starts to wiggle.
and if you look closely you can see the broken end of the limb from a couple of years ago. The plant just kept growing. So whilst I tend to think of cactii as not as easy as I would wish, this was has been a joy to grow. Admittedly I am not great at houseplants and they often dry to death in my house - so many cactii are my spirit plant.
Take care and be kind.