My Mammillaria senilis

After spending last winter in a dark garage, and producing no flowers at all, this plant has responded to its new situation with a great show, the most flowers I've ever had on this plant.

Stunning!!!!!

Yes, a great show!!!

Quite a show! I'm still waiting for my 2011 seedlings to oblige, I must be doing something wrong...

Maybe this is one species that does better in our colder climate. I am sure it likes winter cold and light, so it goes into the corner of the greenhouse that is the farthest away from the heaters, which just happens to be the south west side, so it gets whatever winter light the jet stream lets us have!

I'm sure light is not the problem, but cold may very well be. We don't have much of that over here - by your standards, anyway.

Chris43 wrote:

Maybe this is one species that does better in our colder climate. I am sure it likes winter cold and light, so it goes into the corner of the greenhouse that is the farthest away from the heaters, which just happens to be the south west side, so it gets whatever winter light the jet stream lets us have!

Yes, a friend told me: hibernate cold and unfriendly. . .
Then the plants will bloom with certainty.
And pour early in the year when it's still cold.


Best wishes

K.W.

Chris, congratulations on this spectacular number of flowers! I have never seen so many flowers on one head!
One of my old multiheaded (11 heads) M. senilis will produce 25 flowers this year, with a maximum of 5 flowers on 1 head. The other senilis, just as old and with about the same number of heads, will give me only 3 flowers. This senilis has always produced a smaller number of flowers than the other one, even though they are standing next to each other. The reason for the difference, I believe, could well be that the poorer-flowering plant has been in the shade of the other one. In the late fall and winter, my greenhouse gets sun only in the afternoon, in such a way that the sun does reach the well-flowering plant, but 'not' the poorer-flowering one. This year the difference in number of flowers is very large, and that may have to do with the very sunny February that we had. The low afternoon sun in February reached one plant, but much less the other one.
Next year I will put both plants in such a position that they get the same amount of sunshine.
Cold is no problem at all, both plants have had at least -5C this winter.

Chris, the heads with only 1 flower, have they been on the shady side of the plant?

Wolter ten Hoeve.