Mamm.plumosa

Just a question
I have one plumosa that I bought last year. The question is how to get it to flower and how do I stop the thing rotting short of not watering at all.

The plant looks to be very healthy.

Cheers

Anthony

To stop it from rotting I would advise a shallow pot and / or extra draining soil mix. As for flowers, make sure you look for them at the right time - M. plumosa flowers during the winter.

Thank you Fabiao
Will try your suggestion.
Out of curiosity how shallow should the pot be?

Cheers

Anthony

I use almost exclusively square pots, and they usually belong to two "families", so to speak: taller-than-wider and wider-than-taller. The latter tend to be about 1cm wider than taller and these are the ones I use with Mammillarias that are shallow or sensitive rooted, like M. plumosa or the Ancistracanthae series, for example.

Not sure how big your plumosa is, Anthony, but Philip Barker has some BEF 4 1/4 and 5" half height round pots which could suit. His range is on Manchester BCSS

Thanks both

Will attempt to post a picture in the near future.


Cheers

Anthony

I have to do some surgery as well, Anthony. I noticed mid winte rthat three or four heads of my M. plumosa were looking rather off colour, and decided to wait for Spring. Now there is fresh growth on the other heads, but the ones that were sick are now terminal, so I had better get on and repot and cut back.
If worst come sthe the worst, then I know there are some healthy heads and it'll have to be a re-rooting job, but this just happens sometimes for reasons that I cant explain. M. plumosa is known to be prone to this sort of thing.