Thank all of you who have ordered cactus plants these last few weeks! We got over 100 orders the first day and nearly that the second day and more orders come in as the weeks progress.

Needless to say, we are extremely busy and overwhelmed. We are currently 4-6 weeks out on orders. If you placed an order on April 22 or 23rd we will be getting your order completed sometime at the end of May or sometime in June.

We appreciate your patience!

Aaron and Tarah Morerod

Hi all!! This week we are having a visit from a fellow YouTube channel, Cactus Quest. The creator of Cactus Quest is Hunter Martinez. We will be doing a collaboration with him this week. His trip will be sponsored by the LA Cactus and Succulent club. It is our hope that Steven Brack will also be in attendance, even if only by Zoom. We are also working on potentially doing some give aways. If you have not subscribed to our Youtube Channel, Facebook and Instagram, please do. We will be updating those sites often this week. Also if you have not subscribed to Cactus Quest, we highly recommend you do! Hunter has great content!!

Also we will be pulling orders to the best of our ability as per usual but there may be delays in pulling time and email response. We do apologize for this delay as we are preparing for his visit  that will be the 11th, 12th, and 13th. This is a great opportunity for all involved to join together to continue bringing cactus and succulents to the world!!

We are starting to feature more on our Youtube Channel!

This week we will have up 3 shorts that are one minute video daily plant features. These videos have brief narrative about that plant.

We are posting our first Genus Feature with Stenocactus. As we create these feature videos we are also going to make a Genus Fact Sheet. I am posting this fact sheet here. As we make more and more fact sheets we will work to attach them to items within the website so you can click the info sheet there as well.

Copy of Stenocactus

Update for the Conophytum listing for 2022.

•  We will continue to update the  Conophytum in the days and weeks to come. This will most likely not include rare items like calculus, pagae and the 1700’s and 1800’s of our catalog listing.
• You can search for our latest listings by typing the genus you are looking for in the search bar on the right and then using the sort box on the left.
• We have had several customers try to circumvent our system that limits what you can order per week. They have ordered MASS quantities of the Conophytum listed in the 1700’s and 1800’s of our catalog listing. This has caused large problems in inventory. Unfortunately, if you have ordered any quantities in these catalog numbers and you have ordered more than one, you will be only getting One packet per order. We will be making refunds as necessary on these items. We do apologize for this inconvenience. When customers try to find a work around to order mass quantities, it causes the inventory to do unusual things and have errors where it normally would not.
•   It is going to take about 2-3 weeks to work through this large influx of orders during this time.  We thank you for shopping with us!

Unfortunately shipping costs have been raised due to shipping prices going up here in the US. We have tried to mitigate this as much as possible but now this has become unavoidable. Our seed prices however, will continue to be very affordable throughout the rest of 2022.

Happy New Year and thank you for your continued business!

Aaron and Tarah

Temperature for optimum germination: night minimum to day maximum:

1. 60’s to mid 70’s F (approx. 17 to low 20’s C)
2. 60’s to mid 80’s F (approx. 17 to upper 20’s C)
3. 70’s to mid 80’s F (approx. 20 to low 30’s C)
4. 60’s to near 105F (approx. 17 to near 40 C)
5. 70’s to near 100F (approx. 20 to upper 30’s C)
   Time to plant seeds:
6. any time of year with proper temperatures and day length (ca.13-14 hours); you can extend day length with artificial lights.
7. fall and winter are best time, avoid heat of summer, short day length (ca. 11 hours)
   Special notes:
8. remove from closed humid atmosphere soon after germination (ca.3 days)
9. slow to germinate, scarification and stratification help, freeze and thaw both wet and dry. Don’t keep wet, but alternate wet and dry with changing temperature. No luck? Save pot and try again next year.
10. closed humid atmosphere important, distilled water useful with tiny seeds.
11. rot easily, right after germination: not too wet, dry air and stronger light.
12. soak in warm (approx. 80F, 27C) distilled water about 12 hours before planting the seeds; do not allow to dry between soaking and planting.
13. needs soil with basic pH when first transplanted (add limestone), especially in areas with acidic water.
    Hardiness of strong seedlings or adults in good health and culture:
14. no frost at all, fatal, keep above approx. 40F (approx. 5C)
15. occasional light frost, above 28F (-2C)
16. frequent moderate frost, above approx. 20F (-7C)
17. very frost hardy, above approx. 10F (-12C)
18. often snow-covered, safe easily to -10F (-23C)

Cultivation codes for mesembs and some other succulents: (germination temps)
A-robust shrubby spring growers that grow rapidly and flower in the spring. When the heat of summer comes they go dormant. Some will grow only as annuals and die in the summer heat (50-65F, 10-18C)
B-spring growers that stay compact, actively grow and flower in the spring, needing deep soaking waterings. They can be cool to cold and dry in the dead of winter. (60-75F, 16-25C)
C-grows in the fall and winter when cool with short days. They like frequent light waterings and lots of mist, mosts come from regions with fog appearing at night. They go dormant in late spring when hot conditions arrive. During the heat of summer often shade is very helpful. Very little water given all summer long. (50-65F, 10-18C)
D-opportunistic, will grow anytime from fall to spring when moisture is given. Grow and water them when you have periods of sunshine, and they go dormant in the heat of summer when less water is needed. (60-75F, 16-25C)

Pediocactus, Sclerocactus and Toumeya

With winter approaching in northern latitudes, the best time for sowing Pediocactus, Sclerocacus and Toumeya is here. In places with hard frosts in mid winter, you can sow the pots outdoors to give exposure to multiple freezing/thawing occasions. In habitat there will be more than 100 nights with subfreezing temps, while during the day the sun will warm the air to thaw the ground surface.

Then in most of these habitats there will be some rain or snow in the spring. Then in spring the ground will be cool and very damp. Many seeds will germinate in early spring under cool damp conditions, after the needed freezing/thawing cycles of mid winter.

In the summer often it is dry, occasionally there will be thunderstorms. The ground will experience very high surface temperatures, be mostly dry, but occasionally very wet when thunderstorms come frequently in short bursts.

If you live where sharp frosts occur in the winter, try to sow the seeds by the end of January if possible, so that enough freezing/thawing cycles can occur.

Summary of sowing method used here in New Mexico:

1. sow in mid winter, keep mostly dry, occasionally wet, freeze at night and thaw in day
2. damp in early spring when cool, occasional light frost, warmer in day. Keep evenly moist and germination will start.
3. very hot in mid summer, mostly dry with occasional soaks. More germination will occur after thunderstorms soak the pots. Avoid prolonged soaking now.
4. mostly dry in fall, occasional soak only. Allow to dry out for winter dormancy. Sometimes plants will bud in the fall, do not keep the plant any warmer for the winter, just let the buds sit until spring when it would naturally flower anyway.

We use only the naturally occuring temps, there is no protection from cold at all. The pots are sown outdoors in plastic pots. The pots are housed in wooden boxes which are covered with nylon window screen. Suspended above the boxes is a layer of shade cloth. These two layers will break up heavy rain drops and give protection from hail.

If long heavy rains are possible where you live, it would be best to put the pots under cover after some germination has taken place. The outdoor treatments are designed to accomplish germination. For example the plants do not like long soaking rains in late summer and into the fall, so you might have to move the pots to an unheated greenhouse or coldframe once they have sprouted. However a long soaking rain is very beneficial in promoting germination.

The easiest to sprout are: Pediocactus simpsonii, Sclerocactus spinosior, pubispinus, and brevispinus. They will often sprout in early spring when it still freezes a bit at night. They find early spring a very active growth time when it is cool and moist.