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Hi!

Here you can find some pictures of my cacti. As you can see, I'm mostly interested in Astrophytums - but not only. I also grow intensly Echinopsis hybrids. But most of the Echinopsis plants are still too young to have blooms (though I've had several plants bloomimg  last two years). I've choosen to show you a part of  the most interesting plants in my collection. I'm going to add more photos and information from time to time. Last addition from the 14th of December, 2007.

If you happen to be interested in temperate zone fruit varieties, you may also visit my homepage. I've placed some information and photos there. Unfortunately, all the written information on the page is only in Estonian yet (again, I'm going to add some English in the future). Anyway, if you follow the link Sordikirjeldused (which means Variety Descriptions), you can see about a hundred of fruit photos from my orchard.

This page is created with Nvu and GIMP. Unfortuantely, my knolidge and skills with these programs are still very shy. So, if something is well here - it's due to these great programs. And if something is not  - it's due to my inability...

Harri Poom,
Saare-Tõrvaaugu Gardening Farm, Estonia.

12th of October, 2008.
Added some pictures of flowering Ariocarpuses in my new greenhouse.

14th of December, 2007.
Just added pictures of Astrophytum asterias, mostly 'Super Kabutos'.

As said above, the Astrophytums are my favourites, A. asterias being the most beloved. It's cultivar Super Kabuto is definitely an extremely exciting breed -  an amazing range of variability occurs among the seedlings! Actually, every single one seems to be different from the others. Sometimes, crossing different clones of the Super Kabuto may give completely unexpected results - as in the following case. I crossed two clones of SK in 2003. The sk7 was grown up from the Philip White's seeds and the sk6 - from the Cactusheaven seeds.

The seeds germinated well and I grafted about 100 seedlings on to Pereskiopsis. In a few weeks it was clear that something very interesting is going on: a lot of seedlings looked like very odd. In some cases it would have been difficult even to decide which species the seedling belongs to - if I did not know that I've crossed nothing but two SK clones... But my comments are excessive here, the plants would explain it far more better:

I've got the SK seeds from different sources and nice plants have grown up as well:

The other very exciting breed among Astrophytums is A. myriostigma cv. Onzuka. Again, a very variable form. Unfortunately, myriostigma needs longer to grow before it will be able to bloom and this is the case with the Onzuka as well. So, crossing experiments take quite a long time. Look at some Onzuka pictures:

Some of my Onzukas have had blooms, though, which have given me a chance to make a couple of crosses - one with a 6-ribbed A. myriostigma and the other wth the A. ornatum. It is interesting to note that while onzXor gave a fruit with viable seeds, the reverse cross was not succsessful - the resulting seeds were undeveloped and, of course, did not germinate at all. Here are the pictures of the cross parents and hybrid seedlings:

Astrophytum myriostigma is a quite variable species and several breeds do exist. The Onzuka is only one of these and though maybe the most beautiful, a lot of other forms are represented in many collections.Some of them can be found in my collection as well:

Astrophytum coahuilense in general is a quite stable species, anyway, some interesting breeds do exist. I got the seeds of supposedly three-ribbed form from the Cactusheaven. Well, the resulting seedlings were not what I had expected - but I'm very pleased anyway:

To finish with the Astrophytum theme, I've added some more pictures:

I think that cactus flowers are among the most beautiful flowers on the Earth - think about Selenicereus, or Epiphyllum, or Echinopsis species and hybrids.
Of course, not all of the cacti have such a impressive blooms as the abovementioned ones. This way or another, blooming cactus is an breathtaking sight. Often, the striking contrast between the roughness of the thorny stem and delicate beauty of the blossoms only adds attractiveness to the gorgeous blooming.
Look at these pictures!

And for the conclusion, some more photos...