Water experiment     8/29/16
I’ve tried to figure out how to shake up people’s strange watering beliefs. At the end of June, I stuck the eight plants you see above into about 3 in (7 cm) of water. I added distilled water as necessary to maintain the roughly constant water level. The top row are: Sulcorebutia steinbachii, Echinocereus reichenbachii, a Trichocereus or Echinopsis, I think, Matucana intertexta (note that it’s had about 8 flowers over the summer). The bottom row are: Echinocereus viridifloris, Notocactus concinnus, Mammillaria sp., Gymnocalycium sp. I took them out of the water the day of the picture. They have been treated like the rest of my cactus herd since emerging from the 60 days of roots covered in water. As of this date (10/9/16) seven of the 8 are quite alive. The E. viridifloris died. I’ll do this same thing next summer with eight E. viridifloris plants to see if I can kill all eight. I think that this year’s subject may have been sick to start. So what do you think we know about cacti and watering? I’ll keep you informed about the health of the now seven survivors.   (34/40)   

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