Spiky cousins
I was just browsing through the hundreds of horticulturally related photos I have in my computer, and I chanced upon this photo. The thing is, I have absolutely no clue about cacti(plural for cactus for those of us who do not know). I mean, we learnt so much about shrubs, flowering plants, trees and all that good stuff, but we haven't really touched on cacti.
We see so many of them during the CNY period, those with the green stems( are they stems?) and red heads. From what I know, the red heads are actually grafted onto their green hosts. So apparently it works, and the cactus is able to survive, until some freak accident which will leave it 'headless', sort of.
We live in a tropical island, so it's perfectly natural for Singaporeans to not see cacti often. But office-folk like them to bits because they don't need as much sunlight, and watering them once a week is probably more than enough already.
So it's a hassle-free plant to grow, but is it? Hmmmmm, I have friends who grow cacti in their offices, and water them sporadically, but the cacti still start to rot due to excess moisture. So they turn black and soggy from the bottom up and eventually fall over due to the damaged/rotting/soft/nua base of the stem. It's probably due to the humidity and soil types being unsuitable for retaining too much water. But hey, I'm no expert when it comes to these spiky organisms, they just look pretty sitting there in their little pots. I might as well start reading up on them since I have slightly more time on my hands now. =/
Time to hit the books once again!
~moey out~