Let's know more about LITHOPS

Lithop is one of my difficult cactus to take care.  Its color looks so fantastic and shape is cute.  So it's not surprise that most people (including me) will fall in love with Lithop (But it can't ever survive in my care :( So today we will know more about Lithop.

Lithop is commonly called "Living Stones" or "flowering stones" because its shape, size and color causes Lithop to resemble small stones in their natural surroundings. The plants blend in among the stones as a means of protection. Grazing animals which would otherwise eat them during periods of drought to obtain moisture usually overlook it.

 The origin of Lithop is in South Africa where the plants receive less than 2 inches of rainfall per month throughout the entire year.

The "body" of the plant is divided into two succulent leaves fused together in the shape of an inverted cone. The fissure or slit at the top of the plant is the division of the two leaves. There is no stem as such, but rather the taproot joins abruptly at the base of the leaves.

Therefore, the Lithop love to grow in low humidity and need infrequent watering and care, they make ideal houseplants, providing the conditions of adequate light and proper watering are met.

Lithops do well if they receive about 4 or 5 hours of direct (or only slightly filtered) sunlight during the early part of the day, and partial shade during the afternoon.

he majority of lithops produce their flowers during autumn and early winter. They are daisy-like and yellow or white depending on variety. They first open during the afternoons of sunnier days.

Harworthia Care

Harworthia are a kind of succulents whose origin is in South Africa.  They are closely related to Aloes and are in the Aloe family, Aloaceae.  Harworthia can be rotten easily if you don't know the right conditions for Harworthia: soil, watering and light

 Soil: Harworthia like the dry soil and can't stay wet for the long time.  So their soil mix should be drained very well.

This can be accomplished by making a potting soil using as a component materials such as; perlite, pea sized pumice, or even pea gravel.   The trick here is to produce a soil that has some organic mater, but not so much that it becomes water logged and rots your plants roots.  

Do not use sand as it is too fine and clogs the pores in the soil. If using a peat-based potting soil, remember that peat decomposes in a few years, resulting in an unhealthy soil. As some Haworthias are slow-growing and can stay in the same pot for years, there may be a tendency to forget to repot into fresh soil, a practice which should be done every 2-3 years.

Watering: It's simple instruction: "water Harworthia when its soil is dry"  I got a tip from the Thai cactus collector to test whether the soil is dry or wet: dig the tooth stick into the soil and see if the soil is damp.  You can apply another thing instead of tooth stick.

If the plant looks unhealthy, unpot it and inspect the roots. Remove any weak or decayed roots, even back to the stem of the plant. Allow the plant to lie out unpotted for a week, then repot into fresh soil and begin watering carefully until it is apparent that the roots have reestablished and the plant has regained its health.

Light: To put a plant in direct sunlight that has never seen the sun will cause a fatal sunburn.  If you place your Haworthias in the brightest light you have that is not direct sunlight, you will grow into very nice looking plants.  For growing, a greenhouse is ideal, next choose a sunny South facing window, then an East or West facing window.

Haworthia makes good accent plants on porch, patio, or deck and can be grown outdoors during frost-free periods. Be careful when you move plants outdoors. If they have spent the winter without much direct sunlight, don’t immediately put them into full sun outdoors or they may sunburn. Gradually move them into more direct light over a period of a few weeks.

Harworthia is the slow-growing plant so it doesn't need much fertilizer.  If you repot Harworthia often (every year), you don't have to fertilizer.  Anyway, when I fertilize my orchid, I  give some to my harworthia in the few amount.  


If you want to know more about Harworthia such as popular propagation from leaves & roots, containers and pest & disease.  I'd like to suggest you to visit the useful websites: www.harworthia.org and http://www.hort.wisc.edu. 

Sanamluang II - one of most famous gardening markets in Bangkok

Have you got any ideas about the plant market in Thailand? Now, I will introduce one of the most famous gardening markets in Bangkok: Sanamluang II.  It opened in 1990 and locates the suburb of Bangkok .  It has the area about 15.80 acres.  In the past time, this area was used to be the orchid garden and the Bangkok Metropolitan turned it to be the public garden and market.  

Nowaday, there are many sellers in the market who sell almost everything you’d like to buy: orchid, plant, gardening tool, fish, pet, bird, pet fish, painting, antique, furniture, food, clothing, jewelry, home decoration, etc.  However, the best-seller categories are orchid, plant, fish, pet and food. 

Sanamluang II opens everyday but on Monday it is the wholesale market for every plant and Tuesday for fish as well as pet.  Anyway, most people go to there on the weekend to relax and shopping the plants and gardening decoration. 

Today, the temperature in Bangkok is about 91F-95F (31-35 C).  The sunny shine could burn you quickly and it was so hot that people tried to be under shade as much as possible.  The Bangkok Metropolitan also turned on the stream fan to reduce the warmth.

In fact, there are some cactus shops but they are small and have the plain cactus.  JJ (Jatujut) market, the biggest and best plant shopping market in Thailand is the meeting place for the cactus collector in Thailand. If you’re looking for the rare, strange, different cactus, you must go there.  In the next time, when I visit JJ market,  I promise to take the pictures and show you all. 

Organic Pesticide

I believe that everyone who grows every kind of plants must ever have the problem about the pesticide invading your garden. Me, too. About 3-4 days in a week, I have to kill the small plant louse or aphids in my garden. However, I don't want to use the chemical pesticide neither as it's not friendly environment. My solution is to use the organic pesticide whose ingredient you can in your kitchen or house. The organic pesticide can control the pest when you use it often and the situation in the garden is not severe and you use. In case the situation is beyond control, I'll suggest you to use the commerical pesticide and use the organic one later.

1. Tobacco or Nicotine Spray:
This mixture is great for combating many different types of bugs, but especially caterpillars, aphids, and many types of those nasty worms.
1 cup of tobacco

1 gallon of water

Put the tobacco into the container of water. Allow the mixture to set for approximately 24 hours. After it has stood for a day, check the color. It should be the shade of weak tea. If it is too dark, just dilute it with water until it looks right.

*** Don't use this solution on peppers, tomotoes, eggplants, or any other member of the solanaceous family. Tobacco chemicals can kill these types of plants!

2. Soap Spray (My favorite)

Another way to stop the slugs is with soapy water. Collect some of the water in a pan and pour it into a watering can or even use a pitcher to pour it over the plants. This works really well on hostas and mums, but also can be used on other hardy plants. Many bugs do not like their lunch spoiled by a soapy aftertaste!

For a stronger solution, mix 3 Tablespoons of liquid detergent into a gallon of water, I prefer Dawn, but any will do. Use this weekly in the evening otherwise the leaves will get burned.

3. Garlic Spray:

Here is the recipe for a garlic spray that fights slugs too. To make this smelly spray, use the following list of ingredients:

1 garlic bulb

1 quart of water

1 medium onion

1 tablespoon of cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon liquid dish soap

Crush the garlic, mincing it fine. Add finely chopped onion to the mixture, while adding the rest of the ingredients except the soap. Wait an hour before adding the soap to the mixture. The spicy ingredients must sort of stew or steep, almost like tea. After an hour, add the soap and your non-toxic spray is ready to use! This can be stored in the fridge for a week.

4. Spearmint-Hot Pepper-Horseradish Spray:

This works on many different kinds of bugs- too many to list!

1/2 cup of red peppers (hot)

water (read below)

1/2 cup of fresh spearmint

1/2 cup horseradish (root and leaves)

2 tablespoons of liquid detergent

1/2 cup green onion tops

Mix all of the spearmint leaves, horseradish, onion tops and peppers together with enough water to cover everything. Strain the solution. After mixing all of these, add a half-gallon of water and add the detergent also. To use this solution, mix 1/2 gallon of this solution with 1/2 gallon of water. You can use this to spray almost any plant safely. Store this mixture for a few days in a cool environment.

5. Buttermilk and Flour Spray:

Garlic spray is great for getting rid of cutworms, wireworms, whiteflies, and slugs too.

What you need:

1 pint of water

1/4 cup of dish liquid

2 teaspoons of paraffin

6 tablespoons of chopped garlic

Soak the whole garlic in the liquid paraffin for at least 24 hours. After a day, add the dish liquid and water to the mixture. Remember to shake it very well. Strain the solution and store it in a glass jar. This lasts around a week.

Canker disease in Cactus

Happy New Year everybody! Wish you be healthy and happy in 2010.

For the cactus & succulent planters, I think you all should ever have an experience with canker disease. The bacterium in the humid soil and air causes the canker which can occur with the citrus species (such as lime, orange, cherry) and cactus as well. The first symptoms in autumn are shallow depressions at the base of plants which enlarge in spring, completely circling the base of the branch and causing it to die. An amber like gum may also appear. When the size of the circle is enlarged, the circle will look like full sponge, which later become dark brown flakes split button which is rough and hard curve. But the middle will collapse into the sink itself.

How to Treat Canker

If your cactus has the canker, you should be cut out, back to good part, using a knife or chisel - burn the diseased one. The exposed healthy part can be painted with a canker paint available from larger garden centres. If canker is a major problem, spraying with a copper based fungicide (bordeaux mixture is sold by most garden centres), in August, September and October will greatly assist. Three consecutive sprayings are needed for the full effect.

However, the study show some growers use low rates of copper-based products during bud break to reduce symptoms of dead bud. Copper-based products have not worked well under conditions favorable for disease development. Heavy use of copper products is not recommended as Bacteria will resist copper products and the concentrations in the soil can build up to toxic levels in the long term. Now, we can control the canker the organic chemistry. Anyway, I don't know yet how to do and what the exact result is because the organic chemistry is successful with the lime and orange farms. So I'll have to test it and inform you later.

Cactus in the House & Garden Fair in Bangkok

There was the House & Garden Fair in Bangkok in the last month. In it, there was the cactus & succulent competition. Many cactus collectors always showed off their best cacti collection and exchanged the new tips & techniques in this Fair.


In fact, the award from the Fair didn't matter. The main point of the collectors is to present how excellent they are and update the news about the cactus & succulent.


I also uploaded some pictures of cacti and succulent.

It is said that Uebelmannia buiningii is probably the rarest and most endangered of all Brazillian cacti. It is so difficult to find or buy it in the market now.

Buiningii is a species of Uebelmannia cactus. It is spherical and sometimes elongated with greenish red-brown to deep chocolate bodies covered with very small waxy scales is probably the rarest and most endangered of all Brazillian cacti. It is so difficult to find or buy it in the market now.

Frost Tolerance: Avoid any frost

Minimum Avg. Temperature: 60°F (15°C)

Sun Exposure: Light shade to part sun

Origin: Brazil (Minas Gerais: Serra Negra)

Growth Habits: Solitary, dark green stem, often with reddish tinge, covered with minute waxy scales, up to 4 inches tall (10 cm), 3.2 inches in diameter (8 cm); 16 to 18 ribs; close-set areoles; 6 to 8 spines of unequal length, up to 0.6 inch long (15 mm)

Watering Needs: Like humidity in the air

Blooming Habits:
The diurnal funnel-shaped yellow flowers come in summer. They are up to 1 inch long (2.5 cm), 0.8 inch in diameter (2 cm)