Subject: Re: Cacti grown outside at KEW

From: [email-masked] (Clarke Brunt)
Date: Thu, 9 Mar 1995 22:06:04 +0000

In Article <[email-masked]> Rob Shelvey writes:
>Hi Everybody, When I last visited Kew Gardens (about 6 months ago) I noticed
>that they had many large cacti growing outside the Princess of Wales
>Greenhouse.  My question is presuming these are left outside in the winter (as
>they are pretty large and don't look like they could be moved easily) How can
>they survive the temperatures/wind/frost/snow etc..  Is it a case of them
>heating the soil or protecting them in some way or are there actual hardy
>cacti which can put up with these nasty conditions ?  Any info or ideas on
>this would be greatly appreciated as I think I'd like to do something similar.

I don't recall seeing the plants you mention at Kew (London). Some Cacti
will survive British Winter some of the time totally unprotected. I have
had two Opuntia species in my garden in Cambridge for some years, and
Cambridge University Botanical Garden always has some species of cacti
outside. One is Opuntia cantabrigiensis which was I think described from
specimens growing there.

Many more species could survive the cold of a British Winter if it
wasn't wet at the same time, so protection from rain, or very free
draining soil would help.

-- 
Clarke Brunt ([email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] ("A.T. Al-Saud.")
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 1995 04:50:02 +0000

In article: <[email-masked]>  [email-masked] (Clarke 
Brunt) writes:

> To the best of my knowledge and belief, (and I am No expert) .......
> It is Not the cold the Cacti do not like, it is the wet soil that is
> the main problem causing rot during the dormant period. It should be
> pointed out that destert temperatures do regularly drop  nightly  to
> as low as -4 degrees celcius (frosty) or even lower.
> 

-- 
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|A.T. Al-Saud.                                                           |
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