By Sergey Kalmykov and Elena Simonova, Kuban

In the middle of January the question "What is flowering in cacti collections now?" appeared in the Russian Internet forum. If you defer to the published data you will find out that they are contradictory and the dates of flowering vary depending on location and cultivation peculiarities of the collection. For instance, when Muscovites have a spring exhibition and their plants are just waking up from winter hibernation - it's amusing for us because most of our plants are either in full bloom or finished blooming. This article reflects the experience of Kuban cactophyles.

Kuban (Krasnodar Territory) is located on 45^oNL, in a zone of temperate continental climate, in a steppe region. The region typically has early springs, with many sunny days starting in February and usually with very strong insolation right away that causes earlier awakening of the plants. April and May are the months when the most active vegetation of cacti takes place. July, August and beginning of September are very hot, almost without precipitations. During this period plants have prominent stagnation. The summer stunt can be avoided by resorting to various tricks but as experience has shown it's arduous, non-effective and above all unnecessary. After all from September to November, when the weather becomes cooler, humidity increases and days shorten, the plants start to grow again making up for the summer rest. Fall months in Kuban are usually warm and sometimes the watering may be done till the middle of November.

The table shows the average monthly temperature in the city of Krasnodar (in Celsius – ^oС and Fahrenheit – ^oF):

month	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII	VIII	IX	X	XI	XII
oC	- 1,8	-0,9	4,2	10,9	16,8	20,4	23,2	22,7	17,4	11,6	5,1	0,4
oF	54,4	56,0	65,2	77,2	87,8	94,3	99,4	98,5	88,9	78,5	66,8	58,3

After November 15 the watering is suspended till April. Cacti are located in the greenhouse at temperature from 8^oС (72^oF) at night and up to 25^oC (102,6^oF) at a sunny day with 60-80% humidity. Additional illumination is not provided. But not everyone has greenhouses and a common cactophyle is usually interested how to grow cacti on the window-sills.

All the summer cacti are kept outdoors but with the rain protection. They are carried indoors from the middle of November to December. And this "pleasant" exercise takes a couple of weeks or even longer. Everything depends on the weather conditions. Cacti spend the winter near south-facing windows in a cool room where the night temperature drops to 7-10^oC (70.2-75.6^oF) and the day temperature rises to 26^oC (104.4^oF) and even higher.

If winter is sunny the plants can be watered bi-weekly - just a little bit, only to moisten the soil slightly. But all stated above concerns only mammillarias flowering in the winter. Other cacti (rebutias, coriphanthas etc.) are placed on the colder west-facing window and kept without watering.

A number of cacti are flowering in the unusual period from November to March owing to existing climatic, zonal and cultivation peculiarities. Below we present the list of cacti blooming in late fall, winter and early spring.

N	Cactus name	Month of flowering	Cactus age
1	Ariocarpus trigonus v elongatus (SD)Backbg	IX-XI
2	Blossfeldia liliputana Werd.(T.)	III-X
3	Gymnocactus horripilus (Lem.)Backbg.	III-VI	since 3 years old
4	Hatiora salicornioides (Haw.)Br.&R.(T.)	I-III
5	Mammillaria pseudoperbella Quehl	II-V
6	M. microchelia v microcheliopsis (Werd.)Backbg	III	since 5 years old
7	M. laui v dasiacantha D.R.Hunt	I-V	since 3 years old
8	M. viereckii (Bod.)	III	since 1,5-2 years old
9	M. gracilis Pfeiff.	IX-II
10	M. carmenae Castan.&Nun. De Cac	II-V	since 3 years old
11	M. centricirrha Lem.	III-VII	since 10 years old
12	M. magnimamma Haw. Non O.	III-V	since 5 years old
13	M. bocasana cv. 'Rote Blute'	??	since 2 years old
14	M. woodsii Craig	III-V	since 5 years old
15	M. rhodantha Lk.& O.	V-XI
16	M. meissneri Ehrenbg.	III-V
17	M. zeilmanniana v alba	XII-IV	since 4 years old
18	M. prolifera v haitensis (K.Sch.)Borg.	III-V
19	M. albidula Backbg.	XII-IV	since 10 years old
20	M. albescens=Dol albescens (Tieg.)Backbg	V-XII
21	M. wagneriana Boed.	IX-II
22	M. wildii Dietr.	II-VII
23	M. zephyranthoides? Scheidw.	IX-XI
24	Neogomesia agavioides Castan.(T.)	XI	since 3 years old
25	Neoporteria nigrihorrida Backbg.	II-IV	since 4 years old
26	N. planiceps Ritt.	III-V	since 5 years old
27	N. cephalophora Backbg.	I-V VII-XI	since 4 years old
28	Pelecyphora pseudopectinata Backbg.	II-IV	since 3 years old
29	Porfiria schwarzii (Fric)Bod.(T.)	III-IV	since 3 years old
30	Schlumbergera hybr.	I-III
31	Solisia pectinata (B.Stein)Br.&R.(T.)	I-III	since 3 years old
32	Rebutia senilis v breviseta Backbg.	III-VII	since 2 years old
33	" " v kesselringiana Bewg.	III-VI	since 2 years old
34	" " v stuemeri Backbg.	III-VI
35	Rebutia kariusiana Wessn.	II-VIII
36	Turbinicarpus roseiflorus Backbg.	III-IX
37	T. pseudomacrochele (Backbg.)F.Buxb.	III-IV	since 5 years old
38	T. bonatzii	II-III	since 3 years old
39	T. dickisoniae=T schmiedickianus v dickisoniae Glass&Foster	X-XII	since 3 years old

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