PHOTO GALLERY: THE DUTCH CLASSICS

Peter Lapshin, Moscow
Abridged translation

Everyone in Russia knows the plants from Holland. They are sold literally on each corner. Their assortment is rather wide, including cacti, leaf succulents and arrangements.

The freshly grown Dutch gazing at us from the benches of flower shops always look wonderful. People new to C&S hobby often buy “Holland”: these plants are easy to get and the price is more than fair. It’s a very big chance that a man with a sudden whim to get himself a cactus or a “money tree” will buy a Dutch plant in a shop – he may have never heard of local hobbyists.

The plants from Holland are grown in peat and that is unusual to traditional growing of succulents. Plants usually have no labels, and quite often it’s impossible to find corresponding names in the books. More of that you often won’t find a photo in a C&S book corresponding to the plant you’ve bought. Though sometimes one happens to run across really rare plants sold at knock-down prices. The plants when brought home often perish after some time unable to acclimatize themselves to conditions different from those of large commercial greenhouses. Nevertheless there is an abundance of Dutch plants in the shops, because they are beautiful and in high demand.

Our photo gallery contains photos from the site of the Dutch flower corporation "Edelcactus" (http://www.edelcactus.nl/). The section "Producten", shows rather extensive photo gallery of plants. We recommend to have a look at this site. "Edelcactus" imports plants to Russia on a large scale.

On this site you may find some names of the plants you bought nameless, though most of the names are in Dutch spelling.

The assortment of Edelcactus nursery comprises some variegated, crested and monstrose forms. We have chose photos mainly of such plants according to our e-magazine profile. The captions are written as in the Edelcactus nursery site.

Source of the photos: the “Edelcactus” nursery site (http://www.edelcactus.nl/).

Cactus geent EG paars	Cactus geent EG rood	Gymnocalicium denudatum
Cereus peruvianus monstrosus rood	Hildewinteria aureispina cristaat	Portulacea afra variegata
Sinocrassula crassisimus cristaat	Opuntia cilindrica cristaat	Opuntia monacantha variegata
Campana	Opuntia vestita cristaat