15 MARCH 2025 :

added a light for my cacti ~

added a light for my cacti on the shelf. they were on my desk, but now there's little sunlight there. fall will be next week.

it's a 50W LED light, they all get arond 11.500 lumens. the idea is to add some reflective material all around, so no light escapes.

all the cacti i have are globose south american species. most of them don't actually get more than 3 or 4 hours of direct sunlight in their native habitats. so, i'll keep the light on for about 3 hours for now, and then will increase with time, so they don't burn.

i'm thinking of only keeping the gymnocalycium species and taking the others (Parodia, Matucana, Echinopsis, Melocactus) back to my parents house where they'll be able to stay outside on natural sunlight. the gymnos (beyong being my favorite genus) are mostly from humid subtropical climates, growing under trees, shrubs and grass, so they'll adapt better to a light with this amount of lumens.

beyond that, they're the only ones i'm interested in propagating by seed. they also flower a lot. i want to open space for more Gymnocalycium mihanovichii i'm looking into buying to propagate by seed. there's a shop that sells variegated ones on decent prices and i'll need more space.